11.
1 Web Server Operation
- Client-server systems
- When two computers are connected, either could
be the client
- The client initiates the communication, which the
server accepts
- Generally, clients are human consumers of
information, while servers are machine suppliers
- Client/server systems have an efficient division of
work
- All communications between Web clients and
servers use HTTP
- When a Web server starts, it tell its OS it is ready to
accept communications through a specific port,
usually 8080
- All current Web servers are descendents of the first
two (CERN and NCSA)
- Most servers are Apache running under UNIX
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 1
11.2 General Server Characteristics
- Web servers have two separate directories
- The document root is the root directory of all
servable documents (well, not really all)
e.g. Suppose the site name is www.bloomers.com
and the document root is named topdocs,
and it is stored in the /admin/web directory
So, /admin/web/topdocs is the document
directory address
If a request URL is:
http://www.bloomers.com/bulbs/tulips.html
The server will search for the file with the
given path
/admin/web/topdocs/bulbs/tulips.html
- The server can have virtual document trees
- Sometimes a different disk, possibly on a
different machine, is used after the original
disk is filled
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 2
11.2 General Server Characteristics
(continued)
- The server root is the root directory for all of the
code that implements the server
- The server root usually has four files
- One is the code for the server itself
- Three others are subdirectories
- conf - for configuration information
- logs - to store what has happened
- cgi-bin - for executable scripts
- Contemporary servers provide many services:
- Virtual hosts - multiple sites on the same system
- Proxy servers - to serve documents from the
document roots of other sites
- Besides HTTP, support for FTP, Gopher, News,
email
- Support for database access
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 3
11.3 Apache under UNIX
- Apache is available for other platforms, but it is
most commonly used under UNIX
- Apache is now a large and complex system
- The configuration file is named httpd.conf
- The directives in the configuration file control the
operation of the server
- Configuration file format:
- Comments begin with a #
- Blank lines are ignored
- Non-blank lines that do not begin with # must
begin with a directive name, which may take
parameters, separated by white space
- When Apache begins, it reads the configuration
files and sets its parameters according to what it
reads
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 4
11.3 Apache under UNIX (continued)
- Changes to configuration files affect Apache only if
it is forced to reset
- Use the following UNIX commands to force
Apache to reset:
cd /usr/local/etc/httpd/logs
kill -HUP `cat httpd.pid`
- This creates a hangup signal
- It works because Apache writes its process id
(pid) into httpd.pid when it starts
- Directives
- ServerName - default is what is returned by the
hostname command, but it may be only the first
part
ServerName www.bloomers.com
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 5
11.3 Apache under UNIX (continued)
- ServerRoot - to set the server root address
- Default is /usr/local/etc/httpd
- If it is stored elsewhere, tell Apache with:
ServerRoot /usr/local/httpd
- ServerAdmin - email address of the site admin
ServerAdmin [email protected]
- DocumentRoot - set the document root address
- Default is /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs
- If it is elsewhere, tell Apache with:
DocumentRoot /local/webdocs
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 6
11.3 Apache under UNIX (continued)
- Alias - to specify a virtual document tree
- Takes two parameters, virtual path for URLs and
the actual path
- Example:
Alias /bushes /usr/local/plants/bushes
- Now,
http://www.bloomers.com/bushes/roses.html
will be mapped to
/usr/local/plants/bushes/roses.html
- ScriptAlias - to create a secure place for CGI
scripts
- Creates a virtual directory
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/
/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 7
11.3 Apache under UNIX (continued)
- Redirect - to redirect requests to another system
e.g., To move the bushes directory to
www.bloomers2.com
Redirect /bushes
http://www.bloomers2.com/local/web/bushes
- DirectoryIndex - URL-specified directories
- When a request includes a URL that ends with
a slash, Apache searches for a document to
return, called the welcome page
- Default welcome page is index.html
- If there is no index.html, Apache may try to
build a directory listing for the home
directory (unless automatic directory listings
are turned off)
- To avoid this, provide more than one
welcome page names
DirectoryIndex index.html contents.html
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 8
11.3 Apache under UNIX (continued)
- UserDir - to specify whether local users can or
cannot add or delete documents; default is:
UserDir public_html
- Now, if user bob stores stuff.html in his
public_html directory, the URL
http://site-name/~bob/stuff.html
will work
- To make a subdirectory of public_html
available, include it in the parameter
UserDir public_html/special_stuff
- To disallow additions and deletions:
UserDir disabled
- Logs
- Access logs record all accesses (time, date, HTTP
command, URL, status, etc.)
- Error logs have the form:
[date/time] The error message
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 9
11.4 Overview of Servlets
- A servlet is a compiled Java class
- Servlets are executed on the server system under
the control of the Web server
- Servlets are managed by the servlet container, or
servlet engine
- Servlets are called through HTML
- Servlets receive requests and return responses,
both of which are supported by the HTTP protocol
- When the Web server receives a request that is for
a servlet, the request is passed to the servlet
container
- The container makes sure the servlet is loaded
and calls it
- The servlet call has two parameter objects, one
with the request and one for the response
- When the servlet is finished, the container
reinitializes itself and returns control to the Web
server
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 10
11.4 Overview of Servlets (continued)
- Servlets are used 1) as alternatives to CGI, and
2) as alternatives to Apache modules
- Servlet Advantages:
- Can be faster than CGI, because they are run
in the server process
- Have direct access to Java APIs
- Because they continue to run (unlike CGI
programs), they can save state information
- Have the usual benefits of being written in Java
(platform independence, ease of programming)
- Java Server Pages (JSP)
- Provide processing and dynamic content to
HTML documents (similar to servlets)
- Can be used as a server-side scripting
language (scriplets)
- Scriplets are translated by the JSP container
into servlets
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 11
11.5 Servlet Details
- All servlets are classes that either implement the
Servlet interface or extend a class that implements
the Servlet interface
- The Servlet interface provides the interfaces for
the methods that manage servlets and their
interactions with clients
- The Servlet interface declares three methods that
are called by the servlet container (the life-cycle
methods)
- init - initializes the servlet and prepares it to
respond to client requests
- service - controls how the servlet responds to
requests
- destroy - takes the servlet out of service
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 12
11.5 Servlet Details (continued)
- The Servlet interface declares two methods that
are used by the servlet:
- getServletConfig - to get initialization and
startup parameters for itself
- getServletInfo - to allow the servlet to return
info about itself (author, version #, etc.) to
clients
- Most user-written servlet classes are extensions
to HttpServlet (which is an extension of
GenericServlet, which implements the Servlet
Interface)
- Two other necessary interfaces:
- ServletResponse – to encapsulate the
communications, client to server
- ServletRequest – to encapsulate the
communications, server to client
- Provides servlet access to
ServletOutputStream
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 13
11.5 Servlet Details (continued)
- HttpServlet – an abstract class
- Extends GenericServlet
- Implements java.io.Serializable
- Every subclass of HttpServlet MUST override at
least one of the methods of HttpServlet
doGet*
doPost*
doPut*
doDelete*
init
destroy
getServletInfo
* Called by the server
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 14
11.5 Servlet Details (continued)
- The protocol of doGet is:
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, java.io.IOException
- ServletException is thrown if the GET request
could not be handled
- The protocol of doPost is the similar
- Servlet output – HTML
1. Use the setContentType method of the response
object to set the content type to text/html
response.setContentType("text/html");
2. Create a PrintWriter object with the getWriter
method of the response object
PrintWriter servletOut =
response.getWriter();
- Example – Respond to a GET request with no data
àShow tst_greet.html and Greeting.java
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 15
11.6 A Survey Example
--> Show conelec2.html and Figure 11.3
- The servlet:
- To accumulate voting totals, it must write a file
on the server
- The file will be read and written as an object
(the array of vote totals) using
ObjectInputStream
- An object of this class is created with its
constructor, passing an object of class
FileInputStream, whose constructor is called
with the file variable name as a parameter
ObjectInputStream indat =
new ObjectInputStream(
new FileInputStream(File_variable_name));
- On input, the contents of the file will be cast to
integer array
- For output, the file is written as a single object
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 16
11.6 A Survey Example (continued)
- The servlet must access the form data from the
client
- This is done with the getParameter method of the
request object, passing a literal string with the
name of the form element
e.g., if the form has an element named zip
zip = request.getParameter("zip");
- If an element has no value and its value is
requested by getParameter, the returned value
is null
- If a form value is not a string, the returned string
must be parsed to get the value
- e.g., suppose the value is an integer literal
- A string that contains an integer literal can
be converted to an integer with the parseInt
method of the wrapper class for int, Integer
price = Integer.parseInt(
request.getParameter("price"));
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 17
11.6 A Survey Example (continued)
- The file structure is an array of 14 integers, 7 votes
for females and 7 votes for males
- Servlet actions:
If the votes data array exists
read the votes array from the data file
else
create the votes array
Get the gender form value
Get the form value for the new vote and convert it
to an integer
Add the vote to the votes array
Write the votes array to the votes file
Produce the return HTML document that shows the
current results of the survey
- Every voter will get the current totals
--> Show the servlet, Survey.java
--> Show Figure 11.4
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 18
11.7 Storing Information about Clients
- A session is the collection of all of the requests
made by a particular browser from the time the
browser is started until the user exits the browser
- The HTTP protocol is stateless
- But, there are several reasons why it is useful for
the server to relate a request to a session
- Shopping carts for many different simultaneous
customers
- Customer profiling for advertising
- Customized interfaces for specific clients
- Approaches to storing client information:
- Store it on the server – too much to store!
- Store it on the client machine - this works
- Cookies
- A cookie is an object sent by the server to the
client
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 19
11.7 Storing Information about Clients
(continued)
- Every HTTP communication between the browser
and the server includes information in its header
about the message
- At the time a cookie is created, it is given a
lifetime
- Every time the browser sends a request to the
server that created the cookie, while the cookie
is still alive, the cookie is included
- A browser can be set to reject all cookies
- A cookie object has data members and methods
- Data members to store lifetime, name, and a
value (the cookies’ value)
- Methods: setComment, setMaxAge, setValue,
getMaxAge, getName, and getValue
- Cookies are created with the Cookie constructor
Cookie newCookie =
new Cookie(gender, vote);
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 20
11.7 Storing Information about Clients
(continued)
- By default, a cookie’s lifetime is the current
session
- If you want it to be longer, use setMaxAge
- A cookie is attached to the response with
addCookie
- Order in which the response must be built:
1. Add cookies
2. Set content type
3. Get response output stream
4. Place info in the response
- The browser does nothing with cookies, other
than storing them and passing them back
- A servlet gets a cookie from the browser with
the getCookies method
Cookie theCookies [];
…
theCookies = request.getCookies();
- A Vote Counting Example
à Show ballot.html and Figure 11.5
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 21
11.7 Storing Information about Clients
(continued)
- Vote counting servlet activities:
- See if a vote was cast
- Make sure the voter hasn’t voted before
- Tally real votes and give the client the totals
- Store votes in a file
àShow the VoteCounter algorithm
à Show VoteCounter
à Show Figures 11.6, 11.7, and 11.8
- Session Tracking
- An alternative to cookies
- Use the HttpSession object, which can store a
list of names and values
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 22
11.7 Storing Information about Clients
(continued)
- Create a Session object
- Put value in the session object with putValue
mySession.putValue("iVoted", "true");
- A session can be killed with the invalidate
method
- A value can be removed with removeValue
- A value can be gotten with getValue(name)
- All names of values can be gotten with
getValueNames
à SHOW VoteCounter2.java
Chapter 11 © 2003 by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 23
