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Bernd Pollermann IT/User Support
The IT-Web-Server wwwinfo.cern.ch
has been running faithfully CERN httpd, the original
Web server software of the early days of the Web, for almost four
years now.
But the time has come to move towards a more modern server software
which allows us to adapt more easily to upgrades of the operation system,
run the server more efficiently and, last not least, allows us to offer
more options to the owners of our Web-pages.
The server software we have chosen is
Apache, a robust,
commercial-grade, feature-rich, and freely-available source code
implementation of an HTTP (Web) server.
The main reasons for having chosen Apache are:
- The load for wwwinfo.cern.ch has increased considerably
and the first step - before we could envisage any improvement in the
hardware - is to move
to a more efficient server.
- The WebOffice has successfully done the conversion and we can profit from
their experience.
- We are particularly attracted by one of the Apache features,
the
Virtual Servers. This allows us to run different "Web servers"
with different functionality on a single machine.
Changes for owners and readers of wwwinfo.cern.ch
Web-pages
Apart from the user authentication (the owners concerned will be
contacted individually) the conversion from CERN httpd
to Apache is transparent
to both owners and readers alike.
However - after a transition period of about three months -
some problems may arise from the
usage of inappropriate or obsolete URLs.
At the end of the transition period - during which we will make every effort
to keep everything backwards compatible - the aliases of
wwwinfo.cern.ch such as
asdwww,
wwwcn,
wwwcn1,
wwwftp and
xwho will be removed.
Phasing out obsolete aliases in a controlled
way, and "delegating" responsibilities to other aliases
is possible thanks to the
Virtual Servers
feature of Apache.
What should the owners of Web-pages do?
The owners are encouraged to change as soon as possible
all the obsolete URLs to wwwinfo or "relative"
URLs (i.e. in which the server name is omitted).
For technical details, and conversion tools,
please address yourself to your local Web-master, or, if you do not
know who it is, your Divisional Web-master (a complete list is avaliable
in the
"CERN Divisional Webmasters Group" Web
page - N.B. Access reserved to the CERN domain -).
What should the readers of Web-pages do?
In case of failing or, more important, misleading links:
be forgiving, and if you have time, send a mail to the person who signed
the page.
Date of conversion, end of transition period
The introduction of Apache as the
server software for the IT-Web-Server will be done at the
beginning of October. The precise data will be publicized
in the cern.computing
newsgroup. The intended transition period, after which all
incorrect URLs will not be served anymore, will finish
by the end of 1998.
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