Why was the Sambar Server created ?
The Sambar Server was created to test a three-tier communication infrastructure
modeled after the Sybase Open Client/Open Server. Soon thereafter,
the idea of leveraging the infrastructure for dynamic delivery of content
on the WWW resulted in the addition of an HTTP protocol stack, and
efforts in supporting the notion of presistent users via HTTP.
Originally developed on a Sun Workstation (UNIX), it was ported to the
PC (Windows 32) and licensed for commercial purposes. After completely
rewritting the base code at the end of 1996, and adding many new
features, version 3.0 began shipping in February 1997. Version 4.0
began shipping in mid-May 1997.
What are the differences between the free and pro versions ?
With the 4.2 release some features require a "Pro" license key to unlock
additional functionality. There is no special software to download for the
Pro server. The Pro license revenue helps offset the costs of
maintaining the code and distributing the server.
When upgrading to a new server are there any concerns ?
When upgrading to a new release, you MUST install the new release in a
new directory. There are no "smarts" in the installer to recognize
previous versions and upgrade them. So if you install over a previous release,
you will erase any common configuration and document files that you might
wish to keep around.
The How To documentation includes an overview of
the steps used to upgrade Sambar Technology's servers.
How compatible is the Sambar Server with Apache or NCSA ?
The Sambar Server does not attempt to offer all of the features or
configuration options of Apache or NCSA. The focus of the Sambar Server
is on an extremely simple installation, turn-key packaging, and a programmer
friendly interface for extending the underlying functionality.
Future releases will likely remain on this track, including extensions
to the programmer interfaces, more sample source code, and improved
configuration capabilities from the system administration forms.
Does the Sambar Server support the Microsoft's FrontPage Server Extensions ?
Microsoft does not presently allow third-party developers to port
the FrontPage Server Extensions. In 1999, Microsoft has stated that
their Office 2000 suite will use the WebDAV (distributed authoring and
versioning) HTTP extensions for authoring; presumably, this will replace
the FrontPage extensions. The Sambar Server will be exhanced to
support WebDAV -- this functionality should be available at the end of 1999.
According to some users, you don't actually need the FrontPage extensions
to use FrontPage to design your site, or even to publish your site to the
Sambar Server. When you hit the Publish button in FrontPage, it
attempts to connect driectly to your server through the extensions. However,
if FrontPage does not find the extensions, it automatically launches the
Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard instead, which transfers the file via
FTP.
Ordinary web pages designed using FrontPage 98 should work fine against
the Sambar Server (with FTP configured to run), even without the extensions.
You should also be able to use elements of Active Elements since they're
Java-based. However, you won't be able to use any of the FrontPage
Components - such as search, e-mail, or discussion forums - on your site,
nor will you be able to administer your site directly as if it were a
FrontPage web located on your machine.
Lastly, you can use the FrontPage editor separately without the FrontPage
Explorer. The editor is located in the \bin directory where
FrontPage is installed and is called fpeditor.exe.
Does the Sambar Server support SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) ?
The Sambar Server does support SSL, but I am limited in my ability to ship
this functionality due to US Government restrictions.
I hope to be able to release this functionality in the near future.
For an overview of the functionality implemented but not fully released
see the SSL help
pages.
Will the Sambar Server act as a proxy server?
The Sambar Server comes with a non-caching HTTP proxy server and basic SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 proxy
servers compiled in. These proxies perform modest security
filtering via the sample application shipped with the server (see security.c).
The proxies were designed to facilitate multiple clients on a private network
connecting to the internet on a single PPP connection. This can be implemented
by having a Windows 95/98 or NT machine connect to the internet via modem
while also listening to requests from their local network (Note: the gateway
machine must be configured with two IP addresses - one for the modem
connection and one for the ethernet connection - to support this operation.
The "Act As HTTP Proxy", "Act As SMTP Proxy", "Act As POP3 Proxy" and
"Act As IMAP4 Proxy" parameters in the configuration file can be used to turn
these features on. Note: All proxy configuration can be performed via
the system administration interface. See the Proxy Functionality
documentation for more details.
Does the Sambar Server support server-side image maps ?
No. It is my belief that the introduction of client-side image maps
has rendered server-side maps obsolete. I recognize that there is
legacy code requiring this feature but have not had a significant number
of requests to implement it.
Why does the server fail to start when I double-click my short-cut ?
The working directory must be the installation directory of the Sambar Server.
So if you set up your own short-cut, the working directory must be
C:\program files\sambar rather than the default C:\program files\sambar\bin.
A second common cause for failure is having an old SAHOME environment
variable set. If you previously had configured the server to run as a
Windows95 service you may have set this variable to a location that is no
longer valid.
Why do I get the Forbidden message after a server restart ?
The browser caches the magic cookie associated with your administration
login. After a server restart, this cookie is no longer valid, so you
must re-login. Unfortunately, because the browser often caches
pages, you may find it difficult to login without getting the
Forbidden message once you have received it the first time. The solution
is to clear your browser memory and disk cache and then re-login to
the administration console. With Netscape browsers, you can use the
shift-reload command sequence to force an /session/adminlogin after
receiving the Forbidden page.
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.
Netscape 4.x Browsers have the ability to turn off cookies
(this may in fact be the default). The system administration console
requires cookies for user validation. You also must be connecting directly
to the WWW server you are trying to administer; if your browser is setup
to use the Sambar Server as a proxy, you need to configure the
browser to not use the proxy when accessing the local WWW server.
Users also often receive the Forbidden page if they restart the server
and then use the "back" menu to return to the System Administration
pages. Because these pages are in cache (Netscape ignores pragma no-cache),
you are free to view the pages, but as soon as you select an option that
hits the server, you receive a Forbidden message because you have not
logged in the the server as the system administrator. You must always
(re)enter the System Administrator console with the
/session/adminlogin?RCpage=/sysadmin/index.stm URL after a server restart.
How do I implement multiple default documents ?
The "Default Page" configuration variable (config.ini and
vhost.ini) can be a space separated list of files to search
for when no document is specified.
Why don't user restrictions seem to work when I add an entry to the [restrict] section of the security.ini file ?
The security.ini file is cached during the startup of the server
to enhance performance. For this reason, when modifications are made to
the security.ini file, the server must be restarted.
What is the /session directive ?
The /session directive is used to indicate that a Sambar Server RPC should be
executed to fulfill the request. There is no /session directory. The
parameter immediately following /session (i.e. /session/sendmail)
corresponds to the RPC to be executed and parameters to pass to the RPC.
The System Administrator console reports provide a list of all RPCs available
for execution via the /session directive and the security restrictions
imposed on each RPC. Many of the RPCs configured for execution are provided
in source code in the samples subdirectory of the Sambar Server
installation.
Will the Sambar Server run as an NT Service ?
Yes. The Sambar Server NT Service can be found in bin/ntserver.exe.
The instructions for installation and execution of the Sambar Server
NT Service can be found in the Installation Documentation.
The source code for the Sambar Server NT Service can be found in
the samples/source directory.
How do I change the FTP login/logout messages ?
The FTP login message is returned from the FTP_WELCOME message defined in the
config/macros.ini file. If there is no FTP_WELCOME define, then
no welcome message is returned. The logout message is returned from the
FTP_GOODBYE macro definition.
Will the FTP server interact with the NT user database for
username/password/directory information ?
I provide all of the source code for the username/password validation and
directory location for FTP (see samples/source/login.c -- ftp_connect()).
I do not have plans at this time to use the NT user database in place of
the current file mechanism, but would greatly appreciate it if someone would
implement this feature and provide the source code (which I would
distribute with the Sambar Server).
What are the future plans for the Sambar Server ?
- Keep up with advances in HTTP protocol (i.e. HTTP 1.1) and dynamic content delivery
- Add server-side JavaScript (with RDBMS and file I/O extensions)
- Add additional server functionality including: IMAP4 Server, WebDAV support
- Increase the number and usefulness of the sample applications available
- Enhance the system administration APIs
- Collect suggestions for fixes/improvements from users
What platforms with the Sambar Server run on ?
While originally developed on a Sun Workstation (Solaris), the Sambar Server
is now only available on Windows 95/98 and Windows NT (3.51 and 4.0).
Availability on other platforms is not planned at the present time as
my hardware budget is limited to PC systems for the forseeable future.
Where can I get the Sambar Server ?
You can find the most recent release of the Sambar Server at
http://www.sambar.com/.
Are *.map files supported by the Sambar Server ?
Map files for server-side image maps are not presently supported by
the Sambar Server. The modules interface can
be used to implement this functionality should an enterprising programmer
wish to code this up.
What do the 499 status codes mean in the access logs ?
The 499 status indicates that the user cancelled the HTTP request before
the entire document could be downloaded.
What is the maximum length of a configuration entry
in the security.ini or config.ini files ?
The maximum length of any single entry line in a configuration file is 1024 bytes.
How do I add MIME types to the Sambar Server ?
MIME entries are located in the config/mime.ini configuration file.
My browser doesn't connect to the server. How can
I test the server ?
The first place to look when something appears wrong with the server is
in the log/server.log file. (Note: The unusual file names and
line numbers that appear with error messages are part of the Sambar
Server debugging environment).
The other option is to telnet to the server (which is on port 80
by default) and request the home page. Once connected via telnet
(make sure to turn on local echo on your telnet client), type
GET / and press return twice. The server should
return the home page in response.
How do I configure the Sambar Server to
serve Java applets ?
Java applets are served up just like images or HTML files. You do not
need to do anything special. If your applets aren't working, make sure
that you are pointing to the applet properly in your APPLET tag.
How do I change the realm name for
authentication requests ?
The realm name is defined in the Security Realm configuration
variable defined in the config/config.ini file.
Why does the Sambar Server crashes my system when
McAfee NetShield is running ?
This problem has been reported by users running Sambar Server as an NT Service.
Microsoft has a patch for this problem. You need to get a new version of
AFD.SYS and put it in your WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory.
You can get this file from:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/usa/nt40/hotfixes-postSP1/
Why do I get the error saying sambardb.dll cannot be loaded ?
ODBC32 may not be installed on your machine if you are running Windows 95/98
(see the Install documentation for the location
of Microsoft's free download site. Otherwise, ODBC32 may be installed on
your machine, but may not be in your path; the sambardb.dll library is
linked with odbc32.dll and requires it be available. First, using Explorer,
attempt to find the file ODBC32.DLL on your machine. If found, then add that
directory to your path in the Conrol Panel. If that fails, you will
need to reinstall your ODBC32 software.
Is it possible to filter HTTP logs. I would like to
not log my requests (e.g. to administration pages) ?
The configuration parameter Don't Log Requests in the
config/config.ini can be set to /sysadmin* for to eliminate
all requests for pages starting with /sysadmin.
You can also restrict by IP address using the Don't Log IPs.
Are you browsing a local file (file://) rather than
an HTTP connection (http://) ?
If you accessed the Sambar Server home page using the 'Open File...' or
'Open Local...' command of your browser then you are not invoking the Sambar
Server and will not be able to access any Sambar Server features (such as
administration).
Check the URL displayed at the top of your browser. If it is prefixed with
file:// then this is the problem. Re-connect to the Sambar Server using the
web server's address.
What is the maximum size I can upload as POST
arguments or using multipart/form-data ?
The Sambar Server has an internal limit of 100KB for all content length
(this includes GET/POST arguments as well as multipart/form-data).
This limit can be increased or decreased by modifying the
Maximum Content-Length parameter in the config.ini file.
What do I do if I forgot my
username/password ?
If you forget the administrator password, your only recourse is to edit
the config/passwd file and remove the encoded password in the
third field (colon separated fields) of the administrator account. Then
login as the administrator, no password is required, and reset the account
password.
For other user accounts, you can go in as the administrator user and
use the User Management forms to select the user who forgot his/her
password and reset their account password.
Can I force the server to bind to a specific IP
address (on a multi-homed machine) ?
Yes. In the config.ini file there is an entry in the [common]
section which can be used to force the server to bind to a specific IP
address at startup. The parameter, Force IP Bind should be set
to the single IP address you wish the server to be bound to.
Can I customize the error messages returned
from the Sambar Server ?
Yes. All error messages can be found in the messages directory
where the Sambar Server is installed. Any modifications made to these
error files will reflected in subsequent Server error responses.
In addition, to use the Sambar scripting within the error messages,
rename the error file you wish to use scripting within so that the
file ends with the .stm extension rather than .htm.
For example the file messages/notfnd.htm can be renamed
messages/notfnd.stm; after making this change, you can add
tags such as <RCEdocument_uri> and <RCEreferer> to indicate
the specific document that was not found along with the referring page.
Why does the Sambar Server stop responding
when my laptop goes into suspend mode ?
Patrick Maddox writes: Typically when a laptop goes into suspend
mode it shuts down or puts on standby all unnecessary services. Networking
is considered one of these. The solution is to disable the suspend mode
on the machine.
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