Web hosting on Windows III: Reluctant Success
Mon 28 Jan 08 22:27 | Tags: Web Hosting, Windows
Okay, I've been putting off ending this series (Part I, Part II) for too long. Please forgive me for sort of rushing through this, but I think we both agree that I tend to write too much anyway.
So clearly the server is now up and working. What was the final solution? Well, as much as I tried to avoid it… I went with Apache. I still think that Apache is a spectacularly mediocre web server with a fantastically horrible configuration system, but Amaya was not cutting it. I swallowed my pride, did my research, and installed it.
I'm giving it a hard time, and rightly so, but as horrible as the syntax is, Apache's configuration files are well-commented and set to fairly secure defaults. Which is good, because I didn't need most of Apache's features, such as .htaccess files or subdomains or such. We did need some parts of the site to be locked up by a username and password, and, as with LightTPD, I was even able to get those parts to work over an HTTPS encrypted connection as well; it wasn't as easy as it was with Lighty, but I did it. However, one feature I wasn't able to get working was WebDAV. The feature is there in Apache, so it can be done; I just couldn't get it to work. We could log in, but not upload files; probably some Windows-specific permissions thing that I don't want to even bother guessing about. So… I turned back to LightTPD. Yes, through a little more tweaking of configuration files, I've set up both Lighty and Apache to run on the box; Apache handles all the web requests, whereas Lighty responds to the WebDAV ones. Ideal? No, but it works.
Now that I was using Apache, I once more tried to get PHP working via FastCGI… no dice. Eventually I gave up and installed PHP as an Apache module. For reasons I've explained before, this isn't the most ideal solution, but it's working. And it's allowed me to install XCache, which really set the server on fire; it was definitely noticeably faster.
But, if you were paying attention, you may realize that there was one more problem we haven't solved yet; outgoing mail. For whatever reason, IIS's outgoing mail server just wasn't wanting to relay mail. On a whim, I tried the slightly scary-looking hMailServer; imagine my surprise when it worked fantastically! I don't know if this program would be up for the task of a full-service mail relay, but for this server, which maybe sends out a couple dozen messages a day at most, it seems to be working just fine.
So that's the story of how I got a web server of moderate traffic up and working on Windows. Was it as bad as I thought it was going to be? Well… yes, just about. Having done it once, I'm now more knowledgeable about the process, but just as reluctant to do it.
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