New user - Perl/Php/Windows Questions

[Lowell Filak]

The following message was sent by Berlin Brown <berlin.brown at GMAIL.COM>
on Sun, 12 Sep 2004 09:09:39 -0500.

> I am new user working with MapServer, couple of questions.  I am
> working with the linux and windows version.
>
> I am going to have to assume that ArcSDE support is not included by
> default with the windows version.  I am testing a linux version and I
> compiled it just fine ArcSDE-8.3, what is the simplest way to include
> arcsde support in the windows version?
>
> Can I just drop another dll in the lib directory, or do I have to
> compile all of MapServer?
>
> I also included the PDFLib support, downloaded the latest version, I
> am assuming installed by default with the windows version.
>
> Next question, for the windows version, what is the easiest way to use
> MapScripts if you have limited control over your network.  What
> scripting languages provides the easiest install?  PHP/Perl/Python?  I
> think the php looks like the easiest option for IIS?
>
> Last question, does mapserver operate in a server mode, for example,
> can it bind to port and have a start/stop option.  Ideally I wish I
> could run mapserver on once machine and send requests back and forth.

Berlin;

In an attempt to answer your last two questions:

PerlMapScript has not been reported as the easiest way to go under
MS-Windows and appears to require Cygwin.

Mapserver is intended as a CGI behind an httpd server but by using
MapScript you could incorporate Perl modules for httpd and mapscript at
the same time and serve your maps that way. It does depend on what you
mean by "limited control over your network" as you need root privilege
on a machine to create a socket for the httpd to listen on.

http://search.cpan.org/~davidnico/HTTP-Server-Singlethreaded-0.05/Singlethreaded.pm
http://search.cpan.org/~gaas/libwww-perl-5.800/lib/HTTP/Daemon.pm
http://search.cpan.org/~reatmon/Net-HTTPServer-1.0.2/lib/Net/HTTPServer.pm

One last thought is, if you have control of one machine but not the main
webserver, you could have the admin(s) of the main webserver setup a
proxy to pass all mapserver requests to your machine. If you need info
on that for Apache I can forward it, for IIS I'm sure someone else on
the list has that info.

HTH

Lowell