Setting up a website on amiga

[amiga4001]

So totally new on this.
I did some research in the past and seems I need Metalweb to create the pages.
I can try the demo for now.
I have setup miami and genesis which are both configured to a static IP with a router.
The router is what makes the Ip static as my provider only delivers a static one.
My provider also gives me 50MB on space to use for a website.
Or is there a way I can set it up on my amiga4000 so I don't have that 50MB restriction?
Do I need to set up that Appache thing then?
Questions,questions...
Maybe a few links to people who already managed to set up a site on an amiga?

[Lemmink]

MetlWeb is for creating Webpages. Also it is a nice approach it is nearly useless as  it only gives you very basic HTML features that could easyer and faster be put together with a simple texteditor even from a newbie.

GoldED with the Webworld plugin on the other hand is very usefull.

[InTheSand]

Just use "Ed" as supplied with Workbench! :-)

If you want your Amiga to serve web pages, have a look at the collection of httpd tools on Aminet as a starting point...

 - Ali

P.S. Why is this in the "Amiga on eBay" section??!

[Castellen]

I run my site directly from this A4000T, works fine.  I have a 2mbit ADSL internet connection, though uploads are limited to 128k, too bad.

As I'm serving around 300Mb of data, hate web hosting fees, want control over my own server and the computer runs 24/7 anyway, it made sense to run it myself.

As it's not serving truckloads of requests (only around 15000 hits/month in 1-2Gb), I find the GW3S ARexx webserver does a good job.

Support website here but it appears to be down at the moment.

As it stands, there is a bit of room for improvement, so over the years I've modified the ARexx code to suit my needs.
The writing of webserver logs to disk was also problematic (which appears to be a bug in ARexx file handing during multiple requests), so I wrote my own webserver logging utility in C which works well to produce Webalizer compatible logfiles without the problems that GW3S/ARexx has doing the same job.

I originally was going to use Apache, but it was a giant arse to set up and get running.  Plus I didn't need all of it's extravagant features like PHP.

GW3S is quick and easy to get running.  Requires a few entries to your Miami/AmiTCP database and a simple configuration of the webserver using the provided ARexx utility.

Let me know if you want more information or any of the webserver support apps I've written, modified GW3S code, etc.

[Castellen]

Forgot to answer your other questions...

For creating HTML pages, it's just as fast and easy to use a text editor.
I use TuiTED which has nice syntax highlighting for HTML and C.

The HTML language is fairly simple, so it doesn't take long to get your head around the basics.  Look at other websites and look at the source to see how the author has done different things.


There are plenty of good HTML/web support tools on Aminet such as HTML Tidy, Webalizer and various WYSIWYG editors (which I don't really find that helpful).

Also plenty of online resources for helping you write HTML and validation tools.

[doctorq]

One thing I have always wondered about is the actual url. Do you have to register it somewhere in order to be able to access it, or can I just setup a server and have the needed url in a config file, and then it would be a useable url???

[amigagr]

here is a server on the a1200 of MrZammler running NetBSD
loraine

[Castellen]

For the domain name, you can pay for the use of a personalised name (e.g. doctorq.com) or go with a free domain name service, such as DynDNS.org, which has the limitation of a slightly less "personalised" domain name.

In my case I have a dynamic IP address, which means the IP address of my connection can change at random or as directed by my ISP.  So I run a small client under control of a Cron script which periodically checks the current IP address is what's registered in the DNS server.  If not (due to the IP address changing), it updates it automatically.

[InTheSand]

To follow on from Castellen's advice - with the likes of DynDNS.org, you'll find that some Ethernet-based ADSL routers (mostly the more recent ones) have native support for this built in.

So effectively, you have to register with DynDNS to get a free domain name, enter the details into the ADSL router, then the router itself deals with updating the DNS entry when your dynamic IP address changes.

Regards,

 - Ali

[amiga4001]

Ok I set up this W3s server thingie and I am able to acces in my local network my "site"
Now offcourse I want to be able to have acces from beyond my local network.
I also have dhcp.
Did see something in my routermanual about this DynDNS thing I thought.
But I'll have to have a url right?
So I'll get an url from this DynDNS if I register there???
Step by step...

[InTheSand]

I guess you have an ADSL router or cable modem of some sort? If so, what's the make and model? If DynDNS is mentioned in the manual, there's a good chance it's supported directly.

The rough steps are:
1. Register with DynDNS
2. Enter the DynDNS details into your router
3. Configure your router to allow incoming requests on port 80 (the default for web traffic) to be redirected to your Amiga

If you're using the router in its default configuration and have all your local IP addresses managed by DHCP, you will need to alter some settings!

But we can help with that once we know what your router is...

 - Ali

[amiga4001]

Cablemodem.
It is an Eminent(EM4013) and the manual does speak about Dynamic DNS.
The router is changing the IP adres from Dynamic to static at the moment.

[Castellen]

Leave setting up DynDNS until last, get everything working properly first.  Also, don't get confused between when your router's manual talks about dynamic DNS and the DynDNS.org service.  They are two different things.

You will still be able to connect to your webserver without a domain name, just use your internet (Wide Area Network) IP address for now.  You can find out what it is using various methods such as looking at your router's internal HTML statistics page.

Using a local network computer, the webserver should work simply by pointing a web browser at the Amiga's local IP address, e.g. 192.168.1.8  If it doesn't, then get this working first.

Using a remote computer, connect to your IP address, e.g. http://202.123.45.67
The job of the Domain Name Server is to simply translate your domain name into your IP address anyway, so you're just doing a short cut for now.

For this to work, your router needs to know that it has to direct incoming web requests (on port 80) to your Amiga.  Though you have DHCP, your Amiga should probably get allocated the same IP address all the time.  Find out what this is (192.168.?.?) and use it to configure the router's internal routing table so that all port 80 requests are sent to your Amiga's IP address.

After that you should be able to connect to your Amiga webserver from an external address.

Once that's all working, you can register with DynDNS.org.  This page should answer most of your questions.  Download and configure AmiDynDNS as per the included instructions and that's all the major stuff finished.

[amiga4001]

Hoerah I have a contact to the outside/inside.
No url yet bet that is just a matter of time.
I only hope this WAN IP adres is the same everytime?
So it isn't dynamic I mean.
Well time will tell I guess.

[Gojirax]

What's this THTTPD I see on Aminet?

tiny/turbo/throttling HTTP server

http://main.aminet.net/search.php?query=httpd

I see version 2.23(Beta1) for 68k AmigaOS but the more recent version 2.25b is only for MorphOS.

Has anyone recompiled 2.25+ for AmigaOS? From the Readme's it appears that they claim it will cleanly compile on any Unix-Like OS. Just curious. I'd like to try this sometime.