How to do a Pick/DataBASIC http server service?

#11

Tony Gravagno wrote:

Quote:

For a standard ISP that provides LAMP or hosted ASP/ASP.NET, you could
use a forwarding technique which accepts the request then redirects it
wherever you want using sockets or Web Services.

You know me -- I know a bunch about what COULD be done. I picked two
things that I have done, only one of which I can point to production
systems using that strategy.

Quote:

When you go to
someone's home page where they show you the weather, you don't really
think they have a weather station there do you?

Of course not. A
request is made to another server and the results are incorporated
into the end-user's page. This is how the net works and this is the
core of SOA.

yup. And that request to the other server might or might not also be
by use of a URL. It need not be SOAP, for example.

Quote:

For security reasons some ISP's don't allow outbound socket calls
except outbound HTTP on port 80 or 443. This is an invitation to use
Web Services - which is one of the reasons why I wrote my articles ont
this topic over two years ago.
http:// removethisNebula-RnD.com/articles/

Your home or office firewall/router should not accept HTTP requests
from any IP address(es) other than your static HTML host (the LAMP
people). This gives you almost rock solid security.

at one level. There's still the "SQL injection" type of possibilities
even if using MV. (This is irrelevant, I just wanted to argue with
your "rock solid" designation ;-)

Quote:

From there your
real back-end environment probably doesn't need any more security than
what you require for your own LAN. Being paranoid I'd put more effort
into this but YMMV.

So what do you need?
1) PHP or Perl on your LAMP host that accepts a web query and parses
out the request data. Millions of examples of this on the Net.

Yes, but is there even one example of PHP with UniData and, if so, what
was used for connectivity between PHP and UDT? That's why I'm asking
for real examples of what people are doing or have done.

Quote:

2) A PHP/Perl-based Web Service client that accepts a block of text
(from #1), passes it on for external processing, and returns the
results to #1 for final end-user rendering - probably HTML. Again,
tons of examples available everywhere.

Still looking for what people are actually doing in this regard.

Quote:

3) A firewall that you can tune to only accept port 80 traffic from a
selected IP block.
4) Any HTTP server you want on any OS you like on your own LAN.
5) Any freeware/buyware Web Service Server software that will extract
data from an XML packet and return the data back to the client -
again, all free, lots of examples.
6) Any freeware/buyware discussed in these forums to pass a block of
text from #5 to your MV server and return the results. (With mv.NET
and Visual Studio you can do #4-6 in a couple minutes.)

Any help?

Sure, but putting it in the form of
actual web server, web server add-ins (e.g. PHP) or app server (e.g.
tomcat, jboss), libraries or tools to get from there to the back-end
database, and the back-end database

with specifics of real implementations, might be more helpful. Thanks.
--dawn

Quote:

"dawn" wrote:

Luke Webber wrote:
dawn wrote:
I am wondering how many ways there are to write a Pick/DataBASIC
service that takes in a parameter from a URL and returns (via http) a
result.

Let's say that there is JavaScript in a browser that is doing an
XMLHttpRequest (or ActiveX), aka AJAX, request to a URL such as
www.mydomain.com/myservice.whatever?this=that

What all is behind this URL? It might be enlightening (to me at least)
to inventory the ways to accomplish this feat.

1. PHP + OpenQM client/server library + OpenQM
In a non-transaction processing environment (in fact doing only
read-only right now), I have done this with a PHP wrapper that Tom D
wrote for OpenQM, which uses the OpenQM client/server interface written
in C (IIRC).

2. Tomcat + Java + UOJ library + UniData
I have also done this using a tomcat app server (either in addition to
or instead of another web server), Java, and UniObjects for Java (UOJ)
with UniData. I had to add in home-grown connection pooling at the
time, but UOJ now comes with it (for a price).

3. Tomcat + Java (or PHP or ASP) + JD3 + D3.
4. Tomcat + Java + Java OBjEX + jBASE.
5. CGI + jBASE binary executable.

Note that Tomcat is not the only servlet container out there. Far from
it - so you can substitute Resin, Weblogic, WebSphere, JRun, Sun One
Server or what-have-you for Tomcat. Likewise, in your point 2, you could
have UV instead of UDT.

Luke

Everything so far (you and Glen) requires either a servlet container or
CGI. Neither of those is readily available for those doing web site
development using a typical ISP (which is often similar to what a
corporate web setup might look like for developers who don't have a lot
of say on that setup). That's why LAMP (linux, apache, MySQL, PHP) is
so popular -- it works both for shops with their own servers and those
using ISPs, most of whom provide both PHP and MySQL (typically for
extra dollars on the latter).

Does anyone have a solution that uses neither CGI nor a servlet
container? --dawn

#12

Dawn:

"dawn" <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote in message...

Quote:

Frankly, I don't know why you're so stuck on the public server approach.
It's dead cheap to run your own server at home.

Not for most people, it isn't.

All you need is a cheap
server PC and Linux, plus a static IP address. OK, the speed may not be
all that an ISP can offer directly, but with ADSL2+ it ain't half bad.

I'm guessing I'm in the majority of people in the world when I say that
I don't want to install and maintain a production server environment.
Bandwith, disk space, OS upgrades, app installs, unplanned downtime,
security, backups, user administration, fail-over, performance tuing,
...

I think what Luke is saying pretty correct. You can lease computer space
from an ISP and put whatever you want on it (operating under the assumption
the ISP will restrict you is like worrying if your application is using more
than 128MB of memory and 512MB of disk). Very few ISPs don't let you do
this. We have out servers at a co-host location and they're there 24/7 and
I can use them to build a server for us if I want. The cost is comparable
to a T1 line.

Bill

#13

"dawn" wrote:

Quote:

Tony Gravagno wrote:
Your home or office firewall/router should not accept HTTP requests
from any IP address(es) other than your static HTML host (the LAMP
people). This gives you almost rock solid security.

at one level. There's still the "SQL injection" type of possibilities
even if using MV. (This is irrelevant, I just wanted to argue with
your "rock solid" designation ;-)

And to think I took the time to insert that word "almost" as I was
proof-reading, and it seems to have been completely ignored anyway. :b

Seriously, SQL is subject to injection because by definition the
language itself performs the queries. With MV we operate on data, we
don't generate AQL queries on a client and pass those directly to the
server. If your Web Service client is just passing data packets then
you should be fine. If you are exposing other rules to the same
host/IP and there is a possibility that someone will spoof your code
to execute different rules on your server, then yes, you'll need to do
some cleansing and authentication.

I know you have a winky on there, but these are real considerations
when we're working in the badlands of the WildWestWeb.

Quote:

From there your
real back-end environment probably doesn't need any more security than
what you require for your own LAN. Being paranoid I'd put more effort
into this but YMMV.

So what do you need?
1) PHP or Perl on your LAMP host that accepts a web query and parses
out the request data. Millions of examples of this on the Net.

Yes, but is there even one example of PHP with UniData and, if so, what
was used for connectivity between PHP and UDT? That's why I'm asking
for real examples of what people are doing or have done.

Point number 1 has nothing to do with the back end... slow down...

Quote:

2) A PHP/Perl-based Web Service client that accepts a block of text
(from #1), passes it on for external processing, and returns the
results to #1 for final end-user rendering - probably HTML. Again,
tons of examples available everywhere.

Still looking for what people are actually doing in this regard.

We're still not at the database layer, chill...

Quote:

3) A firewall that you can tune to only accept port 80 traffic from a
selected IP block.
4) Any HTTP server you want on any OS you like on your own LAN.
5) Any freeware/buyware Web Service Server software that will extract
data from an XML packet and return the data back to the client -
again, all free, lots of examples.
6) Any freeware/buyware discussed in these forums to pass a block of
text from #5 to your MV server and return the results. (With mv.NET
and Visual Studio you can do #4-6 in a couple minutes.)

Any help?

Sure, but putting it in the form of
actual web server, web server add-ins (e.g. PHP) or app server (e.g.
tomcat, jboss), libraries or tools to get from there to the back-end
database, and the back-end database
with specifics of real implementations, might be more helpful. Thanks.
--dawn

After all of that, are you asking for code? Now ya struck a nerve.
Me thinks at this point you need to take advantage of the information
that's been made available in this thread and in these many forums
over the years. Some long threads in the U2 forum include more code
than they should.

You could also hire a consultant for your site-specific needs. I did
say above that this can be done in a few minutes - to most people the
time savings would be worth something. The MVExec freeware on my site
that can be used from any code or scripts to get from a Windows box to
any MV environment. Any site with a single mv.NET license can use it.

T

Quote:

"dawn" wrote:

Luke Webber wrote:
dawn wrote:
I am wondering how many ways there are to write a Pick/DataBASIC
service that takes in a parameter from a URL and returns (via http) a
result.

Let's say that there is JavaScript in a browser that is doing an
XMLHttpRequest (or ActiveX), aka AJAX, request to a URL such as
www.mydomain.com/myservice.whatever?this=that

What all is behind this URL? It might be enlightening (to me at least)
to inventory the ways to accomplish this feat.

1. PHP + OpenQM client/server library + OpenQM
In a non-transaction processing environment (in fact doing only
read-only right now), I have done this with a PHP wrapper that Tom D
wrote for OpenQM, which uses the OpenQM client/server interface written
in C (IIRC).

2. Tomcat + Java + UOJ library + UniData
I have also done this using a tomcat app server (either in addition to
or instead of another web server), Java, and UniObjects for Java (UOJ)
with UniData. I had to add in home-grown connection pooling at the
time, but UOJ now comes with it (for a price).

3. Tomcat + Java (or PHP or ASP) + JD3 + D3.
4. Tomcat + Java + Java OBjEX + jBASE.
5. CGI + jBASE binary executable.

Note that Tomcat is not the only servlet container out there. Far from
it - so you can substitute Resin, Weblogic, WebSphere, JRun, Sun One
Server or what-have-you for Tomcat. Likewise, in your point 2, you could
have UV instead of UDT.

Luke

Everything so far (you and Glen) requires either a servlet container or
CGI. Neither of those is readily available for those doing web site
development using a typical ISP (which is often similar to what a
corporate web setup might look like for developers who don't have a lot
of say on that setup). That's why LAMP (linux, apache, MySQL, PHP) is
so popular -- it works both for shops with their own servers and those
using ISPs, most of whom provide both PHP and MySQL (typically for
extra dollars on the latter).

Does anyone have a solution that uses neither CGI nor a servlet
container? --dawn

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How to do a Pick/DataBASIC http server service?

comp.databases.pick comp.databases.pick

Re: How to do a Pick/DataBASIC http server service? - 07-26-2006 , 08:01 AM

Re: How to do a Pick/DataBASIC http server service? - 07-26-2006 , 10:47 AM

Re: How to do a Pick/DataBASIC http server service? - 08-02-2006 , 01:14 PM