Server Admin 10.4 Help

Essential Concepts for Web Services

This section provides information you need to know before you set up your web server for the first time. You should read this section even if you are an experienced web administrator, as some features and behaviors may be different from what you expect.

Configuring Your Web Server

You can use Server Admin to set up and configure most features of your web server. If you are an experienced Apache administrator and need to work with features of the Apache web server that aren't included in Server Admin, you can modify the appropriate configuration files. However, Apple does not provide technical support for modifying Apache configuration files. If you choose to modify a file, be sure to make a backup copy first. Then you can revert to the copy should you have problems.

For more information about Apache modules, see the Apache Software Foundation website at http://www.apache.org.

Providing Secure Transactions

If you want to provide secure transactions on your server, you should set up Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protection. SSL lets you send encrypted, authenticated information across the Internet. If you want to allow credit card transactions through your website, for example, you can use SSL to protect the information that's passed to and from your site.

IMPORTANT:   You can't use the performance cache for a website if SSL is enabled for that site.

Setting Up Websites

Before you can host a website, you must:

  • Register your domain name with a domain name authority
  • Create a folder for your website on the server
  • Create a default page in the folder for users to see when they connect
  • Verify that DNS is properly configured if you want clients to access your website by name

When you are ready to publish, or enable, your site, you can do this using Server Admin. The Sites pane in the Settings window lets you add a new site and select a variety of settings for each site you host.

Hosting More Than One Website

You can host more than one website simultaneously on your web server. Depending on how you configure your sites, they may share the same domain name, IP address, or port. The unique combination of domain name, IP address, and port identifies each separate site. Your domain names must be registered with a domain name authority such as InterNIC. Otherwise, the website associated with the domain won't be visible on the Internet. (There is a fee for each additional name you register.)

If you configure websites using multiple domain names and one IP address, older browsers that do not support HTTP 1.1 or later (that don't include the "Host" request header), will not be able to access your sites. This is an issue only with software released prior to 1997 and does not affect modern browsers. If you think your users will be using very old browser software, you'll need to configure your sites with one domain name per IP address.

Also see Understanding WebDAV for essential information about WebDAV and see Understanding Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension for essential information about MIME formats.

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