Do Your Really, Really Need to Run Your Own Webserver?
  Some Practical Alternatives and Suggestions
Anne Salemme MIT IT Partners Conference October 24, 2002

Introduction

"No Cost" Option:
 Use web.mit.edu

"Some Cost" Option:
 Run a content-less webserver

"Some Cost" Option:
 Let W91 do it

"Last Resort" Option:
 Do-it-yourself

Webserver management essentials

Useful links

Example: webmail.mit.edu

About me

Run a "contentless" webserver

It may be that you need a webserver with features that web.mit.edu does not provide. You can still take advantage of some IS offerings to simplify setting up, testing and managing a webserver. Here is a general approach:

  • Put your webpages in an Athena locker
  • Get a private Athena workstation
  • Run 'mkserv' to restrict access, change the root password, etc.
  • Install and configure software from the apache-ssl locker. Currently, this will let you set up a simple webserver with a few specific features.
  • Set the DocumentRoot in the webserver config file to the directory where your webpages are in your Athena locker (note: this is for the general case, where the pages are world-readable; restricting access is more complicated)
  • Take care of the admin tasks: startup, shutdown, log-rolling, etc.
  • If the website is going to be essential to your work, consider whether you can manage it yourself or whether to use W91 or other resources for managing it.


Updated October 23, 2002. Copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Written by salemme@mit.edu