The configuration settings that a virtual server is using (whether it is running or not) are referred to as the ‘Committed Configuration’. If you start or restart a virtual server, it will use the committed configuration settings.
When you make configuration changes using the Administration Server, they do not take effect immediately. Once you have made your changes, which may involve editing several different parts of the configuration, you can then review and commit them.
Button Name Use it to...
Documentation ... view the online documentation.
You will see a yellow ‘star’ icon light up in the Administration Server if you have uncommitted changes, and you will receive a warning each time you make a change.
To commit your changes, click on the yellow star or on the warning text. This will take you to a page where you can review your changes, and choose either to commit them or to revert them back to the previously committed configu- ration.
Committed changes take effect immediately on a running virtual server. On a stopped virtual server, they take effect when the virtual server is next started.
3.8 Publishing a Web Site
In order to publish a web site on a Virtual Server, do the following: • Put your pages and any associated files and programs into a directory
structure under the Virtual Server document root17.
• Ensure that the Virtual Server is running as described in Starting and
Stopping Virtual Servers on page 63.
3.9 Viewing Your Web Site
When the Virtual Server is running, you can click the web site address link to view its web site18. Your browser then displays the Virtual Server’s home page in a new window. As long as the web site’s Virtual Server displays a green Running State icon (indicating that it was started successfully and is running), users can access it.
17. You can also put content into any directories that you have mapped to the document root directory structure using the URL mapping functionality (refer to Configuring URL Mapping on page 126 for more information).
You can now maintain and update the web site in the following ways: • You can edit the files in its document root.
• You can modify its configuration as described in Using the Configuration
Pages on page 89.
• You can monitor it using the Traffic History pages (as described in Using
the Traffic History Pages on page 78).
• You can analyze its traffic by parsing the log files (see Configuring
CHA PTER 4
Feature Tour
4.1 Introduction
This chapter describes how to use some of Zeus Web Server’s main features. It assumes that you are familiar with the basic web server concepts, introduced in Basic Concepts on page 7. It also assumes that you have set up your browser, can access the web server, and have created at least one Virtual Server as described in Creating a New Virtual Server on page 33.
Read this chapter if you are evaluating Zeus Web Server for the first time, and would like to be introduced to some of its most interesting features.
4.2 Using Logging
Zeus Web Server records request and error information independently. It enables you to switch request logging on and off, to configure which fields are included in the logs, and specify the files to which the logs are written. For more details about the type of information that is logged, refer to Logging on page 17. All log files can be saved as ASCII text files or in binary format.
Configuring Request Logging
The request log records information about each request received by the Virtual Server. Configure request logging as follows:
1) Access the request logging page by clicking the Request Logging link in the configuration pages menu.
2) Enable the request logging functionality by clicking the appropriate radio button.
Note that request logging is switched off by default, and it is recom- mended that you switch it on when setting up a new system.
3) Enter the full path and name of the file in which you want the logging information to be stored. To prevent users from viewing the log file, it is advisable to locate it outside the Virtual Server’s document root.
4) Specify the log file format; that is, what fields are to be included in each log entry. By default, log file entries are in NCSA Common Log Format, which is the format most commonly understood by third-party log-analy- sis tools. You can change the format string to any one of a number of pre-defined formats, or create a customized string of your own. Using a customized string is useful because it gives you complete control over the content and layout of your log files.
You can configure the log file format in one of the following ways: • To enter a customized format string, click the appropriate radio but-
ton, then enter the string. For more information about the different fields that you can log, and how to specify them, see the online help. • To use a pre-defined format string, click the appropriate radio button,
then select a format from the drop down list. 5) Click the Apply changes button.
Ensure that you commit the configuration for the changes to take effect, as described in Committing Configuration Changes on page 40.
The log file is created as soon as a user requests a file from your Virtual Server. The log file has the name you gave it with the current date appended to it. Each day a new log file is created and the day’s requests are recorded there. For example, if you enter /logs/myfile as the log file name, then log entries on the 30th April 2001 are saved in the file
/logs/myfile.20010430.
You should bear in mind that logging reduces performance very slightly and consumes disk space. If this is an issue then note that the Binary Logging Format is the most efficient and compact logging format to use.