Testing a web server ?

[Redrobes]

Also, any chance of a larger image?

Yes, change the S value. I have set it to max at 1280 I think. Certainly 1024. But I am pulling the plug on it in a mo. Can try again tomorrow eve tho.

[RobA]

Yeah I am thinking maybe the issue is that I am hosting it on 8080 cos I run an internet web server for myself too. Maybe I should host it on 80 like a normal web server so that I can drop the :8080 bit of the url and then maybe everyones firewalls and internet connections wont think its too bizarre.

If you are using apache, you can use mod-rewrite to map a url to the other port. Something like this should work (untested):

Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[a-z]{3,9}\ /mycooldemo\.html\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*mycooldemo\.html$ http://82.32.151.149:8080/ [R=301,L]

and should redirect connections like

http://82.32.151.149/mycooldemo.html?x=1444771&y=3376670.4&z=100&s=512

to

http://82.32.151.149:8080/?x=1444771&y=3376670.4&z=100&s=512

-Rob A>

[torstan]

@Redrobes: Thanks. Missed that in the OP. Cheers for clearing it up.

Looks good.

[Redrobes]

If you are using apache, you can use mod-rewrite to map a url to the other port.

Hi Rob, These images are being served from the ViewingDale app itself. They are not images which are saved and hosted via Apache. I have been programming the web server using sockets and stuff but it does not have a nice rewrite engine. What it does mean is that there is no limit to where to go and what values to zoom to like say Google maps. Google has discreet levels of zoom which is alright and makes caching easier, faster and less bandwidth but its not good for a map that is (hopefully) changing as we add new maps to it. Obviously that also means its web interface is never going to be quite as slick as Google maps either for all the same reasons. But then if you wanted it more slick you could connect via its standard VTT connection and get the map updates super fast since it would be hosted and rendered locally.

What I probably will do is host a standard web page with an iframe containing the image and get the page to request the image from the app. So people don't connect to some odd URL and have no UI.

Gotta think how I can get the server running all day. It might have to be an occasional thing tho. I had some more ideas about the mechanics of play by post in CWBP and all of this serving stuff which ill type up in a different post.

[RobA]

What I probably will do is host a standard web page with an iframe containing the image and get the page to request the image from the app. So people don't connect to some odd URL and have no UI.

I suggested the mod-rewrite as it really acts more like a URL proxy. Lots of firewalls won't allow connections to other than the standard ports (80 and 443), so the iframe contents still won't be visible in that case.

-Rob A>

[Redrobes]

I have to admit that I don't understand your fix because there is no rewrite engine anywhere in the chain. And your right, if I host a web page on an Apache server then do a rewrite there wont help because that would just go back to the browser and request that it fetches the page on a new port instead. The fix I think is for me to reprogram my firewall to port forward 80 to internal 8080 and do the translation there. Or I could host my internal web server on 8080 and put the externally viewable one on 80 which would make everything a lot easier and as you say a lot of places don't like web page fetches on anything other than the default port numbers.

If I understand what your saying then is it really possible then for me to go to a web page (that I have access to the rewrite engine) and when the browser asks for its URL there then Apache goes and fetches the result of a get from a different site and forwards the result to the browser ? I have been using the rewrite engine to direct specific IP addresses to the 'your barred' page but thats a page that is hosted on the same server space.

Y'see I thought and maybe this is where I am wrong then, is that the GET request is translated via the regex and then forwarded as though the browser asked for the translated URL. I just assumed that the result would have to reside on that Apaches set of web files.

I am gonna have a play with the FTP and Twitter API perl modules at the end of the weekend when I get a moment to burn. If all that works well then I think a console driven PbP play manager might be in order. Perl runs on everything and I am not into Java. Also, ill look into doing the Ansium map like the members map thing. That ought to be real easy since I have most of it already running.

Ah but noone has responded to my suggestion that we do some play in the CWBP so perhaps its just me (n ravs) getting excited at the prospect !?? But it seems we have 99% of the effort in place so ill do the 1% even if its just me who uses it. I'll GM and be all the players too like Billy Nomates - heh ;D

[Steel General]

I thought I knew some stuff about web servers, but you guys are way beyond me now...

[Redrobes]

Its not that bad. Maybe ill write a few notes about all of this because its useful to know esp if your setting up a VTT where you have to serve as a DM. Its more VTT related than anything specific to mapping but it comes up time and time again so maybe. The rewrite engine is slightly more complicated but you dont need to know about that unless you are running Apache or have web pages served from an ISP which uses it. And even then you don't have to use it.