Enhancements To Http Server For Iseries: August 2001 - IBM i series Handbook

Operating System/400 (5722-SS1)

Enhancements to HTTP Server for iSeries: August 2001

The HTTP Server for iSeries is enhanced to include the latest functions from the Apache
Software Foundation (ASF). The major enhancements include:
• Support for the latest Apache 2.0 Level
Apache 2.0 offers multiple benefits beyond the previous alpha level version, including
filtering, I/O buffering, and the latest code fixes from ASF.
• Support and documentation of the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) APIs
APR APIs allow user written modules to be platform-independent. These APIs allow Web
developers to write modules and applications independent of the platform, making it
easier to bring your applications to the iSeries platform. Operating system specific
functionality is encapsulated into the APIs provided by the IBM HTTP Server product.
– Header files are provided for all supported APIs.
– The sample user module mod_example is provided. This module demonstrates a use
of the Apache APIs.
• Support for server side includes
SSI tags are comments within HTML that direct the Web server to dynamically generate
information for the page. SSI tags allow a Web developer to easily include common HTML
statements such as headers and footers, so that they are easily managed and consistent
across an entire Web site. SSI can be used to include static HTML, to call and execute
programs (such as through CGI programs) to allow the insertion of results. Added SSI
support includes two varieties of SSI and CGI combinations:
– Parse an HTML document and include the output of a CGI program as dynamic
content on an HTML page.
– Parse the output of a CGI program to resolve SSI tags before returning the output to
the client browser.
• Support for WebDAV (MOD_DAV)
World Wide Web distributed authoring and versioning is a set of extensions to the HTTP
protocol that allows users to collaborate to edit and manage files on remote Web servers.
WebDAV provides a network protocol to create interoperable, collaborative applications.
Features of the protocol include:
– Locking (Concurrency Control): Long-duration exclusive and shared write locks
prevent the overwrite problem, where two or more collaborators write to the same
resource without first merging changes.
– Properties: XML properties provide storage for arbitrary metadata, such as a list of
authors on Web resources. These properties can effectively be set, deleted, and
retrieved using the DAV protocol.
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