Neese, Tim

Nyman, Bill

English

Biodiversity Informatics

The World-Wide Web Phenomenon "Stay with {the Web} long enough, and sooner or later; you are going to want to try your hand at composing. " Vol. 28, No.3 Technical Update Network Update Your Own Internet Web Server by Tim Neese & Bill Nyman, University of Colorado, Boulder Three years ago, most of LIS were busy slogging Ollr way into the Internet, or trying to figure out how much we needed to. Perched on a familiar island of email, we caught glimpses of emerging Internet technologies as they went bobbing on by. Some opined savantly that a new super or "killer" appli-ca tion would appear quite soon, somehow harnessing the full communications potential of the Net and making that poten-tial easy and convenient to exploit. The more wary regarded the Net's decentrali zed, un sta ndardized and unplanned growth and development as anarchy-cheerful anarchy per-haps, but anarchy nonetheless. The quieter ones waited to see how all of this was goi ng to do them any good. And a lot of people just weren't paying much attention. Then came the World-Wide Web. Imagine our sllrprise to find that everyone had been right all along! The sloggers kept s logging, the savants kept vis ioning, the wa ry kept trepidating, the quiet ones still looked on from the sidelines, and the rest. .. are about to stop read ing this article. The Web difference was that we cou ld do it on-line, in hypertext and multimedia. Inspiration and awkwardness flooded the Net, and the browser or Web crawler-a kind of mu ltimedia Internet receiver-crept onto desktops inexora-bly. Personal Web pages lJegan popping up everywhere, com-plete with awful looking photos of people who should know better, and their pets. Universities and corporations joined the stampede, and the phrase, "YOLI don't have a home page yet?" was a thing to be dreaded. Soon it was not enough for the university to have a Web page; departments and units wanted them, too, along with offices, programs, centers, and indi-vidual students and fa culty members. 111 Neese & Wyman That was last yea r. And the Spring of this year. This Fall, no self-respecting, bleeding-ed ge course would be offered on campus without a Web presence, and in fact, the course Web page is turning out to be a useful and versatile means of orga-nizing materials and promoting communica tion. The acqui-sition of Web literacy does seem to follow a pattern. We all star t out passively: net surfing and Web browsing, stea ling time from more worthwhile pursuits. Some return to their original pursuits because the Web thing is just not for them. Many others immerse themselves in the Web, learning and eventually adm iring its varied uses and capabilities. The im-mersed start to sound like concert-gaers at intermission, some-times casually and sometimes earnestly defending their tastes and how the current fare suits them. Stay with it long enough, and sooner or later, you are going to wa nt to try your hand at composing. The Basics Perhaps you just want to display a personal Web page, like an all-seasons Christmas card for fami ly and friends. (You might want to ha ve a trusted friend look over your photos first.) For this, you can probably persuade one of the Large Systems People (or LSP) at your campus computing center to give you some space on one of their UNIX servers that does Web serving. This might be the same computer that now houses your email account. The same strategy will work if you would like to tell the world a little about your lab: who you are, where you are, what you do, and what hours and days you do it. You may want to hire out the authoring of your first page. If your campus is anything like ours, a quick call to the computing center will turn up someone, student or staff, w ho is well up-to-speed on making Web pages. Beyond the Basics Another way you can begin your career in page authoring is by using a template. This is technica l talk for a four step process. Step 1. "Browse a suitable Web page." (Shop around for something good that someone else has done.) Step 2. "View the source code." (Download the page to your computer; this is both doable and lega l because you can take a copy of the code for any browsable page w ithout asking, and no one has tackled the copyright thing on the Web yet.) Step 3. "Cus-tomize the template to suit your needs." (Change the booty into a treasure of your own.) Step 4. "Culti va te pride of au-thorship." (Lie about what you've done while bragging to everybody about your creativity.) Here, too, your computing center can probably prov ide you w ith someone to assist you. (Get an accomplice.) The computing center will probably have space for your creations on one of their Web servers, too. 11 2 fALL JOllnlal of Lallgllage Leanlillg Techllologies Technical Update The Big Time Serving your Web pages on a remote host is not without its drawbacks. Downloadi ng page code to your desktop con-stantly or repea tedly gets ted ious. Once you've created or edited a page, you may not be able to try it out without up-loading it (again). If the page or its links don' t turn out right on that pass, you're in for another round of downloading, editing, upload ing and auditioning . Sometimes you end up with a fil e containing the old or original page up on the Web server and an edi ted or new file on your desktop with the same name in w hich case you are only an interruption away from confus ion. And finally, the computing cen ter s tarts to get peeved because you have too much material or your web site is generating so mu ch interest that the traffi c on their net-work is getting too heavy. The more changes YO LI make, the more frequently you make them, and the larger your set of Web pages grows, the more likely you are to wish for direct access to page code and loca l control of the whole process. These are some of the adva ntages of ha ving your own Internet Web server. Prerequisites Most campuses in 1995 support TCP 1fP, the Internet pro-tocol. (If you rs doesn' t, it's ti me to scream- Ioudlyl) Most labs contain one of two kinds of loca l area network servers: Novell or Appletalk. The odds are very high that your net-work is Ethernet-based and connected to a building network. That building network in turn empties into the central "back-bone" for your institution, and if you've made it this far, you probably have a ca mpus gateway to the Internet, too. If all this so, you're in business. (If you're not sure about your net-work, contact a Large Systems Person at your computing cen-ter and tell them about your Web plans. If they reply that all the network technology is there, bu t they never heard of a Novell or an Appleta lk Web server, thank them politely and then read on.) That Novell or Appleta lk server of yours-the one that has s tored and shared your files and queued YOUT printers-is about to learn a new trick. It w ill be your own Internet Web server. Naming Your Server Every computer on a TCP l IP based network has a numeric address, such as 128.138.231.172. For Web broWSing, most people prefer something more mea ningful and much easier to remember. Domain NameService (or DNS) provides a way for your Large Systems People to assign your network server Vol. 28, No.3 11 3 114 Neese & Wyman Novell Server Software a Fully Qua lified Hostname (or FQH) in add ition to its nu-meric Internet Protocol (lP) address. This name can tell the world something about w ho YOll are and what you are up to, and maybe stick in peoples' minds long enough for them to make a bookmark (a listing of your server's address in their browser software). One of the Novell servers we used as a model for th;s article is located in Academic Media Services at the University of Colorado. Its name is ams.colorado.edu. Similarly, our test-case Appletalk server is named masa la.colorado.edt!. Think about g iving your server a name like this before its Web debut. Keep in mind that the name YOLI choose must be unique, and must conform to certain con-ventions and s tandards. Your local LSP can tell you all about these. There are h"o products for you to consider when adding Web server capabiHties to your Novell neh¥ork server: HTTPD from GLAC! (Great Lakes Area Commercial Internet) and the new Netware Web Server from Novell. HTTPD Version 2.0, which appea red in mid-November, is the most recent in a series of dependable, capable, low-cost Web service softwa re packages written by the GLACI gentlefolk. HTTPD 2.0 handles HTML documents with in-line g raphics, sou nd and animation, and supports Multipur-pose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). These are enhance-ments to the popular Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for text and permit additional types of data to be shared over the Internet, such as binary, audio, and video files. Also in-cluded is ISMAP c1ickable images support so that one graphic image on a Web page can be divvied up into multiple c1ickable parts. You can set up special lists that allow or deny access to certain users or groups of users based on their IP addresses, a handy security fea ture. Another is the Personal Web Pages option. People on your local area network can store their own personal Web page in their password-protected home directory on the server and grant Web access to that page-and only to the page-to the rest of the world. What about scripting and forms? GLAC! distributes a PERL module free with each copy of Version 2.0, although it is written by another company. It performs fine for li S, and we have heard no complaints about it. Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripting support was added to thls version by GLACI. Because CG I was developed for UNIX servers and then transplanted to Novell, the GLAC! CGI has a few quirks, but they are manageable. IALL /o"rnol of LOl1gnoge Learning Technologies "There a re two products for you to consider when adding Web server capabilities to your Novell network server: HTTPO ... and the new Netware Web Server from Novell. " Vol. 28, No. 3 Technical Update The cost of a single server educational license is a nomjnal $236, and upgrades are free. Version 2.0 assumes that your Novell server is a 386, 486 or Pentium machine running Netwa re 3.11, 3.12, 4.01 or 4.1 with the Novell TCP / IP Net-work Loadable Module (NLM) installed. We have tried it on 486 and Pentium machines under 3.12 and 4.1., and have heard abou t it running fine on others. The consensus opinion is that GLACl-HTIPD is a good citizen, and does not foul up serv-ers or interfere with other NLM's. GLACl welcomes you to try HTTPD 2.0 for free. Poin t your browser at http:! / www.glaci.com/info/glaci-httpd.html and download a 30-day license to a floppy disk on your workstation. Plug the floppy into your server, run the install utility, and you' ll be Web serving in minutes. The software occupies less than 500K of d isk space and is thrifty with your RAM. You can get free technical support by phoning 415-475-6388 (that's in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin), or by sending email to s llpport@giaci.com. You can see GLACI-HTTPD in action on http:// ams.colorado.ed u-one of our mod el servers. Netware Web Server is a brand new product from Novell, so what we have to report at this writing are the officia l ru-mors. Novell tells us that, like GLACI-HTIPD, Web Server handles HTML docu ments w ith in-line graph ics, sound and animation. Early press releases do not mention MIME and ISMAP support by name, but we suspect they are probably bui lt-in. Unli ke GLACl-HTTPD, Web Server requires Netware 4.1, a potential disadvantage for Netware 3.xx devotees, but also leverages the Netware Directory Services (NOS) capa-bilities of Netwa re 4.1 into its Web servi ng role to enhance security and fl exibili ty of access. Like GLACl-HTIPD, Web Server allows you to establish IP address based security check-lis ts, and includes a COlnmon Gate\vay Interface module ca lled R-CGI, as well as a PERL Script Interpreter. Whether or not the latter two work just like their UNIX counterparts is unclear. This package includes a BASIC Script Interpreter as well. Other details include: lO-minute installation and con-figuration, on-line manuals and help, a copy of Netscape Nav igator (which is freeware anyway), and nepotistica lly close integration with WordPerfect's Internet Publisher (al-though the small print says other HTML publishers will work fine, too). Web Server will be for sa le through Authorized Novell Channel Partners on December 21,1995 and lists for a $995. If pricing follows the usual Novell policy, educational users should be able to get a license for about $800. No clue on w hat upgrades may run, but it's fa ir to say that Novell is not known for its largesse. Netware 4.1 is required for run-115 Neese & Wyman Macintosh Software "While most of the Web servers on the Internet are UNIX machines, about 10% are running on Macintoshes using MacHTTPor WebStar. " 11 6 ning Web Server, along with 2+ mega bytes of disk space to hold the so ftware itself and the on-line documentation. For more late-breaking news, point your browser at http:// corp.novell.com! announce! webserve. MacHTTP has long been the Web server of choice for Maci ntosh computers. While most of the Web servers on the Internet are UNIX ma chines, about 10% are funnin g on Macintoshes using MacHTTP or WebStar. Ease of setup, main-tenance, and ed iting of Web documents aTe the primary ad-vantages that lead some to use a Macintosh for a Web server. Low hardware costs for an entry-level Power Macintosh and the ability to use existing equipment, such as an AppleShare file server, likewise lead people to foray into Web publishing on a Macintosh server. Product information and evaluation cop ies of MacHTTP ca n be obtained at http: // www.starnine.com! machttp!machttp.html. MacHTTP costs $65 for ed ucational institutions, and provides adequate fea-tures and perforrnance for people wanting to make just text and graphics available on the Web. It provides security fea-tures such as restricting access to particular ranges of IP ad-dresses and assigning server passwords. While it does sup-port AppleScript, eGI, Imagemaps, and MacPerl to offer a variety of interactive forms capabilities through scripting, it can become sluggish when several people access these scripts concurrently. It does perform adequately, however, for sites receiving hundreds of requests or "hits" an hour, w hich means only abou t a dozen requests concurrently. Although a Power Macintosh is recommended, our model Macin tosh server-masala.colorado.edu-is just an old SE!30 that receives about SOD requests a day and rarely makes more than s ix concurrent connections. MacHTTP takes less than 1.5 megabytes of RAM and less than 1.0 megabytes of disk space, so it will run com-fortably on System 7 and 8 megabytes of RAM. WebStar is the commercial incarnation of MacHTTP from StarNine Technologies, ava ilable on the Web at http:! ! www.sta rnine.com / webstar / and offers performance e n-hancements and additional fea tures. StarNine claims that WebStar is three to four times fa ster than Mac HTTP 2.0 and competes favorabl y with many UN IX servers. A Secure Sock-ets Layer (SSL) extension is available for WebStar to enable a Macintosh server to provide encrypted access for secure trans-actions such as fo r electronic billing functions. It also supports IALL JOllmal of Lallgllage Lenming Technologies Technical Update the fu ll range of scripting and clickable map features to cre-ate more interactive and dynamic Web sites. WebStar is best su ited for busier sites that receive thousands of connections per hour. Educational pricing starts at $295 per copy. FTPd. Recently, Peter N. Lewis, of Macintosh shareware fa me, added Web serving capability to his popular FTP and Gopher server softwa re, FTPd. FTPd allows your Macintosh to make files ava ilable via File Transfer Protocol (FTr ), text documents accessible via Gopher, and Web pages browsable via th e Wor ld Wid e Web - a ll lo r jus t $10 at http: / / h yperarchive.lcs.mit.ed u / Hyper Arch ive/ Archive/ comm / tcp /ftpd-300. hqx. Since it uses the Users and Groups privi-leges from Apple File Sharing, it requires a Macintosh run-ning System 7 and works well on AppleShare servers. It doesn't support CG I, forms scripting, or clickable maps, but it is adequate for making just text and graphics ava ilable on the Web. Conclusion Novell and Macintosh servers offer an inexpensive way to Vol. 28, No.3 publicize your services and resou rces, and make course ma-terials ava ilable widely across your campus or to the world. Using your local area network file server as a Web server al-lows you to edit Web documents in the sa me way you ed it word -processing documents, and spares you the task of con-stantly transferring fil es to and from a UNIX server. You ca n probably use existing equipment, and the software ca n be set up in minutes and maintained even by ord inary mortals. As long as YOll make sure that your file and folder names con-form to UNIX naming conven tions, files stored on a Novell or Macintosh Web server can easily be moved to a UNIX server later il you outgrow you r own Internet Web server. Tilll Neese is the Director of tile IlIstmctiollal Tecllllology Re-sOllree Cellter at tile Ulliversity of Colorado at BOlllder. His Web page is available at http://spot.colorado.edll/-lIeese/Hollle.lltllli. Bill WYlllall , who is really a Gerlllall teacller, IIeads tile Compll t-illg SlIpport Divisioll of Acadelllic Media Services at tile Ulliver-sin) of Colorado at BOlllder. 11 7 COlllputer Assisted Language Learning An International Journal Editor: Keith Cameron, School of Modern Languages, The University, Exeter, England Audience: Teachers and researchers, linguists, computer scientists, psychologists, and educatio-nalists. Aims and Scope: Computer Assisted Language Learning is an international journal which leads the field in its total dedication to all matters associated with the use of computers in language learning (L1 and L2). It provides a forum to discuss the discoveries in the field and to exchange experience and information about existing techniques. The scope of the Journal, by its very definition, embraces a multitude of disciplines. Areas covered: • Pedagogical principles and their applications Second Language Research ISSN 0958-8221 • • • • • • • • • • Cognitive Modelling Observations on, and evaluation of, CALL software Intelligent Tutoring Systems Digitised versions of Video and Audio Application of AI to language teaching Computer assisted translation Computer assisted composition Multi-lingual systems Simulated-active learning environments 1995, volume 8, 4 issues Price Institutions Individuals Dft.286,00 Dft. 126,00 Volumes 1-7 are available from the publisher Please send/fax your order, or free sample copy request to: Swets & Zeitlinger P.O. Box 825 2160 SZ Lisse the Netherlands Tel. (+31) 2521-35111, Fax (+31) 2521-15888 

Your Own Internet Web Server

The University of Kansas: Journals@KU

https://journals.ku.edu/IALLT/article/download/9719/9184/

Your Own Internet Web Server

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Biodiversity Informatics

The University of Kansas: Journals@KU