In January 2005, I was on a quest to find a webserver that ran on Windows (and wasn't IIS) and supported:
- virtual hosts
- mod_perl
- mod_rewrite
- reverse proxy
I tried many of the servers below, and finally settled on Apache, despite the admonitions you will see saying that a "real" Apache web server can't run under Windows. The only disadvantage I have found so far is that the GUI admin tools for Apache (like Webmin) are Unix-only. However, I am now intimately familiar with the contents of my "conf" files, and I suspect that means I understand Apache better, and I know exactly what permissions are enabled ... basically as few as lets the server run!
The comments below are a mixture of mine and the marketing hype you can find on the linked pages.
- Savant Web Server -- Basic Web server for Windows that is a snap to set up http://savant.sourceforge.net/index.html -- does NOT have virtual hosts - so byeeee!
- PHPTriad http://sourceforge.net/projects/phptriad/ -- An installer of Apache, MySQL and PHP for Windows. Configuring Apache, PHP and MySQL for Windows 98SE and XP at No Cost By Henri-Paul Benveniste http://www.lurkhere.com/apache1024.html
- Uniform Server http://miniserver.sourceforge.net/index.html is excellent. Super easy installation and use. All the latest versions of: Apache2, PHP 4, MySQL 4, PERL 5 --- Uniform Server v3.2 http://sourceforge.net/projects/miniserver/ is a quick, easy and small installation containing the servers and platform software for MediaWiki - except that it ends up missing a lot of features.
- XAMPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html The distribution for Windows 98, NT, 2000 and XP. This version contains: Apache, MySQL, PHP + PEAR, Perl, mod_php, mod_perl, mod_ssl, OpenSSL, phpMyAdmin, Webalizer, Mercury Mail Transport System for Win32 and NetWare Systems v3.32, JpGraph, FileZilla FTP Server, mcrypt, Turck MMCache, SQLite, and WEB-DAV + mod_auth_mysql.
- WinCVS http://www.wincvs.org/ Sophisticated graphical user interface helps to utilize full power of CVS for experts and quickly learn basics for beginers.
- Xitami http://www.imatix.com/html/xitami/index.htm Xitami is a high-quality portable free web server. It comes fully configured for Win32 and *has FTP and virtual hosts*. Installing PHP under Xitami http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/jain20030324.php3?page=1 --- cannot proxy --- Appears to be unsupported
- Sambar Server http://www.sambar.com/ -- Freeware Win32 Web server --- Review on serverwatch: http://www.serverwatch.com/stypes/servers/article.php/15893_1376711 ---- http://www.sambarserver.info/ -- support group may be able to mod_rewrite in next version 6.2
- Secure your webserver with a SSL Certificate at http://FreeSSL.com/ . The lowest cost provider of highly trusted stable single root 128 bit SSL Certificates (we own all our own root certificates!) suitable for lite and professional level ecommerce - fully supported and delivered immediately!
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> The only disadvantage I have found so far is that the GUI admin tools for Apache
> (like Webmin) are Unix-only.
You can easily run a linuxserver on top of Windows.
I use the Debian image of coLinux. It's a minimal installation, where you can install Apache and all packages you need with apt-get from internet.
I love it.
I even can access now the server from outside.
Advantage of `coLinux (and virtualisation in general)
- no need for a separate Linux box
- many installations on on computer
- the image is not dependent of the host installation, it's possible to use an existing linux installation to run under coLinux.
- in general (IMHO) virtual systems are easier to backup (live migration under Xen)
to play with:
PVPM (portable virtual privacy machine)
http://www.metropipe.net/ProductsPVPM.shtml
nice as "Linux pocket pc" on USB-Stick, starts from Win or Linux (under qemu)
Patrick Ogay
it's also a test of pmwiki Comment:-)
Hi Patrick
Colinux is something that escaped me when I was looking for a webserver platform. It looks very interesting. Thanks for the link.
it looks like pmwiki Comment works! :-)
I know this article is quite old, but it gave me hope that the author had found a way to get mod_perl and mod_rewrite to work with Xitami. I have searched the internet over trying to find a way, and though I have not yet succeeded in finding a way to do - I also haven't found any info that indicates it can't be done.
Can anyone post on how to do it xitami or point in the right direction on how to do it. I can be reached at: rolinger1 (at) hotmail (.) com
Hi Russel
I never went back to Xitami because I have been able to do everything I need with Apache, and there is a huge amount of support for it.
I have, however, used several copies of XAMPP for testing and demonstrations. I actually can run it from a (fast) USB stick on almost any host Windows PC. That really impresses people to see a server running on their own machine in only a few minutes.
In one demo I ran Apache, PmWiki, WordPress, and SMF from the stick.
yeah...I have heard about servers on stick before. Pretty neat idea for demos I suppose.
I have since learned that mod_perl and mod_rewrite are for Apache interaction only. If they can work with Xitami I haven't seen any documentation or examples or feedback from others that indicates how it can work with Xitami.
My inquiry about mod_perl, mod_rewrite is to convert dynamic urls to static urls to make my searchable content more friendly to search engine crawlers. I "think" I have found way using webserver aliases.
alias path
/foo = /cgi-bin/foo.pl
Then have the URL:
/foo/var1_10/var2_20/var3_30
OR
/foo/10/20/30
The alias kicks off the /cgi-bin/foo.pl script, which reads the $PATH_INFO environment variable to parse out the variables needed within the script
($root,$path) = split(/\/foo\//,$ENV{'PATH_INFO'}/ ;
@getVars = split(/\//,$path) ;
print $getVars ;
"var1_10 var2_20 var3_30"
or
"10 20 30"
Well, thats the theory at least...I don't know if there is a cleaner way to do it...I hope there is because the problem with the above is that I need to manually configure all the aliases within the server config. I am looking for an easier method that would allow me to create what I needed on the fly - but not certain how. As I said before mod_perl and mod_rewrite are apache only modules (at least I think they are) and I aim to keep using Xitami - so I need to get creative.
Thus far, the problem with the above alias method is that Xitami, from what I gather, can only alias to a directory...not to a specific file. So I would need to put an index.pl in the alias folder instead of directly to the script.
/foo = /cgi-bin/foo/
And then have index.pl be the default executable script.
This is all very convoluted.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Ha...the above technique actually works. By using Xitami's CGI Alias feature you can match a root alias name to any script
/foo = /xitami/cgi-bin/foo.pl
And URL www.bar.com/foo/hello/how/are/you
would get forwarded to foo.pl, and PATH_INFO is everything after foo -> /hello/how/are/you - then you can parse that path info and waa-laa, you have your dynamic variables back.
Oooh, I am very excited now. Now I can make all 700,000 pages of my site be crawler friendly!!!
Mary? — 27 April 2013, 11:34
Thank you for another inrifmatove web site. Where else could I get that type of information written in such an ideal way? I've a project that I am just now working on, and I've been on the look out for such information.
Mary: there are lots of comments here...what specifically was informative and what else exactly are you looking for?
Russel: Based on past experience, Mary is a spambot, or a human spammer trolling for sites where they can post spam.