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The preferred configuration is a webserver on each student desktop machine.
If this is difficult, other configurations (described below, in which the students share
a single web server on one Unix or one NT machine) are possible.
If the webserver is on a single Unix host, shared by the all the students:
- Let's say your httpd is running on a machine named
strfleet.hpl.hp.com.
- User config:
Let's say the student's login is
corp7.
Each student has, or will create, beneath his home directory,
a sub-directory named public_html.
- Home pages:
Thus, he would access his home page as
http://strfleet.hpl.hp.com/~corp7.
- Running CGI scripts:
A script named, say,
doit.cgi, in the student's
public_html directory (or in a sub-directory thereof)
would be invoked as
http://strfleet.hpl.hp.com/~corp7/doit.cgi.
If the webserver is on a single NT host, shared by all the students:
- Make sure that TCP/IP is installed. Obtain a static
IP address from the network administrator or ask the network
administrator to reserve your IP address through a DHCP Server.
- Make sure that this IP address is in the company's DNS
host tables. If it isn't, ask a network administrator to add it.
If you're using Microsoft's IIS web server:
- Install MS IIS. Make sure that both its web server and its
ftp server components are installed.
- FTP Configuration:
- Deselect "allow only anonymous connections."
- Change the home ftp root to match the home web root directory,
which is c:\inetpub\wwwroot by default
- Allow read and write to the ftp root directory.
- IIS document tree (web root) -- allow both read and
execute in this directory.
- To enable students to upload files to the webserver machine,
create a user ID in NT, e.g. "training". Make sure this user
has permission to create and modify files in the webserver's
document tree.
- Install Service Pack 3. Do this after installing IIS.
It updates both IIS and NT 4.0. The Service Pack must be
reinstalled after any part of the NT operating system is
installed or upgraded.
- Edit the registry as described below.
- Stop and restart the Web service after any registry changes have been made.
| Registry Key |
Value |
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\System
\CurrentControlSet
\Services
\InetInfo
\Parameters
\MimeMap |
set to .htm (REG_SZ, No string required.) |
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\System
\CurrentControlSet
\Services
\W3SVC
\Parameters
\ScriptMap |
Edit menu: add value, data type REG_SZ.
Type the filename extension used for Perl scripts (.pl or .cgi).
In the string editor, enter the full pathname of the Perl interpreter, followed by %1 %*, e.g.:
C:\Program Files\Perl\bin\perl.exe %1 %*
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If each student has his or her own webserver on an NT desktop machine:
- The setup steps are the same as above, except that you needn't
worry about name servers and static IP addresses, because each
student will be able to see his/her own machine as localhost.
File setup:
- The files each student needs will be downloaded by the student
as the first step in each lab when needed.
CGI policy:
- This is the crucial part.
The webserver must be configured
to execute as CGI scripts
any executable file with the filename extension .cgi and/or .pl.
- On Unix, this is done by editing its
srm.conf
and access.conf files.
- On NT with IIS, this is done by making the registry edits described above.
- On either operating system with Netscape's FastTrack server,
connect in your browser to its administrative server (password and
special port number required), click the button labeled with the
server's name, then click the button labeled "Programs", then set
the appropriate value for "Shell CGI".
Testing:
- Verify that your CGI setup works.
Once you have the Perl interpreter installed,
create a little CGI script and verify
that each webserver runs it properly.
The following Perl script would suffice:
#!/usr/bin/perl
# substitute path to perl interpreter as appropriate
print "Content-Type: text/html\n\nHello World!\n";
You'd invoke this in the browser via a URL such as:
http://localhost/cgi-bin/hello.cgi
where hello.cgi is the name of the script file (must be
world-executable) and cgi-bin is the directory configured
in the webserver for CGI scripts (substitute as appropriate).
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