Rich Bowen

Areas of Expertise:

Apache

Biography

Rich Bowen is a member of the Apache Software Foundation, working primarily on the documentation for the Apache Web Server. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where he spends his free time GeoCaching. He also enjoys flying kites and reading stuff by Charles Dickens and his contemporaries.

Rich is a coauthor of Apache Administrators Handbook and Apache Cookbook.

Rich, or DrBacchus--his handle on IRC--also spends entirely too much time on #apache. You can find him on the web at http://www.drbacchus.com/journal/.

Books

What's New in Apache Web Server 2.2? by Rich Bowen June 2009 Print: $9.99 Ebook: $9.99	Apache Cookbook by Rich Bowen , Ken Coar Second Edition December 2007 Print: $34.99 Ebook: $27.99 (4) (Read Reviews)
Apache Cookbook by Ken Coar , Rich Bowen November 2003 Print: $29.95 Ebook: $23.99 (4) (Read Reviews)

Articles

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Making Apache httpd Logs More Useful
Publish Date: Feb. 1, 2007Apache httpd's standard text logfiles are well understood and useful, but they don't always give you enough information to troubleshoot problems. Apache 2.x provides several new modules that produce more logfile information--the number of bytes transferred, the rewrite rule matching, which requests complete and why, and the complete output of all headers. Rich Bowen explores these options. Caching Dynamic Content with Apache httpd
Publish Date: Nov. 16, 2006Dynamic websites tend to be easier to manage than large collections of similar static files, but they often get many times more reads than they do writes. Every database hit and page generation can eat up precious CPU cycles. Rich Bowen shows off mod_cache, which trades disk space or memory for CPU and can help improve performance on your servers. Sending Apache httpd Logs to Syslog
Publish Date: Oct. 12, 2006Apache httpd's standard text logfiles are well understood and useful, but sometimes they're not the best option. The mature and flexible Unix syslog system offers plenty of opportunities to improve reporting and security. Rich Bowen explains how to join these two systems together. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Sep. 8, 2005Rich Bowen is back with another installment in his occasional series based on conversations on #apache. In this article, Rich discusses a particular Apache Web Server annoyance, the Options directive, and he explains how it works and why it does what it does. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Apr. 28, 2005Rich Bowen is back with another installment in his ongoing series based on conversations on #apache. This week, he provides examples of using RewriteMap--which are lacking in its documentation and online--in this mini-tutorial. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Mar. 24, 2005If you've tried editing in WebDAV, you've likely encountered a permissions problem, as well as the problem of needing to edit your PHP files. Rich Bowen has a simple and effective solution to both of these problems in his latest #apache column. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Feb. 17, 2005Rich Bowen is back after a hiatus with another column based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache. Rich explains why it is in fact possible to run name-based SSL virtual hosts on Apache. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Sep. 23, 2004In this month's column, Rich Bowen tackles an Apache security issue. Learn how to configure Apache to send a different Server response so no one can identify what version of Apache you're running or any of the modules you have installed. The less information your server reveals, the safer it will be from crackers. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Aug. 19, 2004Rich Bowen is back this month after a brief summer hiatus with his latest column based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache. Want to know how to make your web site faster? Rich has some tips to enhance your server's performance. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Jun. 17, 2004In Rich Bowen's latest column based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache, he attempts to answer a question that comes up at least once a day, but which doesn't have one clear answer: whether to use Apache 1.3 or 2.0. Find out why the answer is not a simple one. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: May. 27, 2004File permissions are a major topic of conversation on #apache -- the IRC channel on which Rich Bowen often lends a helping hand. In this latest article in the series based on his #apache conversations, Rich covers the hows and whys to setting up file permissions on Unix machines. Rich is a coauthor of Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Apr. 22, 2004In this latest installment in the series based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache, Rich Bowen walks through three error condition scenarios administrators have encountered and shows what to do about them, in order to create a more welcoming, less "Forbidden" web site for end users. Rich is the coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Mar. 18, 2004In this latest installment in the series based on his conversations on the IRC channel #apache, Rich Bowen takes you on an interesting trip through the history of mod_imap, and why some modules hang around long after they're no longer in use. Rich is a coauthor of O'Reilly's Apache Cookbook. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Feb. 26, 2004Rich Bowen tackles yet another common Apache dilemma in the latest installment in this series based on his conversations on the IRC channel, #apache. This week he delves into the sometimes confusing world of modules: when to enable them, when to disable them, and why. A Day in the Life of #Apache
Publish Date: Jan. 8, 2004In this installment of his new series based on conversations on the IRC channel, #Apache, Rich Bowen tackles configuration issues in the sometimes bewildering world of virtual hosts. By the time he's through, Rich will have even the most confused Apache administrator creating a functioning virtual host configuration. Rich is coauthor of the recently released Apache Cookbook.

Blog

Rich's blog posts are hosted at:
http://wooga.drbacchus.com/

Test Abbrev

December 19 2009

ASL ASF 100 mA 100mA read more

Weekend Wordsmith

December 17 2009

Every week for the last year or so, I've posted a word or phrase, and a photo, on the Weekend Wordsmith website. People read the prompt, and hopefully, directly or indirectly inspired by it, write something - a sentence, a poem, a short story - or maybe paint or draw… read more

YouTube Debut

December 16 2009

Everything about this post is amazing, and would be science fiction a few decades ago. Not only can we look inside my wife and see my baby, months before it will be born, but I was able to record that on a device that I can put into my shirt… read more

Daily Shoot

December 16 2009

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, you should check out JDD's new website, DailyShoot.com. He posts a prompt every day, and has inspired some great photos. In the spirit of Pablo Neruda, who wrote poetry about finding the beauty in common things, these photos find beauty… read more

Christmas Trains

December 16 2009

Yay, the christmas trains are set up again. read more

Apache HTTP Server PDF documentation

December 15 2009

Although I've known for a while that it was possible to build the HTTP Server docs as PDF, I never really bothered to find out how. Finally this afternoon I was poking around and figured out how. The latest docs are available in PDF format here, and I'll try to… read more

Write a better FM

December 13 2009

I've been delighted to see the "Write a better FM" meme that's been spreading slowly through various blogs. I understand that I'm to attribute this to Kathy, but I've been saying this for years. It's not sufficient to tell people to Read The Fine Manual, you have to actually listen… read more

mod_rewrite and ignorance

December 08 2009

For the last week or two, I've been using Twitterrific. One of its features is that you can watch for all tweets that contain a particular word or phrase. So I've been watching 'mod_rewrite'. The following graph shows the rough distribution of those tweets.It's distressing to me, as something of… read more

But what if they don't?

December 08 2009

A number of Open Source communities have recently published statements discussing appropriate behavior within the community. The obvious question is, what do we do when someone disregards our guidelines?This question came up during Chris Davis' talk at ApacheCon, and came up again just now on an IRC channel I frequent.… read more

Cold bad, warm good.

December 08 2009

I dislike being cold.I would much rather be warm than cold.Yes, I hear you, you hordes of naysayers. You universally pipe up with "At least when you're cold, you can put on more layers, whereas when you're hot, you get to the point where you no longer can."This completely misses… read more

mod_rewrite book

November 22 2009

Back in early 2006 I published The Definitive Guide to Apache mod_rewrite. It hasn't sold well. It was hardback, and overpriced for such a slender book. Many people have mentioned to me that they think it's a great book, but the royalties aren't exactly pouring in.There are, as with any… read more

Writing Documentation

November 19 2009

Someone (and I now can't remember who - I think it was Philip Olson) pointed me to Writing Open Source this week, and I've been somewhat fixated on it since.I've been writing technical documentation for more than a decade now. 12 years sounds about right. Let's go with that. I've… read more

Recognition

November 18 2009

The Apache Software Foundation is ten years old.Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent us a letter thanking us for what we've accomplished and congratulating us on the anniversary.And Oakland City Mayor Ron Dellums sent us a letter declaring November 2 to be Apache Software Foundation Day.Pretty cool, hmm? read more

A Christmas Carol, Jim Carrey version

November 15 2009

Warning: Spoilers.Yesterday we went to see Jim Carrey's Christmas Carol. It was very disappointing. Given the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of a great book, and add something to the list of great movies that have already been made of this book, he chose instead to add one to… read more

Light painting

November 10 2009

One of the (many) high points of this year's ApacheCon was that Julian was there, and I got to play with him. He was doing light painting, and his techniques have advanced enormously since the last time I watched him do this.The night before he was doing the photos, Julian… read more

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