Re: Apache and MetaCard

[LiangTyan Fui]

On 2/20/01 5:04 AM, Pierre Sahores wrote:

>> I have recently tested cmc.exe on IIS (Windows NT 4) and MetaCard CGI on
>> Apache (Linux). Both offer similar CGI interface and portability.
>> The echo.mt file provided on MetaCard web site ran well on Linux, though the
>> NT version need some minor tweaks to get it works flawlessly.
> 
> Could you, please, send me it too, as far i have sometimes to do with NT4
> Servers...

The new cmc.exe is now compatible entirely with the echo.mt script, so it is
not necessary to teak the file.

Regards,
LiangTyan Fui


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Re: Apache and MetaCard

[Scott Raney]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2001 David Bovill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > The DLL interface to IIS is similar enough to Apache mods that it
> > should work the same way.  Of course, we're not considering doing
> > either of these things because it'd be a lot of work and you'd end up
> > with something less useful than just writing a little client/server
> > system and running MetaCard as a separate server, or just using mchttp
> > instead of or in addition to another HTTP server.
> 
> I guess so, but this requires a dedicated server, and an imaginative SysOp,
> while the Apache Module can be installed on a wide variety of commercial
> shared hosting solutions, and all the SysOp has to say is "oh yeh, Apache
> module. Fair do." -:)

Yeah, right ;-)  I think your recent experience trying to get a sysop
to install even libraries that are distributed standard with the OS
should tell us that the response is far more likely to be "oh yeh,
Apache module.  Tough cookies: we have a standard configuration for
all our servers and there are no exceptions".  And this of course is
why we don't make a big deal of using MetaCard this way nor do we
charge for it or even explicitly support it.  There are just too many
problems to make us want to expend much effort making improvements in
this area.  If you've got a bug report or feature request, by all
means send it in.  But doing things to try to work around the politics
of shared-hosting services is going to have a very, very, low
priority.
  Regards,
Scott

PS: on a related note, a new cmc.exe engine has been put on the FTP
site.  It fixes the problem running MetaTalk scripts that read from
stdin (like echo.mt) on Win32 systems.


Scott Raney  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...



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Re: Apache and MetaCard

[Pierre Sahores]

LiangTyan Fui a écrit :
> 
> On 2/19/01 10:41 AM, Scott Raney wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 David Bovill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
>  I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and
>  MetaCard,
>  but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
>  and Apache (.mt)?
> >>>
> >>> There's no way.  Those system just aren't designed to support this
> >>> kind of thing.  For one thing, in most Apache installations there are
> >>> actually several copies of that program running at a time (mainly so
> >>> that if one of them is busy doing a CGI or something the system will
> >>> still respond to new connections) and so doing synchronization between
> >>> them would be difficult.  If you really need something like this,
> >>> you'll need to start yet another MetaCard process (a server) and have
> >>> the CGI scripts connect to and communicate with that server.
> >>> Regards,
> >>> Scott
> 
> OK, so we stick to the idea of having separated process to handle http query
> - that is fine for me.
> But any incentive for us to build large MetaTalk CGI by this way? Perl
> allows CGI to include libraries and codes written on separated files, is it
> possible for MetaTalk to do so -- at least for the CGI environment like:
> #!mc
> #include /home/mc/myMetaTalk/mainLib.mt
> #include /home/httpd/metatalk/std.mt
> on startup
>   loadAllMyGlobal # call to handle in the mainLib.mt
>   unpackURLParam # call to handle in the mainLib.mt
>   doOtherThingsHere
> end startup
> 
> Without the capability to load external scripts, things can get ugly very
> quickly.

It will run "just as you will think it". You can do so or update only one mc
main file and restart remotely its process when needed. Prefer the first way for
small cgis and the second if you need to maintien big sessions environment vars.

> Regards,
> LiangTyan Fui
> 
> >>
> >> Would this be possible with a Metacard Apache Module? Namely to have the
> >> ability to load a Metacard stack into memory, and keep it there in a way in
> >> which other processes on the server can safely refer to the scripts and data
> >> it contains?
> >
> > I haven't looked at it in detail, but yes, I think it'd be technically
> > possible to do this, at least *within* a process.  Of course, you'd
> > run right into the problem that multiple HTTP processes are typically
> > started and the data couldn't be shared among them.  There are also a
> > lot of limitations for this kind of library on UNIX, like you can't do
> > anything that would result in delayed execution such as "send in" or
> > asynchronous open/read/write socket.
> >
> >> Don't now about IIS on NT, but I guess it would be possible to run a similar
> >> Apache/module set up?
> >
> > The DLL interface to IIS is similar enough to Apache mods that it
> > should work the same way.  Of course, we're not considering doing
> > either of these things because it'd be a lot of work and you'd end up
> > with something less useful than just writing a little client/server
> > system and running MetaCard as a separate server, or just using mchttp
> > instead of or in addition to another HTTP server.
> > Regards,
> > Scott
> >
> > 
> > Scott Raney  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.metacard.com
> > MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...
> 
> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
> Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
> Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

-- 
Pierre Sahores

WEB & VPN applications and databases servers
Inspection académique de la Seine-Saint-Denis
Qualifier et produire l'avantage compétitif

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Re: Apache and MetaCard

[Pierre Sahores]

LiangTyan Fui a écrit :
> 
> I have recently tested cmc.exe on IIS (Windows NT 4) and MetaCard CGI on
> Apache (Linux). Both offer similar CGI interface and portability.
> The echo.mt file provided on MetaCard web site ran well on Linux, though the
> NT version need some minor tweaks to get it works flawlessly.

Could you, please, send me it too, as far i have sometimes to do with NT4
Servers...
> 
> However non of these CGI implementations match the one that I've been
> dealing with on the Mac (WebSTAR and MetaCard combo).
> MetaCard is running as an application on the Mac, it won't quits nor
> restarts on every query - by this way, I may preserve all the globals, and
> using stack script to build large library of handles/functions.
> 
> Now the question is:
> How can I do the same based on Apache + MetaCard or IIS + MetaCard?

By using PHP3/4 to link MC to the web deamon and get under Linux/WinTel what you
got in using direct AppleEvents under MacOS (see the link below)...

> I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and MetaCard,
> but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
> and Apache (.mt)?
> 
> Thanks.
> LiangTyan Fui
> 
> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
> Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
> Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Just drop an eye to one of my previous response to far the same question at :



Best Regards, Pierre Sahores

WEB & VPN applications and databases servers
Inspection académique de la Seine-Saint-Denis
Qualifier et produire l'avantage compétitif

Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Re: Apache and MetaCard

[David Bovill]

> From: Scott Raney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 19:41:26 -0700 (MST)
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Apache and MetaCard
> 
> On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 David Bovill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> 
> The DLL interface to IIS is similar enough to Apache mods that it
> should work the same way.  Of course, we're not considering doing
> either of these things because it'd be a lot of work and you'd end up
> with something less useful than just writing a little client/server
> system and running MetaCard as a separate server, or just using mchttp
> instead of or in addition to another HTTP server.

I guess so, but this requires a dedicated server, and an imaginative SysOp,
while the Apache Module can be installed on a wide variety of commercial
shared hosting solutions, and all the SysOp has to say is "oh yeh, Apache
module. Fair do." -:)


Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Re: Apache and MetaCard

[LiangTyan Fui]

On 2/19/01 10:41 AM, Scott Raney wrote:

> On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 David Bovill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
 I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and
 MetaCard,
 but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
 and Apache (.mt)?
>>> 
>>> There's no way.  Those system just aren't designed to support this
>>> kind of thing.  For one thing, in most Apache installations there are
>>> actually several copies of that program running at a time (mainly so
>>> that if one of them is busy doing a CGI or something the system will
>>> still respond to new connections) and so doing synchronization between
>>> them would be difficult.  If you really need something like this,
>>> you'll need to start yet another MetaCard process (a server) and have
>>> the CGI scripts connect to and communicate with that server.
>>> Regards,
>>> Scott

OK, so we stick to the idea of having separated process to handle http query
- that is fine for me.
But any incentive for us to build large MetaTalk CGI by this way? Perl
allows CGI to include libraries and codes written on separated files, is it
possible for MetaTalk to do so -- at least for the CGI environment like:
#!mc
#include /home/mc/myMetaTalk/mainLib.mt
#include /home/httpd/metatalk/std.mt
on startup
  loadAllMyGlobal # call to handle in the mainLib.mt
  unpackURLParam # call to handle in the mainLib.mt
  doOtherThingsHere
end startup

Without the capability to load external scripts, things can get ugly very
quickly.

Regards,
LiangTyan Fui

>> 
>> Would this be possible with a Metacard Apache Module? Namely to have the
>> ability to load a Metacard stack into memory, and keep it there in a way in
>> which other processes on the server can safely refer to the scripts and data
>> it contains?
> 
> I haven't looked at it in detail, but yes, I think it'd be technically
> possible to do this, at least *within* a process.  Of course, you'd
> run right into the problem that multiple HTTP processes are typically
> started and the data couldn't be shared among them.  There are also a
> lot of limitations for this kind of library on UNIX, like you can't do
> anything that would result in delayed execution such as "send in" or
> asynchronous open/read/write socket.
> 
>> Don't now about IIS on NT, but I guess it would be possible to run a similar
>> Apache/module set up?
> 
> The DLL interface to IIS is similar enough to Apache mods that it
> should work the same way.  Of course, we're not considering doing
> either of these things because it'd be a lot of work and you'd end up
> with something less useful than just writing a little client/server
> system and running MetaCard as a separate server, or just using mchttp
> instead of or in addition to another HTTP server.
> Regards,
> Scott
> 
> 
> Scott Raney  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.metacard.com
> MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...


Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Re: Apache and MetaCard

[Scott Raney]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2001 David Bovill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> >> I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and MetaCard,
> >> but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
> >> and Apache (.mt)?
> > 
> > There's no way.  Those system just aren't designed to support this
> > kind of thing.  For one thing, in most Apache installations there are
> > actually several copies of that program running at a time (mainly so
> > that if one of them is busy doing a CGI or something the system will
> > still respond to new connections) and so doing synchronization between
> > them would be difficult.  If you really need something like this,
> > you'll need to start yet another MetaCard process (a server) and have
> > the CGI scripts connect to and communicate with that server.
> > Regards,
> > Scott
> 
> Would this be possible with a Metacard Apache Module? Namely to have the
> ability to load a Metacard stack into memory, and keep it there in a way in
> which other processes on the server can safely refer to the scripts and data
> it contains?

I haven't looked at it in detail, but yes, I think it'd be technically
possible to do this, at least *within* a process.  Of course, you'd
run right into the problem that multiple HTTP processes are typically
started and the data couldn't be shared among them.  There are also a
lot of limitations for this kind of library on UNIX, like you can't do
anything that would result in delayed execution such as "send in" or
asynchronous open/read/write socket.

> Don't now about IIS on NT, but I guess it would be possible to run a similar
> Apache/module set up?

The DLL interface to IIS is similar enough to Apache mods that it
should work the same way.  Of course, we're not considering doing
either of these things because it'd be a lot of work and you'd end up
with something less useful than just writing a little client/server
system and running MetaCard as a separate server, or just using mchttp
instead of or in addition to another HTTP server.
  Regards,
Scott


Scott Raney  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...



Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Re: Apache and MetaCard

[David Bovill]

>> I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and MetaCard,
>> but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
>> and Apache (.mt)?
> 
> There's no way.  Those system just aren't designed to support this
> kind of thing.  For one thing, in most Apache installations there are
> actually several copies of that program running at a time (mainly so
> that if one of them is busy doing a CGI or something the system will
> still respond to new connections) and so doing synchronization between
> them would be difficult.  If you really need something like this,
> you'll need to start yet another MetaCard process (a server) and have
> the CGI scripts connect to and communicate with that server.
> Regards,
> Scott
> 

Would this be possible with a Metacard Apache Module? Namely to have the
ability to load a Metacard stack into memory, and keep it there in a way in
which other processes on the server can safely refer to the scripts and data
it contains?

Don't now about IIS on NT, but I guess it would be possible to run a similar
Apache/module set up?


Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Re: Apache and MetaCard

[Scott Raney]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 LiangTyan Fui <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> I have recently tested cmc.exe on IIS (Windows NT 4) and MetaCard CGI on
> Apache (Linux). Both offer similar CGI interface and portability.
> The echo.mt file provided on MetaCard web site ran well on Linux, though the
> NT version need some minor tweaks to get it works flawlessly.

Please send me the new version so that we can update the version we
distribute.

> However non of these CGI implementations match the one that I've been
> dealing with on the Mac (WebSTAR and MetaCard combo).
> MetaCard is running as an application on the Mac, it won't quits nor
> restarts on every query - by this way, I may preserve all the globals, and
> using stack script to build large library of handles/functions.
> 
> Now the question is:
> How can I do the same based on Apache + MetaCard or IIS + MetaCard?
> 
> I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and MetaCard,
> but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
> and Apache (.mt)?

There's no way.  Those system just aren't designed to support this
kind of thing.  For one thing, in most Apache installations there are
actually several copies of that program running at a time (mainly so
that if one of them is busy doing a CGI or something the system will
still respond to new connections) and so doing synchronization between
them would be difficult.  If you really need something like this,
you'll need to start yet another MetaCard process (a server) and have
the CGI scripts connect to and communicate with that server.
  Regards,
Scott

> Thanks.
> LiangTyan Fui


Scott Raney  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...


Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.

Re: Apache and MetaCard

[andu]

>
>I have recently tested cmc.exe on IIS (Windows NT 4) and MetaCard CGI on
>Apache (Linux). Both offer similar CGI interface and portability.
>The echo.mt file provided on MetaCard web site ran well on Linux, though the
>NT version need some minor tweaks to get it works flawlessly.
>
>However non of these CGI implementations match the one that I've been
>dealing with on the Mac (WebSTAR and MetaCard combo).
>MetaCard is running as an application on the Mac, it won't quits nor
>restarts on every query - by this way, I may preserve all the globals, and
>using stack script to build large library of handles/functions.
>
>Now the question is:
>How can I do the same based on Apache + MetaCard or IIS + MetaCard?

I didn't test this but try using the .mt script to pass data from the server to a 
stack which
does the actual work. I'm assuming that once you call the stack it will stay "open".

>
>I know Andu http stack could provides a better "glue" for http and MetaCard,
>but I am interested to find out how we could do this on IIS (using cmc.exe)
>and Apache (.mt)?
>
>Thanks.
>LiangTyan Fui
>
>
>Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/
>Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
>Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
>
>.


Regards, Andu 
___
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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