How To Build the Apache of Your Dreams - Module Definitions and Groupings
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Modules can be grouped into a few major groups: Access Control, Authentication, and Authorization; Header-generating and -controlling modules; Content generating (or filtering) modules; and Utility modules. The descriptions come from the Apache Documentation, but the groups are mine (you'll probably never see anything like this in the official docs, but I find it easier to categorize them this way). Items in bold are enabled by default.

Content Generating and Related Modules

• mod_autoindex provides for automatic directory indexing.
• mod_actions lets you run CGI scripts whenever a file of a certain type is requested. This makes it much easier to execute scripts that process files.
• mod_dir provides for "trailing slash" redirects and serving directory index files.
• mod_cgi provides for execution of CGI scripts.
• mod_imap provides for .map files, replacing the functionality of the imagemap CGI program.
• mod_include provides for server-parsed html documents.
• mod_isapi provides support for ISAPI Extensions when running under Microsoft Windows.
• mod_mime provides for determining the types of files from the filename.
• mod_mime_magic attempts to determine the MIME type of a file by looking at a few bytes of its contents, the same way the Unix file(1) command works.
• mod_mmap_static provides mmap()ing of a statically configured list of frequently requested but not changed files.
• mod_speling [sic] attempts to correct misspellings of URLs that users might have entered, by ignoring capitalization and by allowing up to one misspelling.
• mod_status allows a server administrator to find out how well their server is performing.
• mod_userdir provides for user-specific directories, in the form http://www.server.com/~user/.

Access Control, Authentication, and Authorization Modules

• mod_access provides access control based on client hostname or IP address.
• mod_auth provides for user authentication using textual files.
• mod_auth_anon allows "anonymous" user access to authenticated areas.
• mod_auth_db provides for user authentication using Berkeley DB files.
• mod_auth_dbm provides for user authentication using DBM files.
• mod_digest provides for user authentication using MD5 Digest Authentication. It is replaced by mod_auth_digest.
• mod_auth_digest provides for user authentication using MD5 Digest Authentication. It is an updated, though untested, version of mod_digest, with many more options.

Utility Modules

• mod_alias provides for mapping different parts of the host filesystem in the the document tree, and for URL redirection.
• mod_info provides a comprehensive overview of the server configuration including all installed modules and directives in the configuration files.
• mod_log_config provides for logging of the requests made to the server, using the Common Log Format or a user-specified format.
• mod_proxy provides for an HTTP 1.0 caching proxy server.
• mod_rewrite provides a rule-based rewriting engine to rewrite requested URLs on the fly.
• mod_so provides for loading of executable code and modules into the server at start-up or restart time. On Unix, the loaded code typically comes from shared object files (usually with .so extension), whilst on Windows this module loads DLL files.
• mod_vhost_alias provides support for dynamically configured mass virtual hosting.

Header Generating Modules and Header Control

• mod_asis provides for .asis files. .asis files have headers prepended to the content and are sent, well, as is.
• mod_cern_meta provides for CERN httpd metafile semantics
• mod_env provides for passing environment variables to CGI/SSI scripts.
• mod_expires provides for the generation of Expires headers according to user-specified criteria.
• mod_headers allows for the customization of HTTP response headers. Headers can be merged, replaced or removed.
• mod_negotiation provides for content negotiation based on, for example, language preference or browser type.
• mod_setenvif provides for the ability to set environment variables based upon attributes of the request.
• mod_unique_id provides a magic token for each request which is guaranteed to be unique across "all" requests under very specific conditions.
• mod_usertrack generates a 'clickstream' log of user activity on a site using cookies.

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