Web Servers on Unix and Linux - Apache restricted access to many IP addresses

Author

Apache restricted access to many IP addresses

google@macrotex.net

2005-07-26, 5:52 pm

I have a web site running Apache 2.0 (Linux) that is only open to
specific IP addresses and address ranges. However, the number of
different (non-contiguous) address ranges is large (say 2000) and
changes fairly frequently (every few weeks or so). So...

1. How efficient is apache httpd at restricting access when the number
of address ranges is in the thousands?

2. Does Apache have a facility to point to a file of address ranges
rather than listing them explicitly in an httpd.conf or .htaccess file?
(If so, this would make the maintenance aspect easier.)

The server we are using is reasonably fast and has 2GB of memory. Any
suggestions?