Posts tagged “apache httpd”

I once shared with a friend how mistakes as small as 3 letters can take down an entire application.

Whether it’s a website, mobile app or bespoke system, the running and delivery of web application requires a lot of moving parts operating in conjunction with each other. A server receives requests which it forwards to some server-side language to perform some action which often includes querying a database. Then you have third-party services such as APIs, intrusion prevention system and social networks. All these parts need to be properly configured so they can communicate with each other and in a world of typos that’s where the danger lies; mistype a command and you can be left staring at a wall of text hunting for the culprit perfectly hidden in plain sight.

My smallest configuration mistake used to be 3 characters long — I mistyped 3 letters and the connection died. Today I beat my record with a typo that took down an application because of a single character.