ASIP 6.0 Training 

ASIP 6.1 Overview 

Installation & Use: ASIP 6.1 New Features

 

 

 

 

 

updated: 9/17/98

 

 

 

 


Installation & Use

MultiDomain Support for the ASIP 6.1 Web Server

MultiDomain Support allows you to configure your Web server to serve different home pages, depending on the URL used at the client. This is useful for Internet Service Providers, or other server administrators who manage a Web Server for various customers, each of whom want the URL to their home page to reflect their domain or company name.

Setting Up MultiDomain Support

This section describes how to set up your Web Server to support multiple domain names. There are two approaches to this: 

  • If visitors to your web site have web browsers that support HTTP 1.1 or greater, you can use just one IP address for your server, with multiple domain names mapped to that one IP address. With an HTTP 1.1 compliant client, the domain name used in the URL is sent to the server along with its IP address, and the server uses that unique domain name to determine which home page to serve to the client.
  • Earlier specifications of HTTP did not require the client to submit the domain name to the server; only the IP address was sent. For these clients, you must set up multiple (i.e. secondary) IP addresses for your server (using the single-link multihoming feature of Open Transport), and have your DNS tables map each of your client's domain name to a different IP address. (Consult your network administrator for the unused IP addresses you will need.) When the client sends a request to the Web Server, the server will use the IP address to deterine which home page to serve to the client. 

The instructions below address the first method; if you decide to use multiple IP addresses, see the note at the bottom of this page for assistance in setting up multiple IP addresses, then follow the instructions here with this exception: have your DNS tables map each domain name to the appropriate (i.e., different) IP address, and include the IP addresses in the MultiDomain Settings file, rather than the domain names for these sites.

 

Step 1: Create separate web folders for each domain.

AppleShare IP 6.1 allows you to configure the Web Server to handle up to 50 domain names. For each domain, create a folder on the hard disk that will include a default.html page. For example, you might have 3 clients: Alpha, Baker, and Charlie. Make a folder named "Alpha" that contains the default web page, other pages, and media, that you want visitors to see when they visit the Alpha site. Do the same for Baker and Charlie.  

The folders might look like:

 

Step 2: Create appropriate DNS entries for each domain.

Each domain name will need an entry in your DNS tables, mapping it to the IP address of the server. If using MacDNS, the zone tables might look something like this:

Note that each domain name above is mapped to the same server. No matter which domain name is used in the URL (www.alpha.com, www.baker.com, etc.), the IP address returned will be 17.104.104.89, thus all requests will go to the same ASIP server. 

Note also that each domain name must be registered with InterNIC, and the IP address of the primary name server for each domain specified; otherwise, other name servers and clients on the Internet will not be able to resolve those domain names. 

 

Step 3: Create the MultiDomain Settings file

Create a plain text file called "Multi Domain Settings," using SimpleText or some other word processor of your choice. Save the file into the "Plug Ins" folder in your default Web Folder (the one specified in Web & File Server Settings). 

The syntax for Multi Domain Settings file is described below. Each line of the file contains either the domain name or IP address, the port number, and the path to the web files for that domain on the server.

  • domain name or IP address 
    • Use domain name when you are using a single IP address at the server and will have HTTP 1.1-compliant clients connecting. In this case, the unique domain name will be what the server uses to determine what web pages to serve. 
    • Use the IP address when you have multiple IP addresses configured for the server (using single-link multihoming). 
  • port number 
  • path to web files on the server 

    Note that the first entry in this file will be used as a default. For example, if you do not specify what page to serve if someone connects using an IP address in the URL instead of a domain name, the page found at the path in the first entry will be used.

This is an example of the contents of a Multi Domain Config file; while this example shows using port 80 for each domain, a different port number could be selected (just make sure the port number you select is not used by another application running on the server. See the TCP Filtering page for a list of port numbers used by ASIP).

Contents of a MultiDomain Settings file:

    dns=www.company.com port=80 path=Macintosh HD:Web Folder:
    dns=17.104.104.89 port=80 path=Macintosh HD:Web Folder:
    dns=www.alpha.com port=80 path=Macintosh HD:Client Folders:Alpha
    dns=www.baker.comport=80 path=Macintosh HD:Client Folders:Baker
    dns=www.charlie.comport=80 path=Macintosh HD:Client Folders:Charlie

Note that the first site specified is going to be our default, and the domain/path through which Remote Administration will be used. In the second line, we are specifying what page we want served if someone uses the IP address of the server to connect, rather than a domain name. The following lines define the paths for our customer folders. 

Step 4. Settings in Web & File Admin Program 

Verify in the ASIP Web & File Admin program that:

  • Web Services are enabled
  • Web Plug-Ins are enabled (Plug In Messaging could also be useful for troubleshooting purposes)
  • Appropriate privileges have been set up for each folder containing web pages that need to be served: each of your customer folders, as well as the default Web Folder. 

Stop and restart the Web & File Services, for the MultiDomain Settings file to be recognized.

 

Step 5. Test from a client

Test the MultiDomain configuration by connecting to the web server from any client, using each of the domain names you set up: www.alpha.com, www.baker.com, www.charlie.com, and www.company.com. 

If Plug In Messaging has been enabled in Web & File Server Settings, you can also check the Plug In Messages file found in System Folder:Preferences:AppleShare IP Preferences:HTTP Logs: to view the list of sites your server is ready to support.

NOTE: Using the same domain name with multiple ports does not work. For example, having www.company.com serve Alpha’s page at port 8070, Baker’s page at 8080 and Charlie’s page at 8090, is not supported in this version (may be implemented in future).

Troubleshooting tips:

If problems arise, verify correct configuration as follows:

  • Verify that Web Service and Web Plug Ins are enabled.
  • Verify that privileges to the default Web Folder, and to your customer's web folders, and all enclosed folders, are set up correctly.
  • Make sure that the domain names being used at client can be resolved. A utility such as MacTCP Watcher, DNS Lookup, or the Find IP Address feature of TCP Filtering Admin program can be used. If the domain names cannot be resolved, look into DNS issues.
  • Make sure that the MultiDomain Settings file is a text file, named exactly right, formatted properly and located in the Plug Ins folder of the default Web Folder (the folder specified in Web & File Admin program).
  • Make sure that the paths indicated in the MultiDomain Settings file contain no typos and are accurate. There should not be blank spaces following the colons which delineate folders names.
  • Verify that each of the web folders has a default.html page; open the page locally using an HTML editor or browser to compare it against whatever page (if any) is being served by the web server.
  • Check TCP Filtering to make sure that no filters would prevent access to the Web port from the client computers.
  • If using ports other than the default HTML port 80, make sure the port numbers are not being used by other services. 
  • If Plug In Messaging is turned on, you can also view the Plug In Messages file for a list of sites that the server is ready to support. 

 

Setting up Secondary IP addresses on the ASIP server

The second way of configuring the ASIP server for multidomain support is to set up secondary IP addresses at the server, and have the client's domain names mapped to the secondary addresses. Open Transport 1.3 or later and a PCI-based server is required to support this capability, which is called 'single-link multihoming', 'IP multinode support', or 'IP aliasing.'

This method is needed when clients may not support HTTP 1.1; in these cases, the domain name the client used in the URL is not passed to the server; only the IP address is. Thus, the ASIP Web Server must use the IP address to determine what home page to send to the client. When using this method, you should use IP address, rather than the domain name, in the MultiDomain Config.

 

Step 1: Verify that the server's primary IP address is static and configured manually. Open the TCP/IP control panel to verify.

Step 2: Create an "IP Secondary Addresses" file; this will be a plain text file that will contain the information on the secondary IP addresses. This file needs to be saved into the Preferences folder of the System Folder. 

Within this file, each line begins with "ip=" followed by a secondary IP address. If the subnet mask and router address are different from those used by the primary IP address, they should be specified also, preceded by "sm=" and "rt=", respectively. Here is an example; note that the first line which begins with a semi-colon is a comment.

    ;ip address subnet mask router address
    ip=192.1.1.4 sm=255.255.255.0rt=192.1.1.1
    ip=192.1.1.5 
    ip=192.1.1.6 

 

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