Webbatch with NT 4 and IIS
Keywords: IIS server
Question:
-
I am trying to run webbatch on a NT4 IIS 3 server. Webbatch is in a virtual directory
running on a virtual ip address, I have 7 on one box. Whenever i try and run a script it
tries to return the script result on the original server ip address i.e. the physical address
as aposed to the virtual one. As all my web servers run on a virtual ip address only...I
have a severe problem here!! Any fixes or updates for this.....or am I doing something
wrong?
- I am using a test intranet site which uses 6 ip addresses on one web server, one is the
physical address of 170.1.0.1, the others range from .10 to .15, all ip addresses have
their own default web page etc. If I use webbatch on address 170.1.0.10/web-cgi or
.14/web-cgi, it will automatically try and create a dynamic return page on
170.1.0.1/web-cgi, unfortunatley this directory doesn't exist. It so happens that it does
this from whatever ip address that I use that has a Virtual web site on it. It works fine on
my physical ip address if I create the directory etc. but will not work from any of the
virtual web sites. My main Web server on the Net uses the physical card ip address for
DNS and not as a virtual web site.
- I am an ISP and I have NT4 servers that
have multiple IP addresses allocated to them. Each IP address is configured through the
Network controll panel within NT under the "protocol"-"Advanced" section.These are
permanent IP addresses that are used. The main physical IP address is the card address
which is allocated to DNS resolution, the other IP addreses are used for Email, FTP and
Virtual web sites (these are permanently allocated IP addreses but have no physical card
to refference, they are setup within DNS and IIS). Within the management console of
IIS, you can configure your web sites by ticking the Virtual IP address box and
allocating a home directory for the address. This is the only way ISP's or Corporates can
host multiple web and DNS sites on one server. It seems to me that Webbatch is not
compatible with this concept, see my previous posting...
I only have a limited understanding of webbatch so maybe there is a way round this?
-
Please can you explain to me how I setup webbatch on a NT4 server, if I am an ISP
hosting multiple web sites and ip addreses on one box......so far I cant get it to work! If
under NT4 Server using IIS3 you create virtual domains using virtual ip addresses, web
batch gets completeley confused as to which ip address it needs to output its data to, it
always sends it to the physical network card address even if you send the info to another
ip address!!! It is not the webbatch code that is failing....its the way the webbatch
executable was created!!! It naturally asumes that nobody who is using webbatch will be
using multiple virtual ip addresses but only the physical address on the machine.
Answer:
- Obviously you are pulling the IP address out of the environment with something like
the WebConData function. It looks like perhaps the server is providing its root address
and not the IP address of the conversation.
I suggest doing a:
http://your.machine.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?dumpinputdata
and examining that dump for items that might be useful. You may not be able to pick the
ip address up, but should be able to get other information (perhaps the URL field) that
you can use to determine which virtual server was accessed.
- WebBatch does not care what IP address is used. It makes absolutely no use of IP
information except in a few licensing related circumstances. I
do not understand what the problem is. I have not seen any code that fails. WebBatch
can only work with information provided to it you your Web server. All information
available may be examined via the:
../webcgi/webbatch.exe?dumpinputdata
function.
If different IP addresses have different webcgi addresses and you need a copy of
WebBatch in each separate webcgi directory. This is a security consideration.
What symptoms do you see? I can believe it does not work, but the problem diagnosis
is too detailed. WebBatch does not have a clue as to the network cards that might or
might not be installed in the machine. It also does not direct its output to any particular
address.
So.
- What happens?
- Nothing? It seems ignored.
- Some kind of server error message?
- Output shows up on wrong browser?
- Webbatch.exe itself is downloaded?
- CGI Output error in Browser window?
- Does the server error log have anything in it? If so what?
- Does the system event log application section, security section or anything else have
any mention of any error? If so what?
There are people running similiar servers having no problem. I think it is some sort of
configuration issue.
Question (continued):
If the IP address of the physical network card is not the same as the Web server then
webbatch creates a 401 page not found error. If the web site does have the same ip
address as the physical network card then there is no problem.
If you have 2 web sites on one server, one with the same ip address as the NIC and the
other not, if you then have webbatch installed in a directory mapped to the webserver
with the non nic ip address it tries to send the output to the web site that does have the
same physical ip address as that of the nic and then throughs up a error that it cannot
find webbatch.exe.....obviuosly not because its the wrong website!
If you install webbatch onto both sites and then run the executable it still sends the
output to the wrong website but at least it produces the output. The only problem with
this is that at one minute your user is filling in a form on www.pizza.com and then it
receives a thank you note from www.hardwareincorporated.co.uk!!!! Great!
Webbatch might not have a clue as to what network card is installed on the server but it
does map the default webserver to the default ip address on the server, this is the way
NT IIS3 works.
Answer:
We've analyzed the problem and have decided it must be either a bug in your code or a
bug in IIS.
One workaround is to change the type of CGI you are running. I don't remember if IIS
supports WINCGI, but if it does you might try
WINCGI instead of STDCGI.
IIS hands WebBatch a "pipe" to which to send the answering html page. We merely
direct the output to the pipe. No addressing information accompanies the pipes. Either in
or out.
From the analysis of the situation it is difficult to believe there is a bug of this magnitude
in IIS, so therefor your script becomes suspect. We've not seen any of it yet. A current
theory is that hardcoded temporary files are overwriting each other. No idea really.
We've tested it with a Netscape server and IIS 4 and don't see any problems.
Article ID: W12487
Filename: Webbatch with NT4 and IIS.txt
File Created: 1999:04:15:16:47:34
Last Updated: 1999:04:15:16:47:34