Using FrontPage® with Zeus Web Server Version 3 FAQ

What is FrontPage?
FrontPage is Microsoft's advanced Web authoring and publishing tool. Using FrontPage can significantly reduce the time and effort you spend editing and managing your website. FrontPage is fully supported under Zeus Webservers from Version 3 onwards. Full FrontPage support relies on two components. A Windows 95 / Windows NT application and a set of Microsoft server extension programs for your webserver. The extension programs provide publishing support and the FrontPage "bots".

What platforms are supported?
Microsoft provide the necessary extension programs for a number of the UNIX platforms supported by Zeus. For a full list of Microsoft supported UNIX platforms refer to the Microsoft FrontPage homepage. Links to the latest versions of the extensions for common platforms are given below, please agree to Microsoft's license agreement before downloading.

Silicon Graphics USA
Solaris Sparc USA
Digital Unix USA
HP-UX USA
Linux ELF USA

How do I install FrontPage?
Microsoft provides instructions for installing the server extensions on a number of UNIX web servers, under Zeus these instructions are unnecessary. Zeus Web Server includes it's own FrontPage installation script for the Microsoft FrontPage extensions. You should not use the Microsoft installation scripts to install FrontPage support under Zeus. By using our own installation script we can make the installation of the server side FrontPage components less painful. The installation guide describes how to setup FrontPage with Zeus.

Is FrontPage under Zeus secure?
Yes. The FrontPage extensions used by Zeus are provided Microsoft, they are tested by Microsoft for possible security flaws and bugs before they are released. In addition to this, Zeus unlike any other webserver, runs the FrontPage CGI programs in their own secure sandbox environment. The Zeus server will change to the correct user id of the FrontPage web, before running the CGI program. This effectively stops the CGI program from altering any files which the user does not own, and eliminates the need for SUID binaries. Zeus is not affected by the Apache FrontPage security hole.

Is FrontPage under Zeus scalable?
Yes. Like all UNIX webservers, Zeus uses the FrontPage extensions provided by Microsoft. These extensions are CGI programs which are run by the server when FrontPage functionality is required. The CGI interface is not the most efficient method to add functionality to your webserver, better methods such as ISAPI exist. Unfortunately Microsoft only provides ISAPI FrontPage extensions for NT servers. However running FrontPage under the Zeus Server, does give considerable advantages when compared to other UNIX servers. Zeus has a very low memory footprint, requiring only a small amount of physical memory for each virtual server. This allows the Microsoft CGI programs to run much more efficiently, than they do under the Apache or Netscape servers on the same hardware.

Can I use FrontPage with Software Virtual Servers and SubServers?
Yes. Software virtual servers and IP bound virtual servers are treated exactly the same under Zeus. The FrontPage client, correctly sends the HOST HTTP header to identify which virtual server it is referring to. SubServers work in exactly the same manner. Using a shared SubServer configuration, FrontPage can be enabled for large numbers of virtual servers with the minimum of effort.

How do I administer a FrontPage Web under Zeus?
All FrontPage administration can be performed using the FrontPage client. Webs can be created, renamed and deleted all from within the FrontPage client. For more details of how to do this, consult your FrontPage documentation.

I've moved a FrontPage docroot to a new virtual server, why doesn't it work?
When Frontpage is installed for a website, the Microsoft installation binaries create a text file containing information about the website, such as where the document root is. The FrontPage binaries use these text files for the configuration information when they run. However this means that any changes to the document root of the webserver are not automatically reflected in these text files, and so FrontPage gets 'out-of-sync' with the actual configuration.

To move your FrontPage docroot to another virtual server, you have two choices. You can either run the fpinst.sh program on your new virtual server (with a blank docroot) then copy or move the fp docroot into the new docroot, or you will need to manually edit the text files. If you are moving a single FrontPage web, the reinstallation option may be easier, but be careful to move all the files, including any starting with a "." character. If you need to move a number of FrontPage docroots it maybe quicker to edit the text files.

Two text files are created when you run the fpinst.sh script, they are both created in the /usr/local/frontpage directory hierarchy. They are: 

/usr/local/frontpage/www.myhost.domain:port.cnf
/usr/local/frontpage/zeus/virtualserver/srm.conf
Where www.myhost.domain is fully qualified hostname, (the named used to access the virtual server over the Internet). The port is the port number used to access the web server. If no port is specified in the configuration. The, virtualserver is the virtual server name used in the web server controller.
The information contained in these files are fairly straight forward and should pose no problems for most webmasters. A short explanation of exactly what requires changing follows.
Restart the virtual server for the changes to take effect.

FrontPage, Windows95 and Windows NT is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, USA.

Back