Chapter 14   Creating and Configuring Virtual Servers


A class of virtual servers has virtual servers (members of the class) associated with it. You can override some of the class-level settings at the virtual server level. This chapter describes how you can create and configure individual virtual servers. For information on configuring virtual server classes, see Chapter 16 "Content Management." For an overview of virtual servers, see Chapter 13 "Using Virtual Servers."

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Creating a Virtual Server

• Editing Virtual Server Settings

• Editing Using the Virtual Server Manager

• Editing Using the Class Manager

• Deleting a Virtual Server

Creating a Virtual Server

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Virtual servers allow you, with a single installed server, to offer companies or individuals domain names, IP addresses, and some server administration capabilities. For an introduction to virtual servers and how to set them up in the iPlanet Web Server, see Chapter 13 "Using Virtual Servers."

To create a virtual server, follow these steps:

1. From the Class Manager, choose the Virtual Servers tab.

2. Click Add a Virtual Server.

3. Choose a name for the virtual server.

4. Choose a connection group for the virtual server.

5. Choose a URL host for the virtual server.

   You can type more than one URL host, separated by spaces.

6. Click OK.

These settings are all that is required for creating a virtual server. However, you can configure additional virtual server settings using other pages on this tab.

Editing Virtual Server Settings

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Once you have set up your virtual servers, you can edit them. You can make these changes two ways: using the Class Manager or the Virtual Server Manager.

On the Class Manager, the pages are organized by the kind of setting you want to change. For example, you can go to the Quality of Service page to change the Quality of Service settings for one or more virtual servers in the class.

On the Virtual Server Manager, the pages only pertain to one virtual server, so you can see and change all of its settings.

Editing Using the Virtual Server Manager

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The Virtual Server Manager contains two tabs: Status and Settings. The Status tab lists some settings and provides links to the virtual server's log files. The Settings tab contains the following settings for a virtual server:

• State (on or off)

• Document root

• Access and error log directories

• ACL file

• MIME types file

• CGI settings

If you are editing a single virtual server, it's convenient to use the Virtual Server Manager and change all these settings on one page.

Editing Using the Class Manager

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Use the following Class Manager pages to edit virtual server settings.

Editing Virtual Server Settings

To edit the general settings of a virtual server, use the Edit Virtual Servers page. To access this page, follow these steps:

1. From the Class Manager, click the Virtual Servers tab.

2. Click Edit Virtual Servers.

3. From the pull-down list next to the virtual server you want, choose Edit.

4. Set the State to On, Off, or Disable.

   If you set the state to Disable, you can turn the server back on, but the end user of the server cannot.

   This state is the virtual server's state, which is independent of whether the server instance is on or off. If a virtual server's state displayed on this page is on, the virtual server can only accept requests if the server instance is on as well.

   This is true of the default virtual server for the default server instance as well. If you turn off your server instance, your default virtual server is still set to on, but will not accept connections.

   You cannot turn off the default virtual server for the server instance.

5. Click Edit under Connections to edit the connection group.

   A window containing a list of available connection groups appears. Highlight the ones you want and click OK.

6. Type the URL Hosts you want to use.

   You can type more than one URL host, separated by spaces.

7. When you are through editing virtual servers click OK.

Configuring Virtual Server MIME Settings

You can set the MIME types file for an individual virtual server. The MIME types file contains the mappings of file extensions to types of files. For example, the MIME types file is where you can specify that all files ending .cgi be treated as CGI files.

You don't need to create a separate MIME types file for each virtual server or virtual server class. Instead, you create as many MIME types files as you need and associate them with a virtual server. One MIME types file, mime.types, exists by default on the server. To create new MIME types files, or to edit the definitions in a MIME Types file, see Choosing MIME Types.

To set the MIME types file for a specific virtual server, follow these steps:

1. From the Class Manager, click the Virtual Servers tab.

2. Click MIME Settings.

3. Choose a MIME types file from the pull-down menu next to the virtual server.

4. Click OK.

Configuring Virtual Server ACL Settings

You can use ACLs to control access to virtual servers. Each virtual server can have a different base DN in the LDAP database, so that each virtual server can have its own entries in a the single LDAP database used by the iPlanet Web Server.

For more information, see Controlling Access for Virtual Servers.

Configuring Virtual Server Security

You can set security for a virtual server if that virtual server's connection group has a secure listen socket.

For more information on security, see Chapter 5 "Securing Your Web Server."

Configuring Virtual Server Quality of Service Settings

Quality of service refers to the performance limits you set for a virtual server. For example, an ISP might want to charge different amounts of money for virtual servers depending on how much bandwidth allowed them.

You can enable these settings for the entire server or for a class of virtual servers in the Server Manager, from the Status tab. However, you can override these server or class-level settings for an individual virtual server.

Before enabling quality of service for a virtual server, you must first enable it for the entire server, and also set some basic values. See Using Quality of Service.

To configure the quality of service settings for a virtual server, follow these steps:

1. From the Class Manager, click the Virtual Servers tab.

2. Click Quality of Service.

   A page appears listing all the virtual servers in the class and their quality of service settings.

3. To enable quality of service for a virtual server, choose Enable from the pull-down list.

   By default quality of service is disabled. Enabling quality of service increases server overhead slightly.

4. Set the maximum bandwidth, in bytes per second, for the virtual server.

5. Choose whether or not to enforce the maximum bandwidth setting.

   If you choose to enforce the maximum bandwidth, once the server reaches its bandwidth limit additional connections are refused.

   If you do not enforce the maximum bandwidth, when the maximum is exceeded the server logs a message to the error log.

6. Choose the maximum number of connections allowed for the virtual server.

   This number is the number of concurrent requests processed.

7. Choose whether or not to enforce the maximum connections setting.

   If you choose to enforce the maximum connections, once the server reaches its limit additional connections are refused.

   If you do not enforce the maximum connections, when the maximum is exceeded the server logs a message to the error log.

8. Click OK.

For more information on the quality of service features, see Using Quality of Service.

Configuring Virtual Server Log Settings

To change the location of the virtual server's access and error logs from the default, follow these steps:

1. From the Class Manager, click the Virtual Servers tab.

2. Click Logging Settings.

   A page appears listing all the virtual servers in the class and the location of their error logs.

3. Enter an absolute path to the error and access logs. The path must already exist.

   By default, the access and error messages for all virtual servers are logged to the server instance's access and error logs. If you want virtual servers to have separate log files, you set that up here.

4. If you want to change the paths back to the default, click Default.

5. Click OK.

To look at the logs for a particular virtual server, follow these steps:

1. From the Virtual Server Manager choose the Status tab.

2. Click the link to the access log or error log.

3. Choose the number of entries to display and the criteria for displaying them.

   For example, if your logs contain entries for all virtual servers, you can choose to display only the entries for a particular virtual server.

4. Click OK.

Configuring Virtual Server Web Application Settings

A web application is a collection of Java servlets, JSPs, HTML pages, classes and other resources. All the resources are stored in a directory, and all requests to that directory run the application.

For more information on web applications and the web-apps.xml file, see Chapter 15 "Extending Your Server With Programs."

Deleting a Virtual Server

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To delete a virtual server, follow these steps:

1. From the Class Manager, click the Virtual Servers tab.

2. Click Edit Virtual Servers.

3. From the pull-down list next to the virtual server you want, choose Delete.

   You cannot delete the default virtual server that was created when you installed the server. You also cannot delete a server that is the default virtual server on a connection group.

4. Click OK. The virtual server is deleted.