World Wide Web (WWW) servers are becoming more common on the Internet every day. As such, many people request information on how to set up their servers as WWW servers. Luckily for you, UnixWare 2 works well as a web server (NOTE: This information is coming to you from a UnixWare 2 server!)
Setting up a WWW server requires you to go through the following steps:
Downloading httpd - There are two http daemons available. You can pull down the NCSA version from ftp.novell.de in the directory /pub/unixware/usle/internet/server/ncsa_httpd. Or you can obtain the CERN version of the http daemon from the same site in the directory /pub/unixware/usle/internet/server/cern_httpd. (These files can also be found on ftp.novell.com:/pub/WWW).
A brief description of setting up pages on the CERN server follows, note that a full description of how to configure the CERN version is included in the Brainshare talk and also in the html pages available with cern_httpd.
If you download the CERN version of the server it comes with a preconfigured test page in the directory /home/www/index.html. To add your own documents place them in /home/www and change the index.html file accordingly.
The main advantage of the CERN version over NCSA is that it supports proxy and caching features which can be used to reduce network traffic and also speed up document retrieval for local users.
To find out more on how to configure the CERN server , download the html docs for the server from ftp.novell.com:/pub/WWW/server/cern-httpd/cern_httpd_docs.tar.Z (these are written in html).
The next section describes how to configure the NCSA version of httpd.
Configuring the httpd - The main server configuration file is httpd.conf. In this file you will set up the user and group (i.e., http) and the directives. The directives include things like ServerAdmin - normally set as "webmaster", ServerRoot - the absolute path to the http binaries, and ServerName - which is what you call this server. (The server you are currently on is called "www.novell.com"). Other directives you will need to know here are Port - which tell which port, default is 80, is being advertised for use for the httpd - and User - which must be defined so that the server knows what user and group id to run incoming connections as.
Another configuration file is srm.conf which controls where the server finds all of you documents. Directives in this file include DocumentRoot - which tells where the top-level of the document tree is, UserDir - which opens the user home directories for HTTP access, AddIcon - which tells HTTP about icons by extensions, and Alias - which defines aliases for paths to filenames or directories.
A final useful configuration file is access.conf which allows you to set up access controls to your WWW site. This comes in handy when testing out new areas of your web before allowing them to go public. Or setting up restrictions to areas of your web site to allow only privileged users access.
Now that you have the system configured you need to install the server by making sure that httpd, the .conf files, log files, icons, and cgi-bin (the directory where search programs and mail back forms are run) are all located under the "ServerRoot" directory. Make sure that all the permissions on httpd and the log files are all set correctly.
OK, now you can start your httpd. You will need to create your home page (index.html) and any pages under it. Have fun! Other maintenance of you web site will include keeping the information up to date, watching the log files, and collecting the statistics to find out who comes in, where they go, and other important facts.
Other useful items to have for you web server include having a copy of perl handy. For users who want to set themselves up to browse the web you will need a copy of a web browser, xviewer, and mpeg player. Copies of Mosaic WWW browser, xv 3.00 (an xviewer), mpeg_play 2.0.1, perl 5.000 and many other useful tools can all be found in the "Software Shop->Binaries" section of this web site.