Web server

Tue Feb 13 21:30:23 UTC 2007

Hi,

I am not a fan of the GoAhead Webserver.  We have it in our product, but
we are going to replace it with the shttpd one.

I wrote the port for shttpd and rtems, it is in the official shttpd
tree. see http://shttpd.sourceforge.net/

The BIG missing feature's by comparison to GoAhead are:
1. Server Side Includes (which GoAhead calls ASP, which isn't ASP).
2. A Security API to allow security to be set in software, rather than
using a security file (shttpd supports a security file).

I have just written support for Server Side Includes, it has only been
tested by me, and it isn't integrated into the mainline yet, but the
patches are in the mailing list if anyone wants them.

GoAhead is larger (in code size) than shttpd. Without giving a much
larger set of capabilities as far as what I imagine typical use in an
RTEMS application would be.  It is also unmaintained and contains a
number of bugs (see my post that Joel links to).

The API's are totally different, so it is not easy to just plug in
shttpd into a program that uses GoAhead.  I also don't think that a
simple API translation layer could be written because the API's are
quite different where it matters.  I also however do not think it would
be a huge deal to cut a program using GoAhead over to shttpd.

There is also the issue that the GoAhead in RTEMS is old, V2.1.4, the
latest official GoAhead is V2.1.8 and there are a number of known bugs
to that version, my patches in my previous post seek to update the
version and to address as many known faults as possible.  Unfortunately
the licence is confusing, there are several subtly different versions,
but it would seem to me that applying my patches to the mainline and
making them publicly available as a patched version of GoAhead would
violate at least one of the variant licences.

There is also my pet hate, the server must report itself as a GoAhead
server and official version (2.1.4 for RTEMS).  If you apply patches to
it, it is against the licence to change this version number.  You also
need to put the GoAhead logo on your home page.

shttpd by contrast is a fully permissive licence (Beerware), free for
Commercial or Open Source use without restriction, and there is no
advertising clause, and you can make the server respond with any server
name/version that you like, so that it can match your application.

I am still working on shttpd, and we are going to integrate it into our
product and totally replace GoAhead.  Part of that will require I add
missing feature 2 above.  I expect this should be complete some time
next week.

I think as a way forward, given the lack of API compatibility would be
to provide a copy of the shttpd tree (current as at any release) and let
people decide what they want to use, with a note saying GoAhead is
obsoleted, for the obvious reasons (unsupported and restrictive licence)
and that people are encouraged to use shttpd (or another server of their
choice), and then have a road map to drop GoAhead totally in a couple of
releases.   Maybe leave GoAhead as the only web server for the next
version (4.7), have both present in the version after the next one
(RTEMS 4.8?) and drop Go Ahead for (4.9).  If anyone still wants to use
GoAhead in 4.9 or after, there would be nothing stopping them taking the
code base from RTEMS and sticking it in their own tree, it just wouldn't
be officially maintained in the RTEMS tree any more.

Steven Johnson

Joel Sherrill wrote:
> John Mills wrote:
>   
>> Lars, all -
>>
>> I have just finished integrating the GoAhead server with an eCos
>> application and I went back over the RTEMS mailing lists when I read Lars'
>> note. I didn't find any recent correspondence -- did anyone summarize
>> 'Pros' and 'Cons' (as well as alternatives)?
>>
>>   
>>     
> The main issue was that the GoAhead server appears to be no longer 
> maintained
> by its authors.  We have tolerated its licensing requirement for 
> advertising since
> we didn't have another alternative.
>
> Start here: http://www.rtems.org/ml/rtems-users/2006/october/msg00088.html
>
> Steven Johnson is across the world from us so I wouldn't expect a 
> comment from
> him for a few more hours.  I hoep he can update us on the status.  It 
> seemed to
> be in good shape the last I knew.
>   
>>> >From my viewpoint, I fought through GoAhead's the 'POST' upload in a
>>>     
>>>       
>> couple of flavors and got it working both with GoAhead's embedded
>> 'goforms' and conventional CGI, in Linux and eCos. I also found it useful
>> to export the library and to link it to a thread in our app where I
>> generate the web content.
>>
>> Finally, in response to the questions about a separate build of the
>> compiled web content (using conventional HTML), notice that the
>> precompiler 'webcomp' is a native tool of your development host. Even
>> though you it '#include's many of the source package's headers, it can be
>> build in the source tree and comes out as a self-contained command-line
>> app that generates a *.c file which becomes part of your library source.
>> Build 'webcomp' once and move it aside to use independently. See GoAhead's
>> Makefile for usage of 'webcomp' and on linking the library. (A suitable
>> target already exists.)
>>
>>   
>>     
> The only technical gripes against GoAhead were that it seemed to be 
> unmaintained and
> that it does not compile warning free with late model gcc's.  The 
> advertising clause
> in the license is just another factor.
>
>   
>> That said, I would be interested in a discussion (or references to earlier 
>> discussions) of concerns and alternative web-servers for RTEMS (and 
>> similar) environments. One point I missed was the fate of the JAWS server 
>> that I thought had once been a good choice for RTEMS use.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>  - John Mills
>>    john.m.mills at alum.mit.edu
>>
>> On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, Lars Törnkvist wrote:
>>
>>  
>>   
>>     
>>> Some time ago there was a short discussion about which web server to use
>>> with RTEMS instead of the GoAhead one. shttpd was one example mentioned.
>>> We are soon going to start working on web server functionality and are
>>> interested in any information we can get about this.
>>>     
>>>       
>>  
>>   
>>     
>>> Regards
>>> Lars Törnkvist
>>> Solid Software AB
>>>     
>>>       
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>>   
>>     
>
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