Serving Web Pages on the iSeries by: Jay Peasley, iSeries Consultant, Arbor Solutions Yes, you can serve web pages from an iSeries and it can be accomplished in a number of ways. By default, the iSeries comes with two distinct web servers. The first one is IBM's HTTP server and the other is the Apache HTTP Server. Both are easy to configure and both perform well. The iSeries also has a Tomcat JSP servlet engine that can be run alone or combined with the Apache HTTP server. High-end web servers, such as, IBM's Websphere can be purchased for the iSeries also. The easiest way to configure any of the servers is to start the *ADMIN instance of the HTTP server by signing on as a Security Officer and entering the command STRTCPSVR SERVER(*HTTP) HTTPSVR(*ADMIN). Give the server a few minutes to fire up. The configuration is done via a browser, so point your favorite browser to http://x.x.x.x:2001 where x.x.x.x is the IP address of your iSeries. If this is the first time the *ADMIN instance of the server has been accessed it may take a while for the Java packages that run the *ADMIN instance to decompress and fire up. As Java is speed dependent, older machines will be considerably slower. The configuration is fairly straight forward and the browser-based help function will answer most of your questions. Once you become more proficient with the configurations you will probably bypass the *ADMIN function and modify the configurations manually. The IBM HTTP server configurations can be changed using the CFGTCPHTTTP command and the Apache HTTP configurations can be modified via the WRKLNK command to the IFS file that contains the configuration. One example is: /www/apachedft/conf/httpd.conf. Serving up static web content is fine, but most companies keep their business data on their iSeries so serving up dynamic data from the iSeries makes good business sense. There are a number of ways to obtain iSeries data and display it dynamically on web pages. All involve one form of CGI (Common Gateway Interface) or another. There is straight ILE RPG-CGI programming, where the ILE RPG program builds the entire web page. There is Net.Data (http://www.ignite400.org/) and CGI-Dev2 (http://www-922.ibm.com) which allow most of the web page to be designed via standard graphical tools. Macros (many times ILE-RPG or SQL) are invoked to obtain the iSeries data. Java Server Pages (JSP) can be utilized to obtain iSeries data and display it via the web. Serving web content from your iSeries is easy to do and makes good business sense. It allows for consolidation of services, placing one more server back on the iSeries where it is stable and reliable. It utilizes your current IT staff and provides diversity for your staff. Go ahead and give it a try. You will be glad you did. For additional information regarding serving web pages from your iSeries contact Jay at 616.451.2500 or e-mail jpeasley@arbsol.com