Web Development with Apache and Perl

Open source tools provide a powerful and flexible environment for web development and maintenance. If your site has complex business rules or server logic, then you need more than just an interface builder. You need a strong application language with effective tools ready at hand. Perl's strengths make it a natural choice.

Did you know you can easily build a site with features like message forums, chat, session management, custom preferences and other features your users will love? This book shows you how. But it is more than a programming book. It covers a wide spectrum of practical issues and how to handle them, such as when to use a database, what information needs to be secure (and how to secure it), and how to keep traffic from crippling your site. It will teach you the empowering use of ready-made modules so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And it will even teach you how to successfully advocate the use of Open Source tools in your company.

What's Inside:

• CGI and mod_perl programming
• mod_ssl, mod_rewrite and other Apache modules
• Using DBI with databases
• HTML::Mason and Template Toolkit for embedded scripting
• User login and session management
• Performance and system monitoring tools
• Growth planning and disaster recovery
• Sample layouts for community, corporate and e-commerce sites

Table of Contents

Part I: Web site basics

1. Open Source
2. Apache and other servers
3. CGI scripts

Part II: Application tools

4. Databases
5. Better script performance
6. Secure communications
7. Embedding Perl in HTML

Part III: Site designs

8. The Community site
9. The Intranet site
10. The Web store front

Part IV: Site Management

11. Managing content
12. Improving performance