Re: RE: Re(2): HTTP server Configuration

["Mike Naughton" <mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Brad,

I'm certainly not going to argue with you (after all, you wrote the book!
;-)) All I meant was that if the goal is to get some data from the AS/400
on a web page with no special formatting or anything, Net.Data may be
faster (_if_  you have all the instructions on how to set up the INIT
file, etc. -- I admit, it took me a while to find  these!). OTOH, the
result is pretty ugly (IMHO), so it begs the question of why you would
want to do this in the first place.

Back when I was first trying to learn about all this, my impression was
that CGI programming was relatively difficult and obscure, while Net.Data
was pretty straightforward. I must say that once I got into it, I thought
that CGI had gotten a really bad rap, and once you know a couple of tricks
(basically, how to handle input and output to the program), it's really
pretty easy (and powerful).

As for security vis-a-vis the MAP statement, my impression is that it
allows the web designer to present a URL to the browser that obscures the
actual location of the target. Thus, if I put the following in my config
file:
MAP   \mikesplace\*      \QSYS.LIB\HTTPSTUFF.LIB\*
then I can have the browser show \mikesplace\webpage.html and thus hide
(somewhat) the actual location of the page. I'm not saying this is
super-security, but it's at least a little security. . . .

MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com writes:
>I would agree with everything except that Net.Data is faster to set up
>than
>CGI.  There is extra configuration (mainly the INIT file) that goes along
>with Net.Data.  
>
>I may have misunderstood what you meant, but I started out using Net.Data
>and one day tried CGI and thought it was much easier and faster, and all
>the
>config stuff is in the HTTP config file, not spread out in the INIT file.
>There are also other "tricks" that are hidden in documentation for
>Net.Data
>that are quite obscure.  With CGi, it's pretty straghtforward.
>
>As for the MAP, it doesn't help security.  It may help you "read" the
>config
>a little easier, but once you understand that you can do a map with EXEC
>or
>PASS, it's just the same, assuming you are mapping to a different
>directory
>in the EXEC or PASS. 
>
>Brad



Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@juddwire.com


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