| Chapter Syllabus 22.1 HP ObAM-Apache Web Server 22.2 The Apache Web Server Many tools to manage HP-UX now come with a Web-based interface. Managing Web servers is a task normally associated with a Web administrator. The reality of the situation is that a significant number of administrative applications come with either cut-down Web server software built in to the application, or the necessary configuration files to allow the application to be hosted under an existing Web server daemon. The daemon process associated with the majority of Web servers is a process called httpd . This daemon will be listening on multiple network ports for incoming requests to display and manipulate Web pages. At its heart, the httpd process has a configuration file that will document which ports the daemon is to listen on. Don't be surprised if you find multiple httpd processes on your system. As mentioned previously, many administrative applications come with HP-UX that include a Web-server component:
root@hpeos002[] # ps -ef grep http root 2059 1 0 11:42:35 ? 0:00 /usr/obam/server/bin/httpd -f /usr/obam  /server/conf/httpd.conf webadmin 2066 2059 0 11:42:36 ? 0:00 /usr/obam/server/bin/httpd -f /usr/obam /server/conf/httpd.conf webadmin 2064 2059 0 11:42:35 ? 0:00 /usr/obam/server/bin/httpd -f /usr/obam /server/conf/httpd.conf www 2335 2330 0 11:43:01 ? 0:00 /opt/hpws/apache/bin/httpd -d /opt/hpws /apache -k start webadmin 2069 2059 0 11:42:36 ? 0:00 /usr/obam/server/bin/httpd -f /usr/obam /server/conf/httpd.conf webadmin 2062 2059 0 11:42:35 ? 0:00 /usr/obam/server/bin/httpd -f /usr/obam /server/conf/httpd.conf www 2336 2330 0 11:43:02 ? 0:00 /opt/hpws/apache/bin/httpd -d /opt/hpws /apache -k start root 2330 1 0 11:43:01 ? 0:00 /opt/hpws/apache/bin/httpd -d /opt/hpws /apache -k start www 2331 2330 0 11:43:01 ? 0:00 /opt/hpws/apache/bin/httpd -d /opt/hpws /apache -k start root 3543 3521 4 13:18:27 pts/0 0:00 grep http root@hpeos002[] #
On this system, we can see that there are essentially two variants of Web-server daemons running: One is Web-server software located under the /usr/obam/server directory structure, and the other is located under the /opt/hpws/apache directory structure. These are the two predominant Web servers that come standard with HP-UX. The first one is known as the ObAM-Apache Web server and is used by administrative tools such as Partition Manager. As the name might suggest, this is a variant of the popular Apache Web-server software. In fact, it is simply a cut-down version of this software without the built-in ability to support concepts such as virtual hosts . The second Web server we see on this system is the full-blown Apache Web-server software that is available free with HP-UX 11i. This includes: -
HP-UX Apache-based Web Server -
HP-UX Webmin-based Administration -
HP-UX Tomcat-based Servlet Engine -
HP-UX XML Web Server Tools For more details and access to download this free product, see http://software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=HPUXWSSUITE. The confusing part is " why are there two Web servers in the first place? " The main reason is that the additional administrative tools that come with HP-UX want to provide a convenient interface to manage their product. That interface is a Web-based interface supporting programming languages such as XML, HTML, Java, and so on. The complicating factor is that these additional tools could use essentially the same configuration files as any other Web-server-based products. If these additional tools were to add their configuration files to your Web infrastructure, it could potentially ruin your company's Web portal, possibly causing your company's entire Web site to crash. This would not be a good advertisement for a new administrative tool. As a result, many of these tools come with a cut-down Web server with their own configuration files and associated Web pages. That is exactly the situation we have on the machine above. Neither Web server is started on HP-UX by default. Here's what we need to establish: -
Where the configuration files for these daemons are located. -
How to configure the basic functionality of the Web server itself. -
How to interface with the tools they support. This is the basic structure of this chapter. We won't go into writing HTML and CGI scripts, because I feel that such tasks are not necessarily the job of a CSE for HP-UX. We look at the basic operation of the two common Web servers we saw on the HP-UX system above: the ObAM-Apache Web server and the full-blown Apache Web server. Please note that other administrative tools may use their own Web-server software located in different directories. The idea of this chapter is to give you an insight into the most common features of a typical httpd.conf configuration file, wherever it is located. We finish this discussion with a look at some future developments in the area of Web servers to support HP-UX administrative tasks. | 