How to use other Web Servers ex Abyss

[BOB MECHLER]

I'm confused on the web server setup. I tried using Download a web page to a file by Dave Navarro and PBHTTP Erik Olson and neither worked. I tried stopping all websites on my IIS. I tried stopping the IIS service. What am I missing here about the presence of IIS and other web server software. Should I completely uninstall IIS before they work?

Bob Mechler

[Edwin Knoppert]

Not sure but maybe you a port conflict?

Normally http is on port 80.
Only one webserver should (can) claim this port.
Therefore usually for local testing one sets an alternative free port.

If you are using IIS, which is fine, you must enable allow executing executables, it's a run-script setting or similar named (forgot)

CGI.EXE's are by default not executed for webserver protection reasons.

[Edwin Knoppert]

Btw, in case you have PB/WIN, using ISAPI is a so much better choice..
More difficult to start with though.

[BOB MECHLER]

Thanks, I'll just use an alternate port.

Since ISAPI is better, I'll check Poffs for examples. I don't remember finding much on this before. If anyone knows of a link or two that is very elemental in using ISAPI and PB/WIN I'd like to know of it.

I don't relish the thought of creating CGI programs where every page has to be generated on the fly. Plus inexpensive leased web sites normally don't support CGI. I looked for information about whether GoDaddy.com supported CGI or ISAPI but couldn't immediately find it. Does anyone know?

I'm sure if I shelled out the big bucks and got a standalone server, I could pretty much do what ever I wanted to but I don't have that kind of budget.

BOB MECHLER

[Joe Byrne]

I'm sure if I shelled out the big bucks and got a standalone server, I could pretty much do what ever I wanted to but I don't have that kind of budget

My primary web server is a Compaq DL360, 2gb RAM, 2x36gb hotswap drives, dual P3/933MHz running Windows 2000 Pro. The whole thing cost me about $300.00. It runs over 400 web sites on a single (dedicated) IP address. over a dozen of those sites are ecommerce (high-use) and 3 of them stream hour long audio (in MP3 format).

Personally, I don't call $300.00 "big bucks", but you probably could do it for under $200 if you can get a cheap copy of Win2k Pro

[Edwin Knoppert]

>I looked for information about whether GoDaddy.com supported CGI or ISAPI but couldn't immediately find it. Does anyone know?

It's not done..
They don't want your app to peek their shared hosting server.

My ISP wants to see the code if i want to use CGI.EXE's
On of the reasons i don't have my licence system online, i would need to rewrite it to something like ASP.NET but it's way to complex due fileformat and such.

Then i just don't..

[Edwin Knoppert]

Wow Joe.. that's amazing.

We have us a dedicated server with ~ 10 less-to-avarage use websites and we needed to upgrade the memory.
SQL server was complaining and stressing a lot.
We use ASP.NET only.

The combo might be an issue here

[Joe Byrne]

The combo might be an issue here

Possibly. I know IIS is a memory hog. I have to admit that I don't run SQL on the same server as my web server. I have the SQL engine on a different server, but its not all that much bigger. Compaq DL380, dual P3/733's, 6 x 36gb SCSI drives, and 4gb RAM. I only have a half dozen SQL based web sites, but even at that, 4gb is a minimum for 3-10 decent size SQL databases. If I needed to add more, I'd probably put up another server. I doubt I have more than $300 invested in this one either, so they're still not all that expensive. One of my suppliers has the DL360 G1 with dual P4s @1.6GHz and 6GB RAM with 4 x 18gb drives (RAID 5) for roughly $550.00 Not a bad investment if the P4 architecture is that necessary.

The biggest 'problem' I run into on a heavy day is bandwidth. For a long time I was running this whole setup (5 servers, each with dedicated IPs) on a 768k SDSL connection. Not too bad, but not as responsive as my customers demanded. I moved my 2 email servers over to the DSL line (about 2500 email boxes) and pulled in a T1 for the others. I dedicated the whole 1.5mb on this line and haven't had a complaint yet, although the email servers are showing a bit of stress from time to time. At $175/month for the T1, I've toyed with pulling in another one but the DSL line only costs me $35/month.

One of the other advantages to using older servers is the cost of the components. I can get 36gb drives for about $40 each, and 1gb RAM for under $55.00. Abyss handles all those web sites with plenty of room to spare. I generally use Tsunami for my databases unless the customer insists on SQL. Tsunami is fast and very light on RAM requirements. My biggest application (a PB-Win32 app that runs remotely from my web server along with a corresponding web app for customers) does about 700 transactions a day, easily 25,000 database 'hits' including the office admin program, and even at its heaviest, Tsunami doesn't hiccup even once.

I used to run BTrieve on this server (the web server) with similar results. BTrieve doesn't require that much in resources either, but the number of applications that require SQL is growing daily. Customers think its important too, in case they ever need/want to pull in other programmers. Can't really fight that logic