Managing server content

Setting the primary document directory

Another benefit of the primary document directory is that you can move your documents to a new directory (perhaps on a different disk) without changing any of your URLs because the paths specified in the URL are relative to the primary document directory.

For example, if your document directory is /usr/htmldocs, a request such as http://www.a.com/products/info.html tells the server to look for the file in /usr/htmldocs/products/info.html. If you change the document directory (that is, you move all the files and subdirectories), you only have to change the document directory that the server uses instead of mapping all URLs to the new directory or somehow telling clients to look in the new directory.

To set your server's primary document directory, do the following:

1. Choose Content Mgmt|Primary Document Directory.
2. If you want to set the primary document directory, type the full path of the directory you want to be the primary document directory.
3. Click OK.
4. Click Save and Apply to confirm your changes.

First, choose the URL prefix to map. This is the URL clients send to the server when they want documents. Next, you specify the directory to map those URLs to. Finally, you might want to use an existing configuration style to specify how this directory should be configured.

To add other document directories, do the following:

1. Choose Content Mgmt|Additional Document Directories.
2. Type the URL prefix you want to map. (For example, a mapped URL could be http://www.a.com/products/index.html where products/ is the prefix you specify.)
3. Type the absolute path of the directory you want the URL prefix to map to. (For example, the directory could be called /usr/ns-home/docs/sales/tools/products. It should be a full system path. )
4. If you'd like, select a configuration style to apply to this directory's configuration.
5. Click OK.

Another way to do this is to create a URL mapping to a central directory that all of your users can modify.

To configure your server to use public directories, you need to choose a user URL prefix. The usual prefix used is ~ because it's a character that is rarely used. Next, you need to choose the subdirectory where the server looks for user home directories. A typical directory is public_html.

The server needs to know where to look for a file that lists users on your system. The server uses this file to determine valid user names and to find their home directories. You can use the system password file for this, which means the server uses standard library calls to look up users. Or, you can create another user file to use to look up users. You can specify that user file with an absolute path.

Each line in the file should have this structure (the elements in the /etc/passwd file that aren't needed are indicated with *):

   username:*:*:groupid:*:homedir:*

Finally, you can choose a configuration template that the server uses so that you can control what is allowed from public information directories. This can prevent users from creating symbolic links to information you don't want made public, and so on.

To set up user directories, do the following:

1. Choose Content Mgmt|User Document Directories.
2. Type the URL prefix for the user.
3. Type the user's subdirectory. (The subdirectory public_html is provided as the default.)
4. Choose whether you want the server to use the system's password file, or if you want to use a user file you've created to look up users. Specify the user file with an absolute link.
5. Choose whether you want to load the entire password file on startup.
6. If you want, choose a configuration template the server will use.
7. Click OK.

To enable remote file manipulation, do the following from the Server Manager:

1. Choose Content Mgmt|Remote File Manipulation.
2. Choose a resource from the Resource Picker.
3. Click the Yes radio button to enable remote file manipulation.
4. Click OK.

• Directory indexing
• Server home page
• Default MIME type

There are two ways the server can do this:

• It first searches the directory for an index file called index.html, which is a file you create and maintain as an overview of the directory's contents. You can specify any file as an index file for a directory. This means you can also use CGI programs as an index if CGI is activated.
• If an index file isn't found, the server generates an index file for you that lists all the files in the document root. The generated index has two formats:
  • Fancy directory indexing is fairly detailed. It includes a graphic that represents the type of file, the date the file was last modified, the file size, and a description.
  • Simple directory indexing is less detailed but takes less time to generate.

You can either specify a file in the document root as the home page, or the server will create an index file instead.

Default MIME type

The default is usually text/plain, but it should reflect the most common type of file stored in your server. Some common types include the following:

• text/plain
• text/html
• text/richtext
• image/tiff
• image/jpeg
• image/gif
• application/x-tar
• application/postscript
• application/x-gzip
• audio/basic

To map a URL to another server, you must first specify the URL prefix you want the server to redirect. Then, you need to choose which URL to redirect to. You can redirect to a URL prefix if the directory on the new server is the same as in the mapped URL; you can also redirect to a fixed URL (hostname, directory, and filename).

To forward URLs, do the following:

1. Choose Content Mgmt|URL Forwarding.
2. Type the URL prefix you want to redirect. (For example, if the URL you want to map is http://www.netscape.com/info/movies, you'd type /info/movies in the field.)
3. Choose whether you want forward requests to a URL prefix or a fixed URL. (For example, http://w3.a.com/ is an example of a URL prefix. A fixed URL might be http://w3.com/new-files/info/movies.)
4. Click OK.
5. Click Save and Apply to save and apply your changes.
6. Repeat the previous steps for each hardware virtual server.

You can set up your server to answer requests to different URLs but only have one numeric IP address. For example, one server with an IP address can serve different pages for http://www.a.com/ and http://www.b.com. Some client software, such as Netscape Navigator 2.0, sends a Host header that tells the server which host the client is accessing. When you specify a home page for a virtual software server when creating it, you allow any clients who use client software that does not send a Host heading to access the correct information.

An example of how software virtual servers might be used would be if an Internet service provider (ISP), www.company.com, installed a web server and then set up a software virtual server for each of its customers who wanted to set up a web server with individual domain names.

The ISP would first configure DNS to recognize that www.aaa.com points to their system. They would then create a subdirectory named aaa in the primary document directory, put the home page for www.aaa.com in the aaa directory, and set up a software virtual server for www.aaa.com to use the file aaa/aaahomepage.html as its home page. That home page might have links to aaa/mygraphic.gif, aaa/myprices.html, and other files in the aaa subdirectory. Each additional customer would have their own directory on the www.company.com web server and their own software virtual server. If users tried to connect with older client software, they would see the www.company.com home page, which could be set up as an index to all the other web servers hosted by the system.

To set up a software virtual server,

1. From the Server Manager, choose Content Mgmt|Software Virtual Servers.
2. Type the hostname whose custom home page you want to set up.
3. Type the path to the home page you want to use for this virtual server. Typing a full path will use that specific document. Typing a partial path will be interpreted as being relative to your primary document directory.
4. Click OK.
5. Click Save and apply to apply your changes.

In index.html, if you want to link to a file called report.html in [ServerRoot]/docs/physics_dir, create an URL mapping called physics to [ServerRoot]/docs/physics_dir, and then you could the the following full URL for the link:

<a href="http://atomic.netscape.com:/physics/report.html">

You could also place the following line in index.html (placed before you reference any links):

<base href="http://atomic.netscape.com:/physics/">

<a href="/INT_FastTrackAG/report.html">

Netscape Navigator is able to change its character set (if the character set is available) using the MIME Charset parameter in HTTP. If the server includes this parameter in its response, Netscape Navigator will change its character set appropriately. The following are examples:

• Content-Type: text/html;charset=iso-8859-1
• Content-Type: text/html;charset=iso-2022-jp The charset names recognized by Netscape Navigator are specified in RFC 1700 (except for the names that begin with "x-"). These include the following:

• us-ascii
• iso-8859-1
• iso-2022-jp
• x-sjis
• x-euc-jp
• x-mac-roman

  Additionally, the following aliases are recognized for us-ascii:

• ansi_x3.4-1968
• iso-ir-6
• ansi_x3.4-1986
• iso_646.irv:1991
• ascii
• iso646-us
• us
• ibm367
• cp367

  The following aliases are recognized for iso_8859-1:

• latin1
• iso_8859-1
• iso_8859-1:1987
• iso-ir-100
• ibm819
• cp819

  To change the character set, do the following:

1. Choose Content Mgmt|International Characters.
2. Choose the server resource whose character set you want to change.
3. Enter one of the character sets mentioned in the previous paragraphs.
4. Click OK.
5. Click Save and Apply for your changes to take effect.

To specify a document footer, do the following:

1. From the Server Manager, choose Content Mgmt|Document Footer.
2. Enter the type of files you want to include in the footer.
3. Choose the time format form the drop-down list, or enter a custom date format in the Custom Date Format field.
4. Enter the text you want in the footer. Note that the maximum number of characters for a document footer is 765. Type the string :LASTMOD: if you want to include the last-modification date.
   Note: Any entities (for example, &copy) you enter will be expanded when you edit the footer again. If you do edit it again, be sure to re-expand the entities.

5. Click OK.
6. Click Save and Apply to confirm your changes.

   When you change the document footer for an HTML page, you are not changing the last-modified time stamp.

To customize parsed HTML,

1. Choose Content Mgmt|Parse HTML.
2. Select which server resource you'd like to edit.
3. Choose whether you want to activate parsed HTML. If you do, you need to choose whether to activate it with the exec tag. The exec tag allows an HTML file to execute an arbitrary program on the server; you might not want to activate it for security or performance reasons.
4. Choose which files to parse.
   • The common (and default) choice is to parse only files with the extension of .shtml. This would require the files you want to parse to have the .shtml extension.
   • You can parse files whose UNIX permissions are set so that the execute bit is on. This can be unreliable because some files have the bit set, but the files are not executable files.
   • You can have the server look at all its HTML files. This can impact performance.

If you're editing a configuration style, choose Exit styles mode from the Resource Picker to stop editing the configuration style. You don't need to exit the styles mode after you've finished editing a configuration style; the Server Manager exits the styles mode automatically.

Creating a configuration style

1. Choose Config Styles|New Style.
2. Type the name you want to give the configuration style.
3. Click OK. The Edit Configuration Style form appears.
4. Choose a configuration style to edit.
5. From the list of links available, click the one you want to configure for your style.
   • CGI file type--Allows you to activate CGI. For more information about CGI, see Chapter 7.
   • Character Set--Allows you to change the character set for a resource. For more information about character sets, see "Assigning a character set" in Chapter 4.
   • Document Footer--Allows you to add a document footer to a server resouce. For more information about document footers, see "Specifying a document footer" in Chapter 4.
   • Error Responses--Allows you customize error responses clients see when they encounter an error from your server. For more information about error responses, see "Customizing error responses."
   • Log preferences--Allows you to set preferences for access logs. For more information about log preferences, see "Setting log preferences" in Chapter 9.
   • Remote File Manipulation--Allows you to enable clients to change your server's content. Make sure you have access control set up to protect areas of your server you don't want people to access. (See Chapter 6 for more information on access control.) For more information about remote file manipulation, see "Enabling remote file manipulation" in Chapter 4.
   • Require Stronger Security--Allows you to set up encryption strength for your server. For more information about encryption strength, see the "Specifying stronger encryption strength" section in Chapter 7.
   • Restrict Access--Allows you to restrict access to the entire server or parts of it. For more information about access control, see the "Restricting access" section in Chapter 6.
   • Server Parsed HTML--Allows you to enable the server to parse files before they are sent to the client. For more information about using parsed HTML, see "Customizing parsed HTML" in Chapter 4.
6. Fill out the form that appears, and then click OK.
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to make any other configuration changes to the configuration style.
8. Click OK.
9. Click Save and Apply to confirm your changes to the configuration style.

1. Choose Config Styles|Edit Style.
2. Choose a configuration style to edit.
3. Click Edit this style.
4. From the list of links available, click the one you want to configure for your style.
   • CGI file type--Allows you to activate CGI. For more information about CGI, see Chapter 7.
   • Character Set--Allows you to change the character set for a resource. For more information about character sets, see "Assigning a character set" in Chapter 4.
   • Document Footer--Allows you to add a document footer to a server resouce. For more information about document footers, see "Specifying a document footer" in Chapter 4.
   • Error Responses--Allows you customize error responses clients see when they encounter an error from your server. For more information about error responses, see "Customizing error responses."
   • Log preferences--Allows you to set preferences for access logs. For more information about log preferences, see "Setting log preferences" in Chapter 9.
   • Remote File Manipulation--Allows you to enable clients to change your server's content. Make sure you have access control set up to protect areas of your server you don't want people to access. (See Chapter 6 for more information on access control.) For more information about remote file manipulation, see "Enabling remote file manipulation" in Chapter 4.
   • Require Stronger Security--Allows you to set up encryption strength for your server. For more information about encryption strength, see the "Specifying stronger encryption strength" section in Chapter 7.
   • Restrict Access--Allows you to restrict access to the entire server or parts of it. For more information about access control, see the "Restricting access" section in Chapter 6.
   • Server Parsed HTML--Allows you to enable the server to parse files before they are sent to the client. For more information about using parsed HTML, see "Customizing parsed HTML" in Chapter 4.
5. Fill out the form that appears, and then click OK.
6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to make any other configuration changes to the configuration style.
7. Click OK.
8. Click Save and Apply to confirm your changes to the configuration style.

To remove a configuration style, do the following:

1. Choose Config Styles|Remove Configuration Style.
2. Select the configuration style you want to remove.
3. Click OK. The configuration style is removed.

To apply a configuration style, do the following:

1. Choose Config Styles|Assign Configuration Style.
2. Enter the URL prefix to apply this configuration style to. If the directory you want to choose is inside the document root, only enter the path after the document root. If you enter /* after the directory, all of the directory's contents will have the configuration style applied.
3. Select the configuration style you want to apply. The None configuration style can be applied to files or directories to remove any configuration style previously applied to the resource.
4. Click OK.

To list configuration style assignments, do the following from the Server Manager:

1. Choose Config Styles|List Assignments. The List Assignments form appears, showing the configuration styles you applied to server resources.

2. To edit a configuration style assignment, click on the Edit link next to the configuration style name.