Rack provides a standard interface between web servers and web applications. It allows a web application to return a status, headers, and a body in response to an HTTP request. Middleware can be plugged into a Rack application to modify requests and responses. Popular Rack middleware includes Rack::Cache, Rack::Middleware, and Warden for authentication. In Rails, middleware is configured through an initializer and plugged into the middleware stack to run before or after other middleware.