Sambar Server Documentation

Server Configuration


Using the Administration Interface

1. Start the Sambar Server by double-clicking on the Sambar Server icon created during installation. By default, the HTTP server comes up on port 80. No other servers (FTP, or proxy) are started by default.

2. Open the index.htm file with your browser. This displays the front page of the Sambar Server interface.

3. Click on the Administration Interface link (http://<your-machine>/session/adminlogin?RCpage=/sysadmin/index.stm).

4. When prompted to enter a username and password, specify admin for the username and leave the password blank. Click OK.

5. On the Sambar Server System Administration page, click on the Server Configuration link.

6. The form on the System Configuration page allows you to change the System Administrator's username, the port number on which the server is running, the maximum number of client connections you want the server to support and a number of other server settings.

7. If you change any of the default values, click on the Update System Configuration button. This not only sends the server a command to update its configuration values, but it returns you to the System Administration page. Please note that any changes specified don't actually take effect until the server is restarted.

If you don't want to change any of the configuration values and want to return to the previous page, click on the System Administration icon.

8. To restart the server, click on the System Management link and then click the Restart Server option.

Note: The default location for all HTML files is under the docs directory in the location where the Sambar Server was installed. The file docs/index.htm is the default home page for the server.

Important: For System Administration usage, you should configure your browser to "verify documents every time". This option is a setting in the Netscape Network Preferences panel's "Cache" tab. This setting will help avoid getting cached pages when moving among the System Administration pages.

Additional documentation is available for configuration of MIME types.

Configuring your browser for Proxy Use

Netscape Version 4

  1. Open the Netscape Communicator Web Browser.
  2. Select the Edit menu.
  3. Select the Preferences menu item.
  4. Click on the plus (+) in front of Advanced tree control.
  5. Select the Proxies item.
  6. Select Manual Proxy Configuration radio button and click the view button.
  7. Type localhost in the HTTP Proxy: field and 80 in the port field.
  8. Type localhost in the Security Proxy: field and 80 in the port field.
  9. Type localhost in the FTP Proxy: field and 80 in the port field.
  10. Click the OK button to close the dialog box

Netscape Version 2 & 3

  1. Open the Netscape Navigator Web Browser.
  2. Select the Options menu.
  3. Select the Network Preferences menu item.
  4. Click the Proxies tab.
  5. Select Manual Proxy Configuration radio button and click the view button.
  6. Type localhost in the HTTP Proxy: field and 80 in the port field.
  7. Type localhost in the Security Proxy: field and 80 in the port field.
  8. Type localhost in the FTP Proxy: field and 80 in the port field.
  9. Click the OK button to close the dialog box
For Netscape Version 2 only:

  1. Open the Options menu.
  2. Select the Save Options menu item.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 3

  1. Open the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web Browser.
  2. Open the View menu.
  3. Select the Options menu item.
  4. Click on the Connection tab.
  5. Select Connect through a proxy server.
  6. Click on the Settings button.
  7. Type the following settings in the Servers section:
    HTTP:   localhost 	Port:	80
    

    Leave all other field blank.

  8. Click the OK button to close the Proxy Settings dialog box.
  9. Click the OK button to close the Options dialog box.

Editing the config.ini File

1. Open the config.ini file with any editor. Note: the server must be restart for any changes to take effect.

2. Edit

[common]

Log Size The Log Size specifies the maximum size the server.log file is allowed to grow to. Once reached, the log file will wrap to the first line. If set to 0, the log file will grow as large as disk space will allow. Note: If the log file is rotated, the log size is reset and begins accumulating again.
Trace Failures This argument is for tracing processing failures in debug server builds; it must be true or false.
Trace Successes This argument is for tracing processing failures in debug server builds; it must be true or false.
Trace Threads This argument is for tracing processing failures in debug server builds; it must be true or false.
Trace Library Usage This argument is for tracing internal library initialization and and termination; it must be true or false.
Resolve Host Names This boolean instructs the server to perform DNS name resolution on all clients accessing the server. Performing DNS lookups affects the access log, and HOST environment variable. Users are recommended to leave this variable false unless absolutely necessary due to the significant performance degredation associated with DNS.
Message File Internal messages logged to the server.log file are localized using strings from the messages file.
Log Directory The directory in which to write all log and observation files.
Tmp Directory The directory in which to write all temporary files.
Cookie Tag The HTTP cookie tag to use when maintaining persistent client connections.
Persistent Cookies This boolean indicates whether HTTP user cookies should be persistent (have an expiration of 2007) or transient (expire when the browser is terminated).
Maximum Connections The maximum network connections to allow open at any given time. This number will influence the number of simultaneous HTTP, FTP, HTTP Proxy, SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 and Bridge proxy connections supported as well as the number of threads needed by the applications. The recommended value for this is between 40 and 100 connections depending on the memory and server performance.
Network Read Timeout The maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a read from a client connection before failing. Note: This period must be at least as large the Keep-Alive duration defined for the HTTP protocol.
Maximum Threads The maximum threads to use in processing user requests. This number should be approximately 10 higher than the number of simultaneous user connections permitted.
Scheduler Task Timeout The maximum duration a task is permitted to run before being terminated.
Scheduler Sleep Timeout The duration between task testing/execution.
Dial-On-Demand A boolean indicating whether the dial-on-demand feature of the Sambar Server should be used when outgoing connections are attempted.
Dial-On-Demand Entry The dial-on-demand entry to use when initializing the RAS interface. The phone number, username, password and domain configuration parameters must be set in the RAS entry. The Sambar Server uses the default configuration values of the entry specified.
Optimize Transmit A boolean indicating whether the TransmitFile() API should be used for file operations. This is configurable because Microsoft has limited the effectiveness of this API on Windows NT Workstation. In general, it is highly recommended that this parameter be set to false.
Force IP Bind This configuration parameter allows uses to force the Sambar Server to bind to a specific IP address on the server. This feature should only be used on machines with multiple IP addresses; for all other configurations, it should be left blank.
Dynamic IP Test Test periodically (every timeout period -- approximately 2 minutes) for a change in the server's IP address. This is necessary for DHCP machines running the FTP server, if they periodically change their IP address without restarting the Sambar Server.
Read Only A boolean indicating whether the server should run in read-only mode. This feature enables the server distribution to be run directly from a CD-ROM. All log files are placed in the user's TEMP directory rather than the directory from which the server is being run. This feature is only available to users with a Commercial distribution license.
License Sambar Server license key; certain functionality is restricted by licensing constraints.
File Cache Size The size (in bytes) alloted for file caching. If zero (0), no file caching is performed (this is the default). File caching is used to enhance the server disk I/O access performance by caching files in-memory. The in-memory file cache is for enhancing the performance of the HTTP server; there is presently no caching mechanism for HTTP proxy requests. For optimal performance, this should be set to the cumulative size of all static files in your document directories. (Note: The FTP server also uses this file cache.)
Maximum Cached File The size of the largest file (in bytes) that should be cached by the cache system.
Cache Flush Interval The period of time (in seconds) after which unused files should be flushed if additional cache space is needed.
[server]

Server Version The server version supported by the configuration file.
Observe Log Size The observation log size specifies the maximum size the observe.log file is allowed to grow to. Once reached, the log file will wrap to the first line. If set to 0, the file can grow as large as disk space will allow.
FTP Log Size The FTP log size specifies the maximum size the ftp.log file is allowed to grow to. Once reached, the log file will wrap to the first line. If set to 0, the file can grow as large as disk space will allow.
Maximum FTP Users The maximum FTP users supported by the server (at any one time).
Maximum FTP Upload The maximum size of any single FTP upload. If set to 0, there is no maximum upload size.
System Administrator The name of the system administrator.
System Administrator IP The host(s) where the system administrator is allowed to login from. To ensure that only hosts which you plan to use for administration have access to your system administration tools, you can provide a space separated list of IP address where an administrator may login from. If left blank, an administrator may login from any host. The wild-card star (*) character may be used for pattern matching, i.e. 140.175.165.*
Server Port When the Sambar Server starts, it connects to some port and address on the local machine dna waits for incoming requests. The Server Port configuration value indicates which the HTTP server will listen on.
Maximum Connections The maximum client connections permitted by the server. In general, this should be the same or fewer that the Maximum Connections found in the [common] section.
FTP Port The port to listen on for FTP requests on. By default, the FTP port is 21.
NNTP Port The port to listen on for NNTP requests (either Server or Proxy). By default, the NNTP port is 119.
SMTP Port The port to listen on for SMTP requests as well as the port to connect to the SMTP Server on. By default, the SMTP port is 25.
POP3 Port The port to listen on for POP3 requests as well as the port to connect to the POP3 Server on. By default, the POP3 port is 110.
IMAP4 Port The port to listen on for IMAP4 requests as well as the port to connect to the IMAP4 Server on. By default, the IMAP4 port is 143.
Bridge Port The port to listen on for Bridge requests as well as the port to connect to the Bridge Server on. See the Bridge Proxy documentation for details.
SOCKS Port The port to listen on for SOCKS4/SOCKS5 requests. See the SOCKS Proxy documentation for details.
Trace FTP A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the trace FTP requests. If true, all read/write actions are written to the logs/ftp.log file.
Act As Mail Server A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as a Mail server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the POP3 Port and process POP3 requests. Future releases will include support for IMAP4 and SMTP services. See the Mail Server documentation for more details.
Act As FTP Server A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an FTP server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the FTP Port and process FTP requests.
Act As NNTP Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an NNTP proxy server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the NNTP Port and form a circuit between the remote NNTP Server and the client.
Act As SMTP Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an SMTP proxy server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the SMTP Port and form a circuit between the SMTP Server and the client.
Act As POP3 Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an POP3 proxy server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the POP3 Port and form a circuit between the POP3 Server and the client.
Act As IMAP4 Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an IMAP4 proxy server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the IMAP4 Port and form a circuit between the IMAP4 Server and the client.
Act As Bridge Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an Bridge proxy server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the Bridge Port and form a circuit between the Bridge Server and the client. This feature provides a bridging capability for any TCP application that is bound to a specific port. For example, this feature could be used to bridge telnet or SQL Server. See the Bridge Proxy documentation for more details.
Act As SOCKS Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an SOCKS4/SOCKS5 proxy server. If true, a thread is started at server startup to listen on the SOCKS Port. See the SOCKS Proxy documentation for more details.
POP3 Enhanced A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the POP3 Proxy server should operate in "enhanced mode". Presently, enhanced mode supports user over-ride of the default POP3 proxy by specifying their username as user#pop3-server. See the Proxy documentation for more details.
NNTP Server The remote NNTP server to communicate with then NNTP requests come from clients to the NNTP proxy. To act as an NNTP proxy, the client sets the NNTP server to the Sambar Server's NNTP proxy server and the proxy server then connects to the NNTP Server defined by this parameter.
SMTP Server The SMTP server to communicate with then SMTP requests come from clients to the proxy. To act as an SMTP proxy, the client sets the SMTP server to the SMTP proxy server and the proxy server then connects to the SMTP Server defined by this parameter.
POP3 Server The POP3 server to communicate with then POP3 requests come from clients to the proxy. To act as an POP3 proxy, the client sets the POP3 server to the POP3 proxy server and the proxy server then connects to the POP3 Server defined by this parameter.
IMAP4 Server The IMAP4 server to communicate with then IMAP4 requests come from clients to the proxy. To act as an IMAP4 proxy, the client sets the IMAP4 server to the IMAP4 proxy server and the proxy server then connects to the IMAP4 Server defined by this parameter.
Bridge Server The Bridge server to communicate with then Bridge requests come from clients to the proxy. To act as an Bridge proxy, the client sets the Bridge server to the Bridge proxy server and the proxy server then connects to the Bridge Server defined by this parameter. To connect to the destination server on a port other than the Bridge Port, append a new port to the Bridge Server definition using a colon (:) followed by the new port number (i.e. localhost:80). See the Bridge Proxy documentation for more details.
Trace Bridge A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the trace Bridge proxy usage. If true, all bridge proxy usage is written to the logs/bridge.log file. This log file is typically used for debugging client/server applications. Warning! This feature significantly degrades performance and writes a great deal to disk.
Enable DBMS A bookean (true or false) indicating whether the server should initialize the DBMS library and caches for use by the Sambar Server.
Run Watcher A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should spawn a watcher daemon to restart the server in the event of a failure. If true, a Watcher Daemon process is started at server startup to ping the Sambar Server periodically. Important: The Watcher Daemon should only be used in conjunction with the Sambar Server Windows GUI executable [server.exe]; never with the NT Service.)
Watcher Timeout The Watcher Timeout specifies how often the Watcher Daemon should ping the Sambar Server. After a failure, the server is terminated and restarted by the Watcher Daemon.
Watcher Server The path, relative to the installation directory, of the Sambar Server executable that the Watcher Daemon should restart in the event of failure.
Watcher Notify The system administrator to notify in the event of a server failure. This user is sent mail if the Watcher Daemon fails to restart the server for any reason. This feature requires that the STMP Server parameter be configured with a valid mail server. Note: This feature is only available with the Sambar Server Pro License.
Security Realm The string raised when a security popup is raised.
Proxy Read Timeout The maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a read from an proxy client (HTTP Proxy, Bridge Proxy and Read/AV Proxy) connection before failing. This parameter over-rides the Network Read Timeout.
FTP Read Timeout The maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a read from an FTP client connection before failing. This parameter over-rides the Network Read Timeout.
SOCKS Read Timeout The maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a read from an SOCKS TCP client connection before failing. This parameter over-rides the Network Read Timeout.

[http]

To prohibit Server Side Include functionality, simply remove all entries from this configuration line.
Act As HTTP Proxy A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the server should act as an HTTP proxy server.
Trace Requests A boolean (true or false) indicating whether user requests should be logged to the access.log file. Note: /sysimage requests are never logged.
Trace Agents A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the user's agent (browser) should be logged to the agent.log file.
Trace Referrers A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the referer should be logged to the referer.log file.
Log Format A string (common, combined or performance) indicating the log format style. common indicates to use the common log format. combined is the combined log format specified by NCSA (the referer and agent are appended to the log line). performance is the combined log format with the addition of the page delivery performance time.
Don't Log IPs A space separate list of IP addresses that should not be logged. The wild card character star (*) can be used to match multiple arguments.
Don't Log Requests A space separate list of request strings that should not be logged. The wild card character star (*) can be used to match multiple arguments.
Automatic Directory Lists A boolean (true or false) indicating whether to provide a directory listing if no default file is present in the directory.
Automatic Directory Readme The file, if provided, that will be returned prior to the directory contents if found in the directory being listed.
Automatic Log Rotation A boolean (true or false) indicating whether the HTTP log files should be automatically rotated (daily) and a log report generated.
Automatic Log mailto If automatic log rotation is enabled, the report(s) generated will be mailed as attachments to the space-spearated list of users provided in this field.
Enable Keep-Alive A boolean (true or false) indicating whether HTTP Keep-Alive extension should be used. Keep-Alive is an extension to HTTP that allows persistent connections. These long-lived HTTP sessions allow multiple requests to be sent over the same TCP connection.
Allow HTTP PUT A space separated list of the user's allowed to perform the HTTP PUT method. Additional, per-directory security can be implemented using the security.ini configuration file.
Server Side Includes The file extension of files containing Server Side Includes. This file extension cannot be stm which is reserved for Sambar Server dynamic pages. A space separated list may be provided to configure more than one file-type (i.e. shtml shtm ssi).
Prohibit Script #exec This configuration parameter prohibits the execution of CGI/WinCGI/WinCmd scripts from within Server Side Include (shtml) or Sambar Scripted (stm) pages. If untrusted documents can be uploaded to the server, this restriction is recommended to prohibit arbitrary execution of server commands. (Note: This restriction does not apply to scripts in the /sysadmin folder.)
Default Page The HTML page to use when a client references a directory without specifying a specific file. This may be a space-separated list of file names (i.e. index.html index.htm index.shtml).
Home Page The HTML page to serve when a client references the server without specifying any page (i.e. http://www.sambar.com). This page must be found in the root document directory specified below. This page cannot be a CGI.
Images Directory A secondary directory for serving non-HTML mime types which will not be logged. This directory must be in to the Sambar Server installation. Important: you cannot have a sub-directory in the Documents Directory that is the same as this directive. In addition, this directive must have a trailing space.
Documents Directory The document directory under which all HTML files must reside. Unless preceeded by a drive letter (i.e. d:/wwwdir) ,the directory is assumed to be relative to the installation directory of the Sambar Server. All HTTP documents must be served from within the Document Directory. This feature is intended guard other parts of a machine from unwanted access. The FTP server is not limited by this restriction, each configured user of the FTP server may have access to a different root location. Future releases of the server may extend the security associated with the Document Directory through aliasing. This directive must have a trailing space.
CGI Directory The CGI directory under which all CGI executables must reside. This directory must be in to the Sambar Server installation directory. This directive must have a trailing space. All files in this directory are assumed to be executable programs. CGI programs can exist in other directories if *.cgi is enabled as a CGI Extension.
WinCGI Directory The WinCGI directory under which all WinCGI executables must reside. This directory must be in to the Sambar Server installation directory. This directive must have a trailing space.
CGI Timeout The duration, in seconds, that a CGI or WinCGI is allowed to run before termination.
CGI Exit Test The error code returned by CGI programs is tested and an error message is raised if the status is not zero (0) if this field is set to true. If false, CGI exist status codes are not tested.
CGI stderr This boolean indicates whether CGI STDERR output should be returned to the client. CGI STDOUT output is always returned to the client.
Keep-Alive Timeout The duration, in seconds, for the HTTP Keep-Alive functionality. If this period is not at least as large as the Network Read Timeout, the connection will be prematurely terminated.
Session Indicator The argument which indicates that the request refers to an RPC method (i.e. http://www.sambar.com/session/help).
Default MIME Type The default mime type to use when the mime type cannot be inferred from the file extension. More information on MIME types is available.
Remote Proxy When acting as an HTTP proxy, a remote caching server can also be used. If the Remote proxy field is non-blank, all HTTP proxy requests will be forwarded to the server configured (typically your ISP's caching proxy). SSL tunneling requests are also directed through the remote proxy (FTP proxy requests are not).
Remote Proxy Port The Remote Proxy server port to connect with when utilizing a remote proxy server.
Invalid Characters This is the list of characters that are NOT allowed in URIs. Unless you are very familiar with the HTTP protocol you should not modify this setting.
ISAPI Debug This configuration parameter specifies the debug level for ISAPI Extensions. Each level corresponds with an increasing detail: None, Basic, Call, Full. See the ISAPI Extension documentation for more details.
ISAPI Extensions This parameter identifies the file extension(s) that should be associated with to ISAPI extensions. Any file in the Documents Directory or aliased document directory with a file extension matching the defined ISAPI Extensions are treated as ISAPI applications. The default is *.dll. See the ISAPI Extension documentation for more details.
CGI Extensions This parameter identifies the file extension(s) that should be executed as CGI applications. Any file in the Documents Directory or aliased document directory with a file extension matching the defined CGI Extensions are treated as CGI applications. The defaults are: *.pl and *.cgi.
WinCGI Extensions This parameter identifies the file extension(s) that should be executed as WinCGI applications. Any file in the Documents Directory or aliased document directory with a file extension matching the defined CGI Extensions are treated as WinCGI applications. By default, no extensions are defined.
Maximum Content-Length This parameter defines the maximum content-length that the server will allow in POST or multipart/form-data request.
Enforce .htaccess This boolean indicates that the Sambar Server should enforce the HTACCESS functionality. See htaccess documentation for more details.

[events]

Maximum State Attributes The maximum attributes a user may have. Attributes are referenced using the RCS scripting variable, and are used to maintain state about a user for the duration of the login.
Maximum Users The maximum number of logged in users allowed on the system. There is not necessarily a correlation between logged in users and Maximum Connections, as logged in users refers to user handles maintained across HTTP requests.
Timeout Duration The maximum idle time (in seconds) before a logged in client is automatically logged out.
Trace Events Trace all events into the system. This boolean is for debugging purposes only.
DBMS Cache The primary cache for use by external applications (SA_CTXPROP_DBCACHE).
Application Directory The temporary directory for use by external applications (SA_CTXPROP_APPLICDIR).

[search]

Log Search Results A boolean indicating whether search requests should be logged to the log/search.log file.
Allow Wildcarding A boolean indicating whether search queries may contain wild-card characters for pattern-matched searches.
Index Only The file extensions to index when traversing the Documents Directory. This is a space separated list of file extensions. Note: the character ~ can be used to indicate that the server should index files without extensions (plain text).
Valid Characters A list of all characters that may comprise a valid search string. This list may not have any spaces. Only single-byte character sets are supported.

[user-events]

INIT The DLL and function to call during the INIT event.
EXIT The DLL and function to call during the EXIT event.
REQUEST The DLL and function to call during the REQUEST event.
LOGIN The DLL and function to call during the LOGIN event.
LOGOUT The DLL and function to call during the LOGOUT event. Note: Every client that logs in is guaranteed to log out (even in the event of a shutdown), however, once a single LOGIN event is called for a client (even if unsuccessful), all LOGOUT events are called. Care must be taken when cleaning up in the logout handler.
PROFILE The DLL and function to call during the PROFILE request (RCP scripting variable). The maximum length of the buffer passed in for the return data is 256 bytes.
NETCONNECT The DLL and function to call during the a server connection. The IP address and server type are passed as parameters and access is denied to the server if the function returns SA_FAIL.
FTP The DLL and function to call for username/password authentication during an FTP login. The username and password are passed as parameters and the FTP access structure is filled in on a successful login. Access is denied to the FTP server if the function returns SA_FAIL.
HTTPPROXY The DLL and function to call for each HTTP Proxy request. The hostname or IP address and URL being requested are passed as parameters and the proxy request is terminated if the function returns SA_FAIL. For connections where keep-alives are used, only the first request is processed via the HTTPPROXY event handler, subsequent proxy requests on the keep-alive connection are not filtered. If the HTTP proxy is an SSL request (SSL-tunneling), the URL will be NULL as the proxy does not interpret SSL packets.
ENVIRONMENT The DLL and function to call for each environment request. This allows user-defined environment variables to be used withing if/then/else conditional logic or to be passed as parameters to RPC methods. System defined environment variables have precedence over user-defined arguments. The maximum length of the buffer passed in for the return data is 256 bytes.

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