Multisite + SSL? +multi-dll?

[ccordes]

Can SSL certificates be used with multisite server?
... or can individual pages of a site be given SSL certificates?
Just getting to where I am getting this to work as expected or at least adjusting my expectations to match how it works. This may be a show-stopper for me.

One more thing - what about multi-dll apps as server dlls?
I haven't been able to get my actual project to run. Is it because it is a multi-dll app?

TIA,
chris

[Bruce]

Hi Chris,

The problem with SSL goes something like this;

"When a connection is opened (ie before data is sent) the browser and server agree on a certificate to use. Since at that point we have literally no clues as to which site is being requested , it's impossible for the server to choose the right certificate."

So the multi-site host has limited functionality when it comes to serving multiple sites. It's limited to one of the following;

a) hosting just one site. (actually this is more useful than you might think at first glance).

b) hosting multiple sites which are all sub-domains of the same site. ie using a "wildcard certificate" (*.capesoft.com) it can host apps.capesoft.com, forums.capesoft.com and so on.

>> One more thing - what about multi-dll apps as server dlls?

I haven't tried this at all - but I would expect it to be ok. Considering that a normal Clarion DLL is dependent on a bunch of Runtime DLL's (and that seems ok) I don't see why being dependent on another "home made" DLL would be any different.

>> I haven't been able to get my actual project to run. Is it because it is a multi-dll app?

hard to say. Perhaps set up an example, turning the Multi-Dll example into a DLL, and then adding it to the Multi-Site example. Try as non SSL obviously.

Cheers
Bruce

[ccordes]

Thanks, Bruce

I think my app killed the host
I took out the SSL stuff, moved all the associated DLLs to the multisite folder along with the user data file. I was able to open the site and log in. Then noticed things that meant the ini file wasn't being read. -
Where should that information go? In the webserver.init? This is global data shared, but not written to, by everyone.
As a general question, is it better (even in a stand alone site) to read this data from a table and store it in session variables at login? or when a session is created? Some of this data, like SiteName and PortNumber make the site work.

I also found that trying to disable the site wold cause the server to freeze.
Then, once I did actually see it disabled, enabling it caused weirder things. Apparently, the host restarted itself and gave the error that another instance was already running. I checked the  processes running and sure enough - there were now two host.exes.

I am a little surprised at how slow getting a site to load is. After that, it seemed to move along pretty well.

As far as the SSL stuff goes seems that putting the certificates on the host and taking them off the sites works well enough at least in my case where I self certify for a known number of users. They call, I say yes that's me and they accept the certificate.

Chris