IPv6 transition and Nettalk

[Skip Williams]

Since at least 1990, we have been using Website Webserver to host our Clarion cgi apps.  About 12 years ago Deerfield, the owner of Website, killed it off. We have kept using it as it has worked well over the years.

With the transition to IPv6, however, Website will probably finally have to go.  I am thinking about writing a Nettalk server to handle both win-cgi and std-cgi for our Clarion apps using NT and OddJob.

My question is, what is involved for NT in the IPv6 transition?
Is it going to be a big deal for NT?
Any timetable? I feel some of our international customers are going to be forced to IPv6 before we realize it.

I would like to go ahead and develop the NT server now and get it into production before the IPv6 transition, relying on NT to be ready when the transition goes into full swing.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Skip

[Bruce]

Hi Skip,

>> I am thinking about writing a Nettalk server to handle both win-cgi and std-cgi for our Clarion apps using NT and OddJob.

I think it'll be reasonably straight-forward to support CGI via NetTalk - I'd be happy to give you some pointers if you like. We support PHP along very similar lines, so I'm thinking it'll really be a case of adapting the PHP support.

>> My question is, what is involved for NT in the IPv6 transition? Is it going to be a big deal for NT?

no, I don't _think_ it's a big deal. I did some work on it about a year ago, but got side-tracked into other things and haven't got back to it. As far as I can tell the IPv6 / IPv4 differences are completely encapsulated in the DLL, so almost nothing needs to change at the app level. The only likely change folk would need is where they've set a string in their app to hold an IP address, and they've used a string 20 for that. That string needs to be longer. (But frankly, f you support DNS names instead of actual IP numbers, it's probably already longer.)

>> Any timetable?

I don't have a fixed date as yet - it's one of those things that makes the news from time to time, and then seems to disappear.

>> I feel some of our international customers are going to be forced to IPv6 before we realize it.

maybe, although maybe not. There's lots of hype about this of course, but there are a lot more IP's available than what it seems at first glance. Europe is _probably_ the worst off (well, China, then Europe) but they're still some way away from actually "running out".

cheers
Bruce

[Skip Williams]

Thanks, Bruce.

Any pointers that you may have would be greatly appreciated!

I will have to do both win-cgi and std-cgi as we have a mix of both.  Need to serve some plain old html pages as well.

We use the ip address/ip address range for automatic login for several customers so there will be some work in making the ip address field larger in several places and also changing the range computation (if that can be done with ipv6 ... ie: 123.456.23.* )

Skip

[Bruce]

a couple things to confirm for starters I guess;

a) Win-Cgi - you're using the Create INI, run Exe, Serve resultant file approach yes?
Can you give me a couple of other specifics;
i) what does your URL look like that runs this CGI?
ii) how does the CGI program return to you the name of the created file?

b) Standard CGI - are you using the command line, or StdIn for input? Do you create a file, or use StdOut for output?

Actually, if you have small sample apps for either, or preferably both, (exe form would be fine) then I can see about building a small example that uses them.

cheers
Bruce

[Skip Williams]

Thanks Bruce,

Win-cgi - The url might look like:

//www.myip.com/win-cgi/mycgipgm.exe/?data_to_be_passed

The 'win-cgi' in the url tells the server that it is a win-cgi pgm in addition to the path of the program.

When the server runs the cgi pgm, it passes the name of an ini file that it built to the cgi pgm on the command line.  Ini file has, among other things, the name of the file for the cgi pgm to write its output, then name of an 'input' file containing any 'post'ed data, etc. The cgi pgm does its thing, writes its output to the file and ends. The server recognizes the cgi pgm ended and sends the contents of the output file, then deletes the ini, input, and output files. The file names are generated by the server (ie:1646.in, 1646.out, 1646.ini).

Std-cgi - Pretty much the same except the url will specify std-cgi instead of win-cgi.  Server puts all of the same parameters in environment variables and runs the cgi pgm. The cgi pgm gets the environment variables, and if there is posted data, reads stdin. The cgi pgm then writes output to stdout and ends.

In the next week or so, I will do a word doc that 'splains it better and also some simple test win-cgi and std-cg programs (that I will need anyway)

A sample win-cgi ini file, created by the server...

[CGI]
Request Protocol=HTTP/1.0
Request Method=POST
Request Keep-Alive=No
Executable Path=/cgi-win/i2swta.exe
Logical Path=/Form
Physical Path=C:\WebSite\htdocs\Form
Query String=R=CBR2_ICO*3250----0104______swilliams____________NNENN4.6c2835068N
Server Software=WebSite/1.1
Server Name=local server
Server Port=80
Server Admin=skip@gtis.com
CGI Version=CGI/1.3 (Win)
Remote Address=192.168.0.111
User Agent=WTA2K (4.6c)
Content Type=
Content Length=27
[System]
GMT Offset=-18000
Debug Mode=Yes
Output File=C:\WebSite\cgi-temp\aabws.out
Content File=C:\WebSite\cgi-temp\aabws.inp
[Accept]
=Yes
[Extra Headers]
Host=192.168.0.111
Cache-Control=no-cache

Skip

[Skip Williams]

Hi Bruce,

I am back on the cgi project again<g>.

Attached are two clarion server cgi pgms, one standard cgi and another win cgi.  All the programs do is to send back html consisting of a 'hello world' and all of the parameters that the server passed to them about the session, either in the environment variables, or in the case of win-cgi, the ini file.

To see the win cgi output from my Website server go to:

http://www.skipwill.com/cgi-win/wincgipgm.exe/?Test Win cgi Data

and for standard cgi, go to

http://www.skipwill.com/cgi-bin/stdcgipgm.exe/?Test cgi data

If you have any Nettalk/Oddjob examples that might help jump start this project, they would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Skip


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[Bruce]

thanks Skip - I'll check into the examples and see what's involved.