diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 3f2e0c64169..b0ddcf3122e 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -634,6 +634,7 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-3164  Handle case where we open META, ROOT has been closed but
                znode location not deleted yet, and try to update META
                location in ROOT
+   HBASE-2006  Documentation of hbase-site.xml parameters
 
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index a606f1c752e..ef8d77fc72b 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -230,6 +230,30 @@
     </resources>
 
     <plugins>
+      <plugin>
+        <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
+        <artifactId>xml-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+        <executions>
+          <execution>
+            <goals>
+              <goal>transform</goal>
+            </goals>
+            <phase>pre-site</phase>
+          </execution>
+        </executions>
+        <configuration>
+          <transformationSets>
+            <transformationSet>
+              <dir>${basedir}/src/main/resources/</dir>
+              <includes>
+                <include>hbase-default.xml</include>
+              </includes>
+              <stylesheet>${basedir}/src/main/xslt/configuration_to_docbook_section.xsl</stylesheet>
+              <outputDir>${basedir}/target/site/</outputDir>
+            </transformationSet>
+          </transformationSets>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
       <plugin>
         <groupId>com.agilejava.docbkx</groupId>
         <artifactId>docbkx-maven-plugin</artifactId>
@@ -238,7 +262,6 @@
           <execution>
             <goals>
               <goal>generate-html</goal>
-              <goal>generate-pdf</goal>
             </goals>
             <phase>pre-site</phase>
           </execution>
@@ -255,7 +278,6 @@
           <xincludeSupported>true</xincludeSupported>
           <chunkedOutput>true</chunkedOutput>
           <useIdAsFilename>true</useIdAsFilename>
-          <baseDir>book-</baseDir>
           <sectionAutolabelMaxDepth>100</sectionAutolabelMaxDepth>
           <sectionAutolabel>true</sectionAutolabel>
           <sectionLabelIncludesComponentLabel>true</sectionLabelIncludesComponentLabel>
diff --git a/src/docbkx/book.xml b/src/docbkx/book.xml
index b7dbc261568..24283e6ca9e 100644
--- a/src/docbkx/book.xml
+++ b/src/docbkx/book.xml
@@ -1,4 +1,25 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!--
+/**
+ * Copyright 2010 The Apache Software Foundation
+ *
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+-->
 <book version="5.0" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
       xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
       xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
@@ -7,24 +28,41 @@
       xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
       xmlns:db="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook">
   <info>
-    <title>The <link xlink:href="http://www.hbase.org">HBase</link>
+    <title>The Apache <link xlink:href="http://www.hbase.org">HBase</link>
     Book</title>
+      <copyright><year>2010</year><holder>Apache Software Foundation</holder></copyright>
+      <abstract>
+    <para>This is the official book of
+    <link xlink:href="http://www.hbase.org">Apache HBase</link>,
+    a distributed column-oriented database built on top of
+    Apache Hadoop <link xlink:href="http://hadoop.apache.org/">Common and HDFS</link>.
+      </para>
+      </abstract>
 
     <revhistory>
       <revision>
         <date />
 
-        <revdescription>Initial layout</revdescription>
-
+        <revdescription>Adding first cuts at Configuration, Getting Started, Data Model</revdescription>
         <revnumber>
           <?eval ${project.version}?>
         </revnumber>
       </revision>
+      <revision>
+        <date>
+        5 October 2010
+        </date>
+        <authorinitials>stack</authorinitials>
+        <revdescription>Initial layout</revdescription>
+        <revnumber>
+          0.89.20100924
+        </revnumber>
+      </revision>
     </revhistory>
   </info>
 
-  <chapter xml:id="introduction">
-    <title>Introduction</title>
+  <preface xml:id="preface">
+    <title>Preface</title>
 
     <para>This book aims to be the official guide for the <link
     xlink:href="http://hbase.apache.org/">HBase</link> version it ships with.
@@ -41,7 +79,7 @@
     hope to fill in the holes with time. Feel free to add to this book should
     you feel so inclined by adding a patch to an issue up in the HBase <link
     xlink:href="https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE">JIRA</link>.</para>
-  </chapter>
+  </preface>
 
   <chapter xml:id="getting_started">
     <title>Getting Started</title>
@@ -180,6 +218,21 @@ stopping hbase...............</programlisting></para>
 
   <chapter xml:id="datamodel">
     <title>Data Model</title>
+  <para>The HBase data model resembles that a traditional RDBMS.
+  Applications store data into HBase <emphasis>tables</emphasis>.
+      Tables are made of rows and columns. Table cells
+      -- the intersection of row and column
+      coordinates -- are versioned. By default, their
+      <emphasis>version</emphasis> is a timestamp
+      auto-assigned by HBase at the time of cell insertion. A cell’s content
+      is an uninterpreted array of bytes.
+  </para>
+      <para>Table row keys are also byte arrays so almost anything can
+      serve as a row key from strings to binary representations of longs or
+      even serialized data structures. Rows in HBase tables
+      are sorted by row key. The sort is byte-ordered. All table accesses are
+      via the table row key -- its primary key.
+</para>
 
     <section>
       <title>Table</title>
@@ -200,7 +253,7 @@ stopping hbase...............</programlisting></para>
     </section>
 
     <section xml:id="versions">
-      <title>Versions</title>
+      <title>Versions<indexterm><primary>Versions</primary></indexterm></title>
 
       <para>A <emphasis>{row, column, version} </emphasis>tuple exactly
       specifies a <literal>cell</literal> in HBase. Its possible to have an
@@ -1252,20 +1305,130 @@ stopping hbase...............</programlisting></para>
     <para>Here we list HBase tools for administration, analysis, fixup, and
     debugging.</para>
   </appendix>
+  <appendix xml:id="compression">
+    <title >Compression</title>
+
+    <para>TODO: Compression in hbase...</para>
+    <section>
+    <title>
+    LZO
+    </title>
+    <para>
+    Running with LZO enabled is recommended though HBase does not ship with
+    LZO because of licensing issues.  To install LZO and verify its installation
+    and that its available to HBase, do the following...
+    </para>
+    </section>
+
+    <section id="hbase.regionserver.codec">
+    <title>
+    <varname>
+    hbase.regionserver.codec
+    </varname>
+    </title>
+    <para>
+    To have a RegionServer test a set of codecs and fail-to-start if any
+    code is missing or misinstalled, add the configuration
+    <varname>
+    hbase.regionserver.codec
+    </varname>
+    to your <filename>hbase-site.xml</filename> with a value of
+    codecs to test on startup.  For example if the 
+    <varname>
+    hbase.regionserver.codec
+    </varname> value is <code>lzo,gz</code> and if lzo is not present
+    or improperly installed, the misconfigured RegionServer will fail
+    to start.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+    Administrators might make use of this facility to guard against
+    the case where a new server is added to cluster but the cluster
+    requires install of a particular coded.
+    </para>
+
+    </section>
+  </appendix>
+  <appendix id="configuration">
+    <title xml:id="configuration">Configuration</title>
+    <para>
+    </para>
+
+    <section>
+    <title><filename>hbase-site.xml</filename> and <filename>hbase-default.xml</filename></title>
+    <para>What are these?
+    </para>
+
+    <para>
+    Not all configuration options make it out to
+    <filename>hbase-default.xml</filename>.  Configuration
+    that it thought rare anyone would change can exist only
+    in code; the only way to turn up the configurations is
+    via a reading of the source code.
+    </para>
+
+    <!--The file hbase-default.xml is generated as part of
+    the build of the hbase site.  See the hbase pom.xml.
+    The generated file is a docbook section with a glossary
+    in it-->
+    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
+      href="../../target/site/hbase-default.xml" />
+      </section>
+
+      <section>
+      <title><filename>hbase-env.sh</filename></title>
+      <para></para>
+      </section>
+      <section>
+      <title><filename>log4j.properties</filename></title>
+      <para></para>
+      </section>
+      <section>
+      <title>Noteworthy Configuration</title>
+      <para>Below we review a couple of the key configurations.
+      We'll list those you must to change to suit your context
+      and others that you should review and consider moving on
+      from defaults after guaging your deploys load and query profiles.
+      </para>
+      </section>
+  </appendix>
 
   <glossary xml:id="glossary">
     <title xml:id="glossary">HBase Glossary</title>
 
     <glossentry>
       <glossterm xml:id="cf">column family</glossterm>
+      <glossterm xml:id="cfqualifier">column family qualifier</glossterm>
 
       <acronym>cf</acronym>
 
       <abbrev>cf</abbrev>
 
       <glossdef>
-        <para>Define a column family</para>
+        <para>
+      Columns in HBase are grouped into <emphasis>column families</emphasis>.
+      All column members of a column family have a common prefix.  For example, the
+      columns <emphasis>courses:history</emphasis> and
+      <emphasis>courses:math</emphasis> are both members of the
+      <emphasis>courses</emphasis> column family.
+          The colon character (<literal
+          moreinfo="none">:</literal>) delimits the column family from the
+          column family <emphasis>qualifier</emphasis>.
+        The column family prefix must be composed of
+      <emphasis>printable</emphasis> characters. The qualifying tail, the
+      column family <emphasis>qualifier</emphasis>, can be made of any
+      arbitrary bytes. Column families must be declared up front
+      at schema definition time whereas columns do not need to be
+      defined at schema time but can be conjured on the fly while
+      the table is up an running.</para>
+      <para>Physically, all column family members are stored together on the
+      filesystem.  Because tunings and
+      storage specifications are done at the column family level, it is
+      advised that all column family members have the same general access
+      pattern and size characteristics.</para>
       </glossdef>
     </glossentry>
   </glossary>
+  <index>
+  <title>Index</title>
+  </index>
 </book>
diff --git a/conf/tohtml.xsl b/src/main/xslt/configuration_to_docbook_section.xsl
similarity index 50%
rename from conf/tohtml.xsl
rename to src/main/xslt/configuration_to_docbook_section.xsl
index 7afa54629d8..c3f799f92d0 100644
--- a/conf/tohtml.xsl
+++ b/src/main/xslt/configuration_to_docbook_section.xsl
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 <xsl:template match="configuration">
 <!--
 /**
- * Copyright 2009 The Apache Software Foundation
+ * Copyright 2010 The Apache Software Foundation
  *
  * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
  * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
@@ -25,28 +25,41 @@
 
 This stylesheet is used making an html version of hbase-default.xml.
 -->
-<document>
-  <header>
-    <title> 
-      HBase Default Configuration
-    </title>
-  </header>
-  <body>
-<table border="1">
-<tr>
- <td><b>property</b></td>
- <td><b>default value</b></td>
- <td><b>description</b></td>
-</tr>
+<section version="5.0" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
+      xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
+      xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
+      xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
+      xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"
+      xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
+      xmlns:db="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook">
+<title>HBase Default Configuration</title>
+<para>
+</para>
+
+<glossary xmlns='http://docbook.org/ns/docbook' xml:id="hbase.default.configuration">
+<title>HBase Default Configuration</title>
+<para>
+This documentation is generated using the default hbase configuration file,
+<filename>hbase-default.xml</filename>, as source.
+</para>
+
 <xsl:for-each select="property">
-<tr>
-  <td><a name="{name}"><xsl:value-of select="name"/></a></td>
-  <td><xsl:value-of select="value"/></td>
-  <td><xsl:value-of select="description"/></td>
-</tr>
+<glossentry>
+  <xsl:attribute name="id">
+    <xsl:value-of select="name" />
+  </xsl:attribute>
+  <glossterm>
+    <varname><xsl:value-of select="name"/></varname>
+  </glossterm>
+  <glossdef>
+  <para><xsl:value-of select="description"/></para>
+  <para>Default: <varname><xsl:value-of select="value"/></varname></para>
+  </glossdef>
+</glossentry>
 </xsl:for-each>
-</table>
-</body>
-</document>
+
+</glossary>
+
+</section>
 </xsl:template>
 </xsl:stylesheet>