[mapserver-users] Web Server Tricks... Kind of Off Topic

[C F]

Hi Chip,
Just to throw another idea into the mix...
A few years back I played around with a product called "ASPTear".  We had an 
application running on an Intranet and wanted to put it on the Internet for 
a few few users... but didn't want to open any additional ports other than 
port 80 between the DMZ and the internal network.  Since the internal 
servers weren't visible outside the DMZ, we set up the web server as 
basically a relay station to our internal app and the only communication was 
HTTP. I assume you're doing something similar?
Anyway... you simply create the asptear.dll object in your .asp and tell it 
what "page" to grab... in this case it would be something like
<%
asptear.getPage("http://mapservername/scripts/mapserv?" & 
Request.QueryString)
%>
and call it by...
http://slowservername/mapserver_relay.asp?template=blah&program=blah&etc

and it relays the resultant HTTP back to the client... it's almost as 
painless on your web server as serving up a simple html page.  You'd just 
have to remember that Mapserver will need to write the image to the 
"visible" server so the client can access it through the URL.
This was a couple years ago and I think it was either freeware or 
inexpensive shareware.  Just search on "asptear", if you can't find anything 
let me know and I'll see if I can dig it up.

I think there are already better suggestions that have been made. But this 
is something to look into if you're really in a bind and have no room for 
flexibility in your server configurations.


>From: "Hankley, Chip" <Chip.Hankley at GASAI.Com>
>To: "MapServer List (E-mail)" <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
>Subject: [mapserver-users] Web Server Tricks... Kind of Off Topic
>Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:43:40 -0500
>
>I am by no means a guru at configuring / working out web server hardware /
>networking issues... and could use a little guidance.
>
>Our main webserver is pretty much a dog. We're running a 200 MHz dual
>processor server w/ win2K and IIS... it handles a number of things for our
>company (besides mapserver)... and it is S L O W (i know... 200 MHz,
>Win2K... big part of the problem).
>
>Anyway... my options are limited b/c of internal politics and the like - so
>Linux is out, as well as my own dedicated server.
>
>What I'm wondering is if there is some way to "pass-through" my mapserver
>requests to a more powerful box within the organization. For instance, a MS
>request would come in, and instead of being processed on that server, the
>actual mapserver work (the process of rendering the image from the raw GIS
>data) would occur on another more powerful machine, and then the image
>either would be passed back for service to the client, or would be read
>directly from that machine. Is such a thing possible? What would be the
>performance implications of such a trick?
>
>I think this is kind of how MO IMS and ArcIMS work in that there is a "Map
>Server" that runs as a service... not necessarily on the web server.
>
>TIA
>
>Chip Hankley




_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: 
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx