Managing your server
his chapter describes how to configure and
manage your server using the Netscape Server Administration page and the
Server Manager.
During installation, you specified a port
number for the administration server. The administration server helps you
manage your Netscape Enterprise Server (or multiple servers) from a single
interface--the Netscape Server Administration page. From this page you
can access the Server Manager, which is a collection of forms you use to
change options and control your web server.
This chapter contains sections on using the Server
Administration page and Server Manager.
Using the Server Administration page
You configure your administration server and
access the configuration forms for other Netscape servers (including the
Netscape Enterprise Server) with the Netscape Server Administration page.
This page contains links to the Server Managers for the Netscape servers
you have installed.
You can perform the following web server tasks
from the Server Administration page:
-
Choose a server to configure.
-
Install another web server on the machine.
-
Remove a server from the list of servers you can configure.
-
Start and stop a web server.
-
Import or migrate from a 2.x web server to a 3.0 web server.
In addition, you can perform tasks for the administration
server. For more information see Managing Netscape Servers.
Accessing the Server Administration page
If you stopped the administration server after installation,
you must start the administration server before you can configure your
web server. Go to the server root directory and type ./start-admin.
This starts the administration server using the port number you specified
during installation.
As long as you have access to client software
such as Navigator, you can access the Server Administration page to configure
your web server.
To access the Server Administration page:
-
Using a browser that supports frames and JavaScript, such as Netscape Navigator,
type the URL for the administration server:
http://servername.your_domain.domain:port_number/
Use the port number for the administration server
that you specified during installation; this is not the port number for
the web server.
-
You'll be prompted for a username and password. Type the administration
server username and password you specified during the installation.
The Server Administration page appears, as shown
in Figure 3.1.
The Server Administration page.
The Server Administration page lists all the servers
you've installed on this system. Click the name of the server you want
to configure.
Starting and stopping a web server
You can start and stop the
servers listed in the Server Administration page by clicking the On/Off
icon located to the left of the server's name.
Setting up multiple servers
There are three ways you can have multiple web servers
on your system:
-
Install multiple instances of the server
-
Use hardware virtual servers
-
Use software virtual servers
Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses; you
should choose the one that's right for your situation.
If you install multiple instances of the
server, you can have separate configuration information. For example, one
instance of the server could have security features or web publishing enabled
while another server could have them disabled. However, each instance of
the server takes substantial resources of RAM, disk space, and swap space.
Hardware virtual servers allow you to map multiple
IP addresses to multiple document roots. For example, if you have two IP
addresses, you could map the first IP address to one document root and
the second IP address to a second document root. While hardware virtual
servers take fewer system resources than multiple instances of the server,
they must share the same configuration information. For example, if one
hardware virtual server has enabled security features or web publishing,
they all must have it enabled.
Software virtual servers give you the ability
to map a single IP address to multiple server names. Each software virtual
server can have its own home page. One use for this is to host multiple
web sites from one IP address. However, in order for software virtual servers
to work correctly, the users accessing the server must be using client
software that supports the HTTP Host header. Like hardware virtual servers,
software virtual servers all must have the same configuration.
For more information on virtual servers, see "Setting
up hardware virtual servers" on page 61 and "Setting
up software virtual servers" on page 62.
Installing multiple instances of the web server
You can install another instance of the web server
on your current computer without going through the installation program.
Your web server software license allows you to have as many web server
instances as you want on one system. Each web server you have installed
can run on any TCP/IP port on your system, but you cannot run two web servers
on the same port at the same time unless they are configured to respond
to different IP addresses. Contact your system's vendor for information
on how to configure your system to respond to different IP addresses.
If your system is configured to listen to multiple
IP addresses, for each server you install enter one of the IP addresses
that your system is hosting.
If you installed your server before configuring
your system to host multiple IP addresses, configure your system to respond
to different IP addresses. Then you can either install hardware virtual
servers or change the server's bind address using the Server Manager (see
"Configuring network settings" on page 82)
and install separate instances of the server for each IP address.
To install another web server with its own
separate configuration files:
-
Click Create New Netscape Enterprise Server from the Server Administration
page.
-
Enter values for the following:
-
Server name--Type the fully qualified domain name for your server. If you
are installing a second server for a custom domain, enter the domain here.
-
Bind address--If you're installing another server in order to have your
machine answer to multiple IP addresses, enter the IP address that this
instance of the server should listen to. Your system should already be
configured to listen to multiple IP addresses. If you're not going to use
multiple IP addresses, you can leave this field blank.
-
Server port--Type the number of the port that you want this server to listen
to.
-
Server identifier--Type the server identification that the administration
server will use for your web server (for example, marketing_server).
This name is used to identify the server's subdirectory in the server root.
-
Server user--Type the username you want the server to run as. The server
user should only have restricted access to your system resources. You can
often use a user named nobody in this situation. On some systems,
however, nobody isn't a valid username. Also, the server user
should have group access to certain files used by all Netscape SuiteSpot
servers. You might not want to give the user nobody group access
to those files. If you do not use nobody, create a new Unix user
to be the server user. If you are unfamiliar with creating Unix users,
see your system administrator or your system documentation.
-
MTA host--Type the Message Transfer Agent (MTA) host. You must enter a
valid MTA host if you want to use the agent email function.
-
NNTP host--Type the NNTP Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) host. You
must enter a valid NNTP host if you want to use agents with the capability
to post to news.
-
Document root--Type this server's document root, which is the directory
that contains most of your server documents.
-
Click OK.
After installing, you will have several subdirectories
in your server root directory, one for each server you installed. Each
of these servers can be managed from the Server Administration page.
Migrating a server from a previous version
You can migrate a server from 2.x to 3.0 using the
administration server. Your 2.x server is preserved, and a new 3.0 server
using the same settings is created.
You should stop running the 2.x server before
migrating settings. Make sure you have Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later
installed on your computer before migrating settings.
-
From the Netscape Server Administration page, click the "Migrate from previous
version" link. The Choose 2.x Server Root to Import From page appears.
-
Enter the directory that contains the server from which you want to import
settings. Click the Find Servers button. The Choose Servers to Import page
appears.
-
Click the checkbox next to the server with the settings you want to import.
The next page displayed depends upon the server or servers you chose to
import settings from. You may need to click an Import button to continue
the import.
-
When the import of the server is complete, click the Dismiss button.
Removing a server from your system
To remove a server from your system, use the Server
Administration page. Be sure that you will not need the server anymore.
You can also remove the administration server for the type of server you
are deleting. For example, if you are removing an Enterprise Server and
no longer plan to install any Enterprise Servers, you could remove the
administration server too.
To remove a server:
-
Shut down the server before removing it by clicking the On/Off icon to
the left of the server name in the Server Administration page.
-
Click Remove a Server from the Server Administration page.
-
Select the server that you want to remove.
-
Select whether you want to remove the administration binaries, which include
the administration server's configuration files and binaries.
Caution!
Do not remove the binaries for the administration
server if more than one server is installed.
-
Verify that you want to remove the server and the administration binaries
by clicking the Yes checkboxes for each one you want to remove.
-
Click OK.
Using the Server Manager
The Server Manager is the collection of forms you
use to change options and control your server. From the Server Administration
page, which lists all the servers installed on your system according to
identifier, access the Server Manager by clicking the button showing the
server name (located next to the On/Off icon). The Server Manager appears.
(You can use the Server Manager from any remote system as long as the system
you're working on is one of the hosts that can access the administration
server; you don't need to be working at the system the server is installed
on.)
Note
When changing server information, you must save and apply your
changes in order for your changes to take place. After you submit a form,
you get a pointer to a script that allows you to save and apply your changes.
You can return to the Server Administration page
by clicking the Admin button in the upper-right corner of
the Server Manager. The Server Manager is shown in Figure
3.2.
The Server Manager
Use the server configuration buttons in the top
frame to configure the server. After clicking a button, you'll see a list
of items on the left. Click one of these links; the corresponding form
comes up in the main frame. If you need more information about a form,
click Help for context-sensitive help. In the help window, click Contents
to see a list of online manuals you can view.
Using the Resource Picker
Most of the Server Manager forms configure the entire
server. Some forms can configure either the entire server or files or directories
that the server maintains. These forms have the Resource Picker, shown
in Figure 3.3, at the top. The Resource
Picker lets you specify what resource to configure.
Resource Picker
Pick a resource from the drop-down list for configuration.
Click Browse to browse your primary document directory; clicking Options
allows you to choose other directories. Click Wildcard to configure files
with a specific extension.
Wildcards used in the Resource Picker
In many parts of the server configuration, you specify
wildcard patterns to represent one or more items to configure. Please note
that the wildcards for access control and text search may be different
from those discussed in this section.
Wildcard patterns use special characters.
If you want to use one of these characters without the special meaning,
precede it with a backslash (\) character.
Resource Picker wildcard patterns
Pattern
|
Use
|
*
|
Match zero or more characters.
|
?
|
Match exactly one occurrence of any character.
|
|
|
An or expression. The substrings used
with this operator can contain other special characters such as *
or $. The substrings must be enclosed in parentheses, for example,
(a|b|c), but the parentheses cannot be nested.
|
$
|
Match the end of the string. This is useful in
or expressions.
|
[abc]
|
Match one occurrence of the characters a,
b, or c. Within these expressions, the only character
that needs to be treated as a special character is ]; all others
are not special.
|
[a-z]
|
Match one occurrence of a character between
a and z.
|
[^az]
|
Match any character except a or z.
|
*~ |
This expression, followed by another expression,
removes any pattern matching the second expression.
|
Resource Picker wildcard examples
Pattern
|
Result
|
*.netscape.com
|
Matches any string ending with the characters
.netscape.com.
|
(quark|energy).netscape.com |
Matches either quark.netscape.com or
energy.netscape.com. |
198.93.9[23].??? |
Matches a numeric string starting with either
198.93.92 or 198.93.93 and ending with any 3 characters. |
*.*
|
Matches any string with a period in it.
|
*~netscape-* |
Matches any string except those starting with
netscape-.
|
*.netscape.com~quark.netscape.com |
Matches any host from domain netscape.com
except for a single host quark.netscape.com.
|
*.netscape.com~(quark|energy|neutrino).netscape.com |
Matches any host from domain netscape.com
except for hosts quark.netscape.com, energy.netscape.com,
and neutrino.netscape.com.
|
*.com~*.netscape.com |
Matches any host from domain com except
for hosts from subdomain netscape.com. |
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All rights reserved.