From 9cb316bba3e091439955488fe737b991b1d912bb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rich Bowen Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:57:06 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Skeleton "getting started" document. Should this go in the howto/ directory instead? git-svn-id: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk@1328145 13f79535-47bb-0310-9956-ffa450edef68 --- docs/manual/getting-started.xml | 117 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 117 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/manual/getting-started.xml diff --git a/docs/manual/getting-started.xml b/docs/manual/getting-started.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..da26e564a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/manual/getting-started.xml @@ -0,0 +1,117 @@ + + + + + + + + + + Getting Started + + +

If you're completely new to the Apache HTTP Server, or even to running +a website at all, you might not know where to start, or what questions to +ask. This document walks you through the basics.

+ + +
+Clients, Servers, and URLs + +

+Addresses on the Web are expressed with URLs - Uniform Resource Locators +- which specify a protocol (e.g. http), a servername (e.g. +www.apache.org), a URL-path (e.g. +/docs/current/getting-started.html), and possibly a query +string (e.g. ?arg=value) used to pass additional +arguments to the server. +

+ +

A client (e.g., a web browser) connects to a server (e.g., your Apache HTTP Server), +with the specified protocol, and makes a request for a resource using the +URL-path.

+ +

The URL-path may represent any number of things on the server. It may +be a file (like getting-started.html) a handler (like server-status) or some kind of program +file (like index.php). We'll discuss this more below in +the Web Site Content section.

+ +

+The server will send a response consisting of a status +code and, optionally, a response body. +The status code indicates whether the request was successful, and, if not, what +kind of error condition there was. This tells the client what it should +do with the response. You can read about the possible response codes in +HTTP Server +wiki.

+ +

Details of the transaction, and any error conditions, are written to +log files. This is discussed in greater detail below in the Logs Files and Troubleshooting section.

+ +
+ +
+Hostnames and DNS + +

In order to connect to a server, the client will first have to resolve +the servername to an IP address - the location on the Internet where the +server resides. Thus, in order for your web server to be reachable, it +is necessary that the servername be in DNS.

+ +

If you don't know how to do this, you'll need to contact your network +administrator, or Internet service provider, to perform this step for +you.

+ +

If you are testing a server that is not Internet-accessible, you +can put host names in your hosts file in order to do local resolution. +For example, you might want to put a record in your hosts file to map a +request for www.example.com to your local system, for +testing purposes. This entry would look like:

+ + +127.0.0.1 www.example.com + + +

A hosts file will probably be located at /etc/hosts or +C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

+ +

You can read more about the hosts file at Wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file), and +more about DNS at Wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System.

+
+ +
+Configuration Files and Directives +
+ +
+Web Site Content +
+ +
+Log Files and Troubleshooting +
+ +
+What Else Do I Need To Know? +
+ + -- 2.40.0