The daemon runs in the background on
your server and waits for requests from clients. Web browsers connect to the HTTP daemon and
send requests, which the daemon interprets, sending back the appropriate data. Apache HTTPD
includes an interface that allows modules to tie into the process to handle specific portions of a
request. Among other things, modules are available to handle the processing of scripting languages
such as Perl or PHP within Web documents and to add encryption to connections between clients
and the server.
Apache began as a collection of patches and improvements to the HTTP daemon developed at
the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign. The NCSA HTTP daemon was the most popular HTTP server at the time, but had
started to show its age after its author, Rob McCool, left NCSA in mid-1994.
Another project that came from NCSA is Mosaic. Most modern Web browsers can trace
their origins to Mosaic.
In early 1995, a group of developers formed the Apache Group and began making extensive modifications
to the NCSA HTTPD code base. Apache soon replaced NCSA HTTPD as the most popular
Web server, a title it still holds today.
The Apache Group later formed the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to promote the development
of Apache and other free software.
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