Amit's Weblog

Wednesday Jul 30, 2008

Running Mediawiki on Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

After running drupal on Web Server 7.0 in a matter of few minutes, I was very excited to run other PHP applications as well. I picked up mediawiki this time and downloaded the tar ball from mediawiki.org. Since I have already configured PHP with Web Server 7.0, I simply extracted the mediawiki tar ball into the Web Server instance document root and set index.php as a welcome file using the administration GUI. That is all it takes to run mediawiki on Web Server 7.0

In case you want to use CLI instead of administration GUI, you could invoke the following wadm commands after extracting the mediawiki tar ball into the Web Server instance document root-

wadm> get-index-files --config <config-name> --vs <vs-name>
index-files=index.html,home.html,index.jsp

wadm> set-index-files --config <config-name> --vs <vs-name> index.html,home.html,index.jsp,index.php
CLI201 Command 'set-index-files' ran successfully

wadm> deploy-config <config-name>
CLI201 Command 'deploy-config' ran successfully

wadm> start-instance --config <config-name>
CLI204 Successfully started the server instance

Now access the mediawiki by typing in the URL - http://<host>:<port>/<name_of_the_extracted_mediawiki_directory> in the browser and complete the mediawiki installation by following the instructions in the INSTALL file which can be located directly under the extracted mediawiki directory.

You can see how easy it is to run mediawiki on Web Server 7.0 in the following screen cast. This demonstration assumes that you have already configured PHP with Web Server 7.0 (Watch the "Using PHP with Sun Java System Web Server 7.0" screen cast if you haven't configured PHP with Web Server 7.0 as yet)

Posted at 03:16AM Jul 30, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[0] | Permalink

Thursday Jul 24, 2008

Setting up a reverse proxy in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

The other day I was trying to use Web Server 7.0 to set up a reverse proxy. As usual, I googled it and found this nice blog - "Configuring Reverse Proxy in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0". This blog talks about using the CLI to configure a reverse proxy but I wanted to see if I could do the same using the Administration GUI.

As expected, I could manage to configure the reverse proxy with few clicks on the Administration GUI. You can see that in action in the following screen cast:

Posted at 04:54AM Jul 24, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[2] | Permalink

Friday Jul 18, 2008

Access Control using LDAP in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

One of the most common tasks in any web server is to restrict the access to a URI to say some specific users in a corporate LDAP database. This task can be easily done using Access Control in Web Server 7.0. You can find more information about Access Control in the "Access Control In Sun Java System Web Server 7.0" blog.

Setting up an Access Control List for a URI using Web Server 7.0 administration console is a matter of few clicks. You can see that in action in the following screen cast.

Posted at 08:07AM Jul 18, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[0] | Permalink

Thursday Jul 17, 2008

Running Drupal on Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

I have successfully configured PHP with Web Server 7.0 couple of days ago and thus I wanted to try if I could get some cool PHP applications to work with Web Server 7.0. I picked up Drupal which is a content management PHP application and started exploring the ways to get this application working with Web Server 7.0.

The good news is that it actually doesn't take much time to run Drupal on Web Server 7.0. I have captured this experiment of mine in the following screen cast. This screen cast assumes that you have already configured PHP with Web Server 7.0 using PHP Add-On. (Refer of my previous blog if you haven't configured PHP with Web Server 7.0 as yet). PHP Add-On has a in built support for MySQL which is required by Drupal as well (Refer to "Mysql with PHP on Sun Java System Web Server 7.0" blog to find more about it)

Posted at 01:57AM Jul 17, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[4] | Permalink

Friday Jul 11, 2008

Using PHP with Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

I have never tried running a PHP application so far being a java guy but I always wanted to know how easy or difficult it would be. I decided to try configuring PHP with Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 and when I googled for PHP and web server 7.0, I found this useful blog. While this blog talks about configuring PHP with Web Server 7.0 on Windows, I wanted to try the same on my Solaris 10 desktop and guess what, it didn't take me more than a few minutes to figure out what needs to be done.

I used the administration GUI to configure PHP with Web Server 7.0 but you could use wadm commands as well. You can refer to the Using CLI section of "Using PHP on Sun Java System Web Server 7.0" blog to find more out the wadm commands.

You can see how I got PHP working with Web Server 7.0 using Administraiton GUI in the following screen cast. Few points to note to understand this screen cast better:
- I have downloaded the PHP Add-On 1.0 pack from sun.com
- I have installed Web Server 7.0 Update 3 on Solaris 10

Posted at 09:12AM Jul 11, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[1] | Permalink

Thursday Jul 03, 2008

Using LDAP authentication for administration server in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

With the release of Web Server 7.0 Update 3, you can now configure the administration server to use LDAP authentication. The administration server is configured to use keyfile authentication by default and it can be switched to use LDAP authentication quite easily using either the administration GUI or CLI.

Let us use wadm CLI and see what it takes to switch to LDAP authentication against Sun Java System Directory Server.

wadm> enable-admin-ldap-auth --ldap-url=ldap://test.sunds.com:389/o=TestCentral --allow-group=testGroup
CLI213 The administration server needs to be restarted for the changes to take effect.

wadm> get-admin-ldap-auth-prop
enabled=true
ldap-url="ldap://test.sunds.com:389/o=TestCentral"
search-filter=uid
group-search-filter=uniquemember
group-search-attr=CN
timeout=10
allow-group=testGroup

Note that you have to restart the administration server for the changes to take effect.

You can switch back to the default keyfile authentication by executing the following command:

wadm> disable-admin-ldap-auth
CLI213 The administration server needs to be restarted for the changes to take effect.

You can see the same tasks being performed using the administration GUI in the following screen cast:

Posted at 05:29AM Jul 03, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[0] | Permalink

Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

Auto-deploying a web application to Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

One of the neat developer friendly features added in Web Server 7.0 Update 3 release is auto-deployment of web applications. This feature will allow developers to deploy a web application by simply copying a war file into the auto-deploy sub-directory of the server instance. If the instance is already running, then run the <instance-root>/https-<config>/bin/reconfig script to tell the server to pick up the auto-deployed web-app. Note that the web-app will get deployed into all the virtual servers within the configuration. To undeploy the web application, simply remove it from the auto-deploy directory and run reconfig again if the server is running.

In case you want the server instance to automatically deploy or undeploy web-application each time a war file is added or removed from the auto-deploy directory, configure dynamic-reload-interval property of the servlet container using the Administration GUI/CLI. The server will keep checking for added/removed web applications after every dynamic-reload-interval number of seconds. Lets try setting this property using the wadm CLI:

wadm> set-servlet-container-prop --config <config-name> dynamic-reload-interval=30
CLI201 Command 'set-servlet-container-prop' ran successfully
wadm> deploy-config <config-name>
CLI201 Command 'deploy-config' ran successfully

You can see auto-deployment in action in the following screen cast:

Posted at 07:20AM Jul 01, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[5] | Permalink

Monday Jun 30, 2008

Creating a SSL enabled website using Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

Creating a SSL enabled website (using Administration GUI) is perhaps one of the most easiest tasks in Web Server 7.0. You just need a few clicks in the Administration GUI if you want to set up a SSL enabled web site using a self-signed certificate. Administration GUI also has easy to use wizard to generate a certificate signing request(CSR) which you could get it signed by a well known CA and then install the CA signed certificate using another easy to use Administration GUI wizard.

I have myself created a SSL enabled website using a self signed certificate in few minutes. You could see that in the following screen cast. I have used Web Server 7.0 Update 3 release for this demonstration.

Click here to view the screen cast
Note that this screen cast requires a flash plug-in for the browser

Posted at 04:27AM Jun 30, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[1] | Permalink

Friday Jun 27, 2008

Deploying a web application to Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 with Netbeans 6.1

I found a nice article on deploying Web Applications to Web Server 7.0 with Netbeans 6.0, so I thought of giving a try to deploy a web application to Web Server 7.0 with Netbeans 6.1.

I simply followed the steps mentioned in the article and everything worked perfectly fine without any issues. I have captured this small experiment of mine in a screen cast.

Click here to view the screen cast
Note that this screen cast requires a flash plug-in for the browser

Posted at 10:24AM Jun 27, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[2] | Permalink

Thursday Jun 26, 2008

Reset administration server password in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

Another feature of the Web Server 7.0 Update 2 release which is worth mentioning is the support to reset the administration server password. It could happen that you will forget your administration password (happens to me quite often) and then think hard to recollect it.

Well, this neat feature of Web Server 7.0 would simply let you reset your administration server password without worrying about the previous password. However, this works only when wadm is executed locally on the administration server machine.

As usual, I did forget my administration server password again, so lets try to reset it to something which I can remember for sometime.

# cd <webserver_install_dir>/bin
# ./wadm reset-admin-password --user admin --host localhost --port 8800
Please enter admin-password> <new_password>
Please enter admin-password again> <new_password>
#

Posted at 08:05AM Jun 26, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[7] | Permalink

Roll back deployed configuration support in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

One of the important features added in the Web Server 7.0 Update 2 release is roll back deployed configuration support. The configuration backups are taken automatically on every deployment of the configuration up to a maximum of 7 backups after which the old back ups are removed.

While trying to explore this cool feature on my Web Server installation, I thought of capturing it in a screen cast as well. All I have done in this screen cast is that I have changed "Request Header Buffer Size" value and then restored it back using Restore feature.

Click here to view the screen cast

There is also a lower resolution version of the same screen cast available
Click here to view the lower resolution screen cast

Note that this screen cast requires a flash plug-in for the browser.

Posted at 02:37AM Jun 26, 2008 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[0] | Permalink

Wednesday Jul 04, 2007

Enabling CGI as file type in Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

In my previous blog, I have listed the steps about how to configure Sun Java System Web Server to run Perl progams as CGI applications on Windows. As we have noticed that all the Perl programs with any file extension residing in the Shell CGI directory will be treated as CGI applications. But what if you want to instruct the server to treat all files with certain extensions as CGI programs, regardless of which directory they reside in. This could be easily done by enabling "CGI as file type".
CGI as file type can be enabled per URI or for the entire virtual server. (Enabling CGI as file type per URI is being introduced in Sun Java System Web Server Update 1)

Let us try to configure Sun Java System Web Server to run a simple perl program test.cgi residing in a document directory of an instance(e.g <install-root>/https-<config>/docs) on Windows.[Read More]

Posted at 04:28AM Jul 04, 2007 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[3] | Permalink

Monday Jul 02, 2007

Configuring Perl CGI on Sun Java System Web Server 7.0

There have been lots of questions in the Sun Developer forums about running Perl programs as CGI applications on Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 especially on Windows. So I thought of briefly touching upon how to go about it. Configuring Sun Java System Web Server to run Perl progams as CGI applications on Windows is just a matter of performing few simple tasks via Administration GUI/CLI. But before we get on to listing the steps for the same, let us try to understand couple of things.[Read More]

Posted at 02:57AM Jul 02, 2007 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[1] | Permalink

Tuesday Jun 13, 2006

Monitor your Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Instances

Monitoring web server instances is a very useful technique which would help Administrators to be aware of the status of all the instances. Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 provides two cool GUI/CLI interfaces to monitor the monitoring statistics of the instances.[Read More]

Posted at 12:00AM Jun 13, 2006 by amit in Web Server 7.0 | Comments[0] | Permalink

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