I am setting up a very simple HTTP server for the first time, am considering my options, and would appreciate any feedback on the best way to proceed. My goal is pretty simple: I'm not serving any files, I only need to respond to a very specific HTTP POST request that will contain geolocation data, run some Python code, and return the results as JSON. I do need to be able to respond to multiple simultaneous requests. I would like to use HTTPS.
In looking on stackoverflow it seems I can potentially go with BaseHTTPServer and ThreadingMixIn, or Apache and mod_wsgi. I already have Apache installed, but have never configured it. Are there compelling reasons to go the more complicated Apache route (more complicated to me, because I will need to do research on configuring Apache and getting mod_wsgi going but already have a test instance of BaseHTTPServer up and running), or is it equally safe, secure (very important), and performance-oriented to use BaseHTTPServer for something so simple?
BaseHTTPServer is not a production grade server.
If you don't understand how to set up Apache, but want to get something with mod_wsgi running quickly and easily, then you probably want to look at mod_wsgi express.
This gives you a way of installing mod_wsgi using Python 'pip' and also provides you a way of starting up Apache/mod_wsgi with a auto generated Apache and mod_wsgiconfiguration such that you don't even need to know how to configure Apache.
The next version of mod_wsgi express to be released (version 4.3.0, likely released this week), can even set up a HTTPS site for you, with you just needing to have obtained a valid certificate or generated a self signed certificate.
I would suggest if interested you use the mod_wsgi mailing list to ask for more details about using mod_wsgi express for running a HTTPS site.
http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/WhereToGetHelp?tm=6#Asking_Your_Questions
You can start playing around though with it for a normal HTTP site by following instructions at:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mod_wsgi
Related
I'm looking for a mod_auth_tkt for Nginx? I have multiple applications using auth_tkt compatible cookies and would like to have SSO. I don't want to use apache2 mod_auth_tkt, since I have nginx already running. Is there a auth_tkt compatible module for nginx?
I came across this challenge today (multi-domain SSO using Nginx), so I suppose an answer is better late than never.
I was coming from having used auth_tkt with Apache2.
Ultimately I ended up with an implementation of Pubcookie, for which somebody wrote and documented an Nginx module.
The setup is very similar:
A CGI script intercepts the request and performs login procedure for the user using whatever mechanism is configured
Upon successful authentication:
a. A cookie is set on the enterprise_domain
b. User is redirected to the originally requested resources
Some warning though, I had to hack the source a fair bit for pubcookie and the nginx module to get it to work with non-SSL sites - it seems to have been written with SSL as a fixed assumption.
So I have managed it. I can clone mercurial-repositories remotely using HTTP to my Windows Server 2003 machine and the ipaddress from that machine. Although I did deactivate IIS6 and am using Apache 2.2.x now. But not all works right now...darn! Here's the thing:
Cloning goes smooth! But when I want to push my changes to the original repository I get the message "cannot lock static http-repository". On the internet I get to read several explanations that Mercurial wasn't designed to push over HTTP connections. Still, on the Mercurial website there's something about configuring an hgrc file.
There's also the possibilty to configure Apache to host via HTTPS (or SSL). For this you have to load the module enabling OpenSSL and generating keys.
Configuring the hgrc file
Just add "push_ssl = false" under the [web] line. But where to put this file when pushing your changes back?! Because I placed it in the root of the server, in the ".hg" directory, nothing works.
Using SSL/HTTPS with Apache
When I try to access 'https://myipaddress' it fails, displaying a dutch message which would mean something like "server taking too long to respond". Trying to push also gives me a dutch error message which means about the same. It can not connect to my server via https although I followed the steps exactly at this blog.
I don't care which of the above solutions will work for me. Turns out none of them work so far. So please, can anyone help me with one of the solutions above? Pick the easiest! Help will be greatly appreciated, not only from me.
Summary
-Windows Server 2003
-Apache 2.2 with OpenSSL
-Mercurial 1.8.2
-I can clone, but not push!
Thank you!
Maarten Baar(s)
It seems like you might have apache configured incorrectly for getting it to do what you want. Based on your question it sounds like you have a path (maybe the root of the server) pointing to the repository you want to serve.
Mercurial comes with a script for this exact purpose, in the latest version it is hgweb.cgi. There are reasonably good instructions for setting it up on the mercurial site. It should allow both cloning and pushing. You will need the push_ssl=false if you will not be configuring https and also an allow_push line which will let certain users, or all (*) push to the repository. But all that should be part of the setup docs.
I'm currently using Apache+Phusion quite successfully but am interested in trying out Nginx+Phusion. Although there are lots of places where I can get info on how to set up the latter none of them explain what I have to do to ensure that it is Nginx that is serving things up rather than Apache.
Ideally I would like to keep the Apache stuff available whilst trialling but I'm guessing that at a minimum I will have to stop Apache and run Nginx - or can both be running simultaneously on the same machine? If the answer to this is yes then which server will handle URL requests and how will I know?
I am building a cgi application, and now I would like it to be like an application that stands and parses each connection, with this, I can have all session variables saved in memory instead of saving them to file(or anyother place) and loading them again on a new connection
I am using lamp within a linux vmware but I can't seem to find how to install the module for it to work and what to change in the httpd.conf. I tried to compile the module, but I couldn't because my apache isn't a regular instalation, its a lamp already built one, and it seems that the mod needs the apache directory to be compiled. I saw some coding examples out there, so I guess is not that hard once its runing ok with Apache
Can you help me with this please?
Thanks,
Joe
Using FastCGI just means that you spawn a number of processes which will handle requests they get from the actual webserver instead of the webserver spawning a new process whenever a request arrives.
Use something like memcached if you want to keep stuff like sessions in memory.
For my college project, I want to create a simple application server in C that runs over Apache. Like .php, .asp, .jsp, the extension of my files would be .sas.
I have already written a parser which reads the .sas files and generates the output. For example, consider a file index.sas with the below code:
<%
echo "Hello";
%>
Now, if I execute:
sas index.sas
The result would be:
Hello
Now I want to use this program as an
application server over Apache just as
PHP, Tomcat, etc. work over Apache. I
have heard of cgi-bin but I think PHP
uses a different approach. I want to
learn the approach which PHP uses.
Please advice.
Little correction: Apache HTTP Server is not required to be able to run Apache Tomcat as webserver. Apache Tomcat is at its own already a full fledged webserver. Your confusion is probably caused by the Tomcat Connector which could be used to connect Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat together to be able to serve PHP/JSP behind one same HTTP port.
As to your actual question, PHP can be installed as CGI module or ASAPI (Apache Server API) module. If you want to program a CGI module for Apache HTTP Server, then you may find this document useful. If you want to write an ASAPI module, then you may find those documentations useful.
You need to write a module utilizing the Apache API.
Some basic documentation with examples can be found here.
http://www.auburn.edu/docs/apache/mod/mod_example.html
No, no, no!!! Did I say "no" enough? :)
You don't need to create a new module or look at PHP source code. Talking about re-inventing the wheel using a square boulder.
The easiest thing to do is to use mod_cgi. That is, you use CGI to have Apache forward the request to your SAS interpreter.
[Apache 1.3x] - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_cgi.html
[Apache 2.0x] - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_cgi.html
[CGI] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface
Now, if you do not want to use CGI (don't know why unless it is expressively forbidden by your homework instructions), then yeah, you will have to create a module. For that take a look at this as an starting point (courtesy of google):
http://threebit.net/tutorials/apache2_modules/tut1/tutorial1.html
Good luck with that, though. It could become labor-intensive.
Hope it helps.