|
WebServUSB - Frequently Asked Questions
These are answers to questions commonly asked by first time users.
- The sizes of the WebServUSB devices seem small (128, 256, 512MB) How can
I possibly host a decent website on this? How much of the device is taken up in
operational code?
Bear in mind any well designed website is as small as possible to minimize
download time. For example the sample website templates we provided are all
within 50 to 100K in size, even with pictures, so there is plenty of room for
content, even on the smaller WebServUSB models. The embedded operating system
for WebServUSB takes up about 10 megabytes, leaving the remainder for content.
- Can I create extra content storage by using other local hard drives
connected to my PC?
Yes, you can map additional drives or folders using the ALIAS function in the
Server Configuration Menu. For example, lets say you have another external USB
or Firewire hard drive that shows up as drive F: in "My Computer" you could
create a folder in it with other web content say named, "webstuff". and create
an Alias called "extra" which is mapped to
F:\webstuff When you then make a URL to the WebServUSB it would be something
like this:
http://localhost/extra/mypage.htm You could also map folders on drive C: but
that negates some of the security value of WebServUSB becuase it then uses the
same hard drive as your operating system.
- I've plugged in the server, and request a page in my browser, (http://localhost) but all I get is a blank page. What's up with that?
To solve the problem bring up the "Server Config" dialog. (Under "Options/Server Config") In the treeview on the left select "HTTP Server". At the bottom of the dialog there is an option to "Never Send 304 Response". Check this box and click on "Save". Now hit the "Refresh" button in your browser.
Its also possible that your USB interface may not have fully registered the
USBWebServ device after you first plugged it in. You may need to reboot your PC
and try again. Another think to check is to make certain that you have TCP/IP
networking protocol installed and binded to your network card. If you do not,
WebServUSB will not function at all. See Control Panel>Network>Local Area
Connection and if needed install TCP/IP protocol.
- Ok I tried all that and it still doesn't serve the start page, what
now?
You may have another program interfering with it that also uses the HTTP port
80. For example the Mail program we include has a remote feature that uses port
80, you can set it to another port number to get around this. Some remote
desktop programs also use port 80, be sure to turn them of or choose another
port number for them or WebServUSB.
- Can I Get a domain name for my WebServUSB?
Yes. A domain name service (DNS) will translate the internet accessible IP
address of your computer to a name. For example say your computer is connected
with a fixed IP address outside of a firewall or router on a network ad its IP
address is: 64.113.192.66 but you would like the name
www.bobswebserverusb.com instead.
You can make this happen two ways: A) Have your local DNS server on your
network make the translation for you (your network specialist can make this
happen for you) or B) Get a dynamic DNS service like No-IP which you can
subscribe to at
http://www.no-ip.com/
- How should / can I use the IP Address Security options ? What is the purpose, and what should I fill in the URL and address fields?
IP Security allows you to specify
what IP Addresses will be allowed to access what URLs. Say you are on
a company LAN where you use 137.65.*.* for all company addresses. You could
add "/" as the URL and 137.65 as the IP Address. This would allow only
people who have IP Address that start with 137.65 access anything on the
web server. If you only want you to get to a directory /docs/mystuff/ you
could add that as a URL and your IP address and then you could only access
that folder from your machine.
- What is Realm security,
what is the purpose, how can I use it and what is the difference with IP
Address Security ?
The concept is similar to IP
Security, but differs in that it uses users, not IP addresses. If you were
to put "/" as a URL and bob as a user, then you would have to authenticate
as bob before accessing anything on the web server. If you want only you
to access /docs/mystuff/ but you want to be able to access it from different
machines, then you can add /docs/mystuff/ as the URL and your user name.
Then whenever someone tries to access /docs/mystuff/ or anything below
it, it asks them to authenticate.
- How can I use the ISAPI
settings (alias and real path)? I'm planning to create ISAPI dll's, so
this is really important to me...
ISAPI Alias is the only directory where ISAPI extensions will be executed. If an ISAPI dll is placed in another directory, and is executed, it will prompt the user to download the dll like it was any other binary file. I uses /scripts/ for a ISAPI alias. You can use whatever you want. Say that I had a directory c:\isapi\dll that had a file mydll.dll in it. I would set the alias to /scripts/ and the path to c:\isapi\dll. Then when the url of /scripts/mydll.dll is requested, mydll.dll will be handled as an ISAPI extension.
- And how / where can I use the Aliases for directories ? I've the idea that this can be very useful and tried some things, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track...
Alias allows you to have things move around without changing the URLs. If I have a URL /images/background.gif, but the /images/ directory takes up a lot of space, I can move /images/ to a different hard drive and create an alias of /images/ that points to the new location.
- I get "500 Internal Server Error" when ever I try and use php files...
If you have PHP installed, and have told WebServUSB to process PHP documents, you may need to add
cgi.force_redirect=1
to your php.ini file.
- I have problems uploading files via FTP...
If you have having problems either uploading or downloading via FTP, try making the users home directory a drive root. For example, if user Bob has a home directory of
e:\users\ftp\bob, try making that directory a share, and then mapping w: as e:\users\ftp\bob, then tell WebServUSB that bob's ftp home directory is w: rather than
e:\users\ftp\bob
- Can I author web content while WebServUSB is running?
Yes! You can either setup a remote FTP job to replace the content or you can
save it locally direct to the hard drive while WebServUSB is running. There is
no need to take the WebServUSB offline while updating content.
- How do I use email service with WebServUSB?
WebServUSB does not contain a POP3 or SMTP server, but we
DO provide a third
party mailserver on the WebServUSB called ArgoMailServer. For more info see
www.argosoft.com
This mail server is fully featured and functional and can send email from your
PC as well as receive email from within an intranet (LAN) or via the Internet if
you have a DNS service setup to allow a domain name for your WebServUSB on your
PC. See http://www.no-ip.com/
|