Web Servers

A full-time, 24 hour, uninterrupted TCP/IP connection to the internet.

Your internet service provider, or network administrator, will be able to tell you if you have a TCP/IP connection and whether or not your IP number is static or dynamic. Dymanic IP numbers change every time you log onto the network, and are not stuitable for server use. Your IP number is your internet address.


A web server application.

Some operating systems come with web server applications, so make sure you install these when installing your OS. There are also other applicaitons available, some for little or no cost.

Administering your Server

As your web site grows and hosts more and more information, if there is not some stargety in place for categorizing information and insuring that the website will not be lost to a drive crash, you could be setting yourself up for trouble. Here are a few hard-learned lessons and things to consider when establishing your server:

Back-up your server.

Back-up systems can range from an inexpensive floppy back-up to an expensive RAID array. As you shop around for back-up systems, remember that removable media can be stored off-site. And as you consider the expense, consider how expensive it would be to lose all of your data.

A back-up routine should be as regular as needed, which is a nice way of saying--it's up to you. If your server will have sites changing every day, you would want to back-up more frequently to prevent losing much data in the event of a hard-drive crash. If you only update your site once a month, your back-ups would be less frequent.


How do you want to arrange your website?

The more information your site contains, the more important this aspect becomes. Each time you move a document or directory, it's on-line address changes. To prevent this from becoming a problem, consider your directory structure and how your site will evolve and grow:

Who will be adding information to the site, and how will they need/want that information arranged?

Will there be an FTP server hosted on the same machine?

Should directory sizes be limited?

Establishing Your Own Server

Welcome to the world of serving web sites. You should have a good working knowledge of computers before you tackle this part of the internet, and you should be familiar with HTML and building web sites. Now, that said, let's set-up a web server.

How you set-up your web server will greatly depend on the Operating System you plan to run on that server, but some of the features are cross-platform. For starters, you'll need a reliable, constant connection to the internet. A dial-up account via modem is not sufficient for this type of access — you need at least an ISDN line. The faster your connection to the internet, the better people can access your sites. You'll also want the fastest computer you can get. PowerPC Macintosh computers (60MHz or faster) and all flavors of Pentium will work for this, but the faster the processor, the better the server will function. And check your server and operating system requirements, but at least 32Mb of physical RAM is a good place to start. As users increase access to your server, the processor will demand more from the RAM.

The Cost of Hosting Your Site

The cost of having a web site online vary widely. If you have access to the Internet provided by your institution and server space, your cost will be only the time it takes to develop the site. if, however, you must rely on a commercial provider, you'll pay for their services. These charges vary from company to company but are almost always based on server space. One company may charge $25 a month for 5Mb of space, and another may charge $50 for the same amount of space. While the first company looks cheaper, they may be charging you for accesses to your site while the second company allows you to transfer a many Mbs to visitors at your site a you like.

Your per Mb monthly fee may not be the only charge involved. Talk with your provider about how you plan to structure your site, how many visitors you estimate having, and ask if they foresee any other charges which may pop up. There may be a site setup fee, a fee for technical support, etc. They may also offer other fee-based services you want to take advantage of: many service providers will register your site with search engines, will establish your own domain name, or provide e-mail accounts and site reports.

Here are a few questions you may want to consider when shopping for an ISP:

What are ALL the details and costs onvolved with setting up and serving my website?

Ask your ISP how much storage you get, if you can get more later, if you get e-mail accounts (and how many), and if you get a report of hits (how many times someone acccess yoru site) provided as part of your fee.

Can I get my own domain name, and how much will it cost me?

Will I have FTP access so I can manage the site myself from a remote location?

You'll want to be able to update your site remotely, without having to go to your ISP. For this to occur, your ISP must set up a password and username for you on their server. Most ISPs provide this service, but some charge extra for this remote access.

What's the ISP's line speed?

This is a crucial question. You want to know how fast your ISP is able to serve data to others. Any good service provider will have at least a T1 line or even a T3. Larger providers will have multiple lines.

Does the ISP host very popular sites?

If your ISP brags about hosting sites taking tens of thousands of hits a day, you may wonder how well your site will be served. Large loads slow servers and their data rate.

WindowsNT server

Based on the look and feel of Microsoft Windows'95, WindowsNT (or NT) looks very much like '95. The interface is much like '95, as is the file system. Most users won't immeditely recognize a difference. But NT is a more powerful, robust OS than Windows'95, with protected memory and applications. Both of these traits are sought-after server characteristics.

Before you install NT and set-up your server, you'll need to make sure you have the correct hardware. NT requires more processing power and RAM to function properly than even Windows'95. Check the Microsoft page on minimum system requirements before buying hardware.

To set-up your NT server, you'll need a full-time, reliable connection to the internet via TCP/IP. If you have a TCP/IP connection but have not enabled this on your NT server, see the notes at the end of this page. If you already have an enabled TCP/IP connection to the internet, you're ready to begin.

As with other servers, web sharing is enabled in NT through applications. Much like opening a word processor to write a document, you'll need an application to run in order to server web pages. On the NT 4.0 installation CD, you'll find an application called Microsoft Internet Information Server. Install that application with NT, and you'll be ready to serve web pages via NT. Microsoft lists many of the other applications available for web serving at their home page, but we'll talk about Internet Information Server (IIS) as it ships with NT.

Once you have the comptuer and have installed NT, make sure you installed ISS. This application is on your NT 4.0 CD and will install a web server, an FTP server, and a Gopher server by default. You can configure the installation for only on or two of the three, but the package is not very large and you never know when you'll need one or the other. ISS will not, however, support a Telent server or a mail server, nor does it support remote administration. The installation process walks you through not only the install, but also configureing ISS to serve pages. The most important question the installer asks is where you want your "root directory" and what you want to name your "root files." Your root directory is the directory, or folder, where all of your web pages will reside. Anything in that directory will be available via the web. Your root file, on the other hand, will be the file ISS looks for inside every web directory to display as the default page. Most server administrators use "index.html" or "default.html" as they were originally required in HTML 1.0, but you may use any naming system you like, as long as you stick with the standard .html or .htm extensions.

After installing and configuring IIS, you should check IIS to insure that your server is configured how you think it's configured. Just check.

Open IIS:

You'll see the management console for your server. For security purposes, some information in the screen shots that follow has been blurred, but your server will show the IP Address, it's url--in text--and whether or not it is currently running as a service on NT.

Open the Properties window for your server by selecting it and going to the Action menu. When the properties window opens, click the Web Site tab and check that the descriptions there are as you expect.

Then, click on the Home Directory tab and see that your root directory is as you expect. Your Local Path should point your server to the directory where your web pages will be stored. The blank next to the Local Path: will display the drive and directory path to your web server root directory.

If your NT server is not already connected to the Internet via TCP/IP and you do not have a network administrator to contact, we've provided some sample scripts and procedures for establishing an NT server via a TCP/IP connection.

Setting up NT for a RAS and TCP/IP connection to the Internet

Setting up NT for a RAS and TCP/IP connection to the Internet

Setup Procedure

In the START Menu, go to Control Panel:

Select the Network Icon

The Network Window has five tabs.

Identification Tab:
enter the computer name
enter the workgroup name

Services Tab:
Make sure the following services are enabled. If they
aren't, enable them.
Computer Browser
NetBIOS Interface
Remote Access Service
Server
Workstation

Protocols Tab:
enable TCP/IP
select the Properties button:
The TCP/IP Properties window has 4 tabs:

IP Address tab - leave alone

DNS tab -enter your user name in the Host Name text
entry box. Enter your internet providers complete domain
name (name.name.com) in the Domain Name text entry box.
In the DNS Search Order box, select Add, and enter the
numeric address of your ISP. If there is more than one
address, enter them all.

WINS Address Tab: Leave alone.

Routing Tab: Leave alone.

Select OK to close the TCP/IP Properties window.

Adapters Tab:
If you are a stand-alone system, leave alone. Do not
install MS Loopback. If you are networked, add your
network cards.

Bindings Tab:
Leave alone.
Select OK to close the Network window.

Select Dial-Up Networking from My Computer or the Start menu.

Select New and get the Phonebook Entry window which has 5 tabs.

Basic tab:
Entry name - type the name of your ISP
Phone number - the number to dial
Dial using - select the modem. Alternate phone
numbers can be added, and the modem can be
configured in this tab. In general, under Modem
Configuration, you should enable both hardware
flow control and modem error control.
Server tab:
1. Select TCP/IP as your network protocol.
2. Select the dial-up server type

Do This If your Internet Provider Provides A SLIP Connection

1. Select SLIP: Internet
2. Select TCP/IP Settings
In the SLIP TCP/IP Settings popup:
1. Type in your own IP address.
2. Type in the Name server address(es) of your ISP.
3. Uncheck - Force header compression
4. Check- Use default gateway on remote network
5. Select the default frame size of 1006 (unless your
provider says differently) Experiment to see if 1500
gives better performance.
6. Select OK

Do This If your Internet Provider Provides a PPP Connection

1. Select PPP:Windows NT, Windows 95 Plus, Internet
2. Check: Enable software compression
3. Do not check: Enable PPP LCP extensions
4. Select TCP/IP Settings
In the PPP TCP/IP Settings popup:
1. Select Server assigned IP address or Specifiy an
IP address and enter static IP address. (For
Mainestreet, select Server assigned IP address)
2. Select Specify name server address and type in the
address(es) you were given by your ISP. (Mainestreet
gives you addresses to use.) If your ISP does not
provide addresses, select Server assigned name server
address.
3. Select Use IP header compression if at 14,400 baud or
lower (otherwise, leave unchecked)( I can't see that
it makes much difference on my system.)
4. Select Default gateway on remote network
5. Select OK

Script tab:
After dialing (login) - select Pop up a terminal window
for manual login or select Run this script if you have a
functioning login script from an earlier version of
Windows NT.
Select the Before dialing button: select None to use the
default MODEM.INF script for your supported modem.
Select OK

Security tab:
Select Accept any authentication including clear text

X.25 tab:
Leave alone unless you have an X.25 network provider

Select OK

You are back in the Dial-Up Networking window

Select: More
Here you can add, edit or delete entries and change modem
properties. You can also set a number of user preferences.


Exit Dial-Up Networking and restart your computer.

Select Dial-Up Networking
Select Dial
Follow your usual logon sequence

Typical SLIP LOGON SCRIPT

The logon script is in the switch.inf file which is in the WINNT\system32
\ras directory. A typical switch.inf file is shown below. Just rename
your switch.inf file, create a new empty switch.inf file in the \ras
directory and copy this text into that file. Note, this script is for
an ISP specific to the author's area. Other ISPs may use different scripts, so
you are somewhat on your own here. If this script does not work for you, contact your ISP for specific instructions.

[Login for username_SLIP]

COMMAND=
NoResponse
COMMAND=
NoResponse
COMMAND=
OK="name>"
LOOP=
;put in your username here
COMMAND=username
OK="word>"
LOOP=
;put in your password here
COMMAND=password
OK="ogin:"
LOOP=
;put in your username here
COMMAND=username
OK="word:"
LOOP=
;put in your password here
COMMAND=password
OK="$"
LOOP=
COMMAND= exec slip
OK=


In the above script, replace username with your own username, and replace
password with your own password. Notice that this file is not secure,
since your password is not encrypted. If you were running a PPP
connection, there is a method whereby your password could be encrypted.
The file can be protected in NT if you have the proper privileges.

Typical PPP LOGON SCRIPT

The logon script is in the switch.inf file which is in the WINNT\system32
\ras directory. A typical PPP switch.inf file is shown below. Just rename
your switch.inf file, create a new empty switch.inf file in the \ras
directory and copy this text into that file. this script is for
an ISP specific to the author's area. Other ISPs may use different scripts, so
you are somewhat on your own here. If this script does not work for you, contact your ISP for specific instructions. For further information on scripts, read the original switch.inf file and read the RAS help files.

[Login for username _ PPP]

; This is not a secure script because your username and password are
; stored in clear-text in this script. If you are able to use this
; script, you will never have to type in a username and password.
.

; See RASPHONE.HLP for complete information about scripts.


; Start communication with remote computer by sending COMMAND=

COMMAND=

COMMAND=
NoResponse
COMMAND=



OK="name>"
LOOP=


; You must replace username in the line below
; with your actual username.


COMMAND=username


; The following two lines cause RAS to ignore all responses
; until the remote computer requests your password. If the remote
; computer prompts you with a word other than password you must
; replace word> in the line below with the exact text the
; remote computer uses.

OK="word>"
LOOP=


; You must replace YourPasswordHere in the line below
; with your actual password.

COMMAND=yourpasswordhere

; Ignore the final responses from the computer.

OK=



Following the above suggestions should allow youo connect successfully to the
Internet. If you have trouble with scripting, first log on manually, using terminal, then
reproduce that sequence exactly with a script.

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