Installation Guide

Chapter 13 Installing SilverJunction

CAUTION The SilverStream server's Web Server Integration modules for IIS and iPlanet supersede SilverStream's SilverJunction and address limitations found in SilverJunction. You should use the WSI modules instead of SilverJunction to integrate a SilverStream server with your Web server. For more information, see Using the Web Server Integration Modules in the Administrator's Guide.

This chapter describes how to install SilverStream's SilverJunction DLL.

It includes the following topics:

For information about using SilverJunction, see the chapter on maintaining the server in the Administrator's Guide.

About SilverJunction

SilverJunction allows HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 browsers to mask one-time HTTP redirects between Web servers and the SilverStream server. SilverJunction allows users to access dynamic and static data from the same entry point on your Web site (even though the static data runs from the Web server and the dynamic data from the application server). Use SilverJunction when you want users to access all application data without having to rewrite existing static data to run on the SilverStream server.

SilverJunction is an ISAPI/ NSAPI plug-in that can be installed on Microsoft Internet Information Server or Netscape iPlanet Enterprise Server. SilverJunction is associated with a particular directory on the Web server. When a user accesses pages in the directory where SilverJunction is installed, the browser is redirected to the SilverStream server. Web server redirection properties are stored in the registry using the Microsoft Management Console for IIS and in the conf.obj file for Netscape servers.

Once redirected from the Web server, the client's browser then makes a physical connection to the SilverStream server, and the URL in the browser's address field changes to the SilverStream server URL.

SilverJunction is not a daemon that passes all requests through/from a Web server to SilverStream. Rather, it serves as a simple HTTP redirector (much like the SilverStream Dispatcher). SilverJunction cannot be used as a proxy server to manage HTTP connections through a firewall to a SilverStream server. You can use SilverJunction on Web servers to redirect application traffic to SilverStream servers inside or outside the firewall, provided that the browser can resolve the host name of the SilverStream server (that is, it must be a fully qualified DNS address, an IP address, or a local port number). If the SilverStream server is inside the firewall, the firewall allows the traffic to get through.

NOTE You need to install the SilverStream server on the same machine as the Web server so that it can access the SilverJunction DLL and populate the NT registry with SilverStream configuration properties. Once it is installed, you can run the SilverStream server remotely (that is, you do not need to run the SilverStream server from the Web server machine).

Once you have installed the SilverStream server, you need to set up SilverJunction using the SilverJunction.jdl configuration file before enabling SilverJunction.

For information about using the SilverJunction configuration file, see the procedure To configure SilverStream as a plug-in in the Administrator's Guide.

Using SilverJunction in a cluster

It is somewhat more complicated when using SilverJunction in a cluster of servers. SilverJunction would redirect to a SilverStream Dispatcher, which would in turn redirect to a SilverStream server in a cluster. If you had five clustered servers inside the firewall, the firewall would need to be configured to allow traffic to get through to all five servers in the cluster and the Dispatcher. One alternative to this situation is to use a DNS-masking hardware router and only allow incoming traffic to the router's IP address/port number instead. Another alternative would be to place the servers outside the firewall and allow incoming traffic to the database server.

For more information, see the chapter on clusters in the Administrator's Guide.

Enabling SilverJunction for Internet Information Servers (IIS) running on NT

By default, SilverStream is installed in a SilverStream directory. In this case the SilverJunction filter is located in SilverStream/bin/sj4isapi.dll.

You enable the SilverJunction filter for IIS by adding its DLL to the Filter DLLs registry key using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) as described below.

To enable SilverJunction for IIS:

Start Microsoft's World Wide Web Publishing Service and open the Internet Service Manager.
From the MMC, right-click the selected Web site (which is the Default Web Site) and select Properties.
Select the ISAPI Filters tab and click Add.
Browse to the SilverStream/bin directory and select sj4isapi.dll.
Click OK to continue.
Name the filter SilverJunction.
Close the Web site's Properties dialog.
Stop and then restart the Microsoft's World Wide Web Publishing Service using the NT Control Panel.
From the MMC, right-click the Web site on which you installed the filter.
Select the ISAPI Filters tab. A green arrow next to the SilverJunction filter indicates that the filter is enabled.
Verify that SilverJunction is correctly redirecting URLs by accessing one of the mapped directories defined in SilverJunction.jdl.

NOTE The configuration file for SilverJunction running under IIS on NT always resides in SilverStream\Resources\SilverJunction.jdl.

For information about mapping directories with the SilverJunction configuration file, see the procedure To configure SilverStream as a plug-in in the Administrator's Guide.

Enabling SilverJunction for Netscape iPlanet Enterprise Servers running on NT and UNIX

By default, SilverStream is installed in a SilverStream directory. The following procedure assumes the SilverJunction filter is located in SilverStream/bin/sj4nsapi.dll (for Windows NT) and SilverStream/bin/sj4nsapi.so (for Solaris). The configuration file for the filter is located in SilverStream/Resources/SilverJunction.jdl for both platforms.

To enable SilverJunction for Netscape iPlanet Enterprise Servers:

In order to install SilverJunction on a Netscape Server, you need to edit its obj.conf file.

For more information on Netscape Server configuration, see the Netscape documentation.
At the end of the Init section, add the following two lines, replacing SilverStreamDir with the actual directory path. Each of the Init fn commands should be on a single line in your file.
```
  Init fn=load-modules shlib="/SilverStreamDir/bin/sj4nsapi.dll" funcs="init_redirect,dispatch_redirect" 
  
  Init fn=init_redirect conf_file="/SilverStreamDir/Resources/SilverJunction.jdl" 
```
This ensures that SilverJunction is loaded, that its functionality is made available to the server, and that it reads its configuration file.
At the beginning of the Service section, add the following line:
```
  Service fn=dispatch_redirect 
```
NOTE Netscape 2.0 users should reference sj4nsapi20.dll (for Windows NT) or sj4nsapi20.so (for Solaris).

This ensures that SilverJunction is actually used to process the incoming requests.

See below for a sample obj.conf. file.
Stop and restart the Netscape Server to verify that SilverJunction was loaded correctly.

If SilverJunction is running within a Netscape Server, its configuration file can reside anywhere, as long as the file's location is reflected in the Init section of the obj.conf file under Init fn=load-modules.

Sample obj.conf file

The following is an example of an obj.conf file that specifies SilverJunction. The text in bold type shows the SilverJunction entries.

  Init fn=flex-init access="C:/Netscape/SuiteSpot/https-myserver/logs/access" format.access="%Ses->client.ip% - %Req->vars.auth-user% [%SYSDATE%] \"%Req->reqpb.clf-request%\" %Req->srvhdrs.clf-status% %Req->srvhdrs.content-length%"
  Init fn=load-types mime-types=mime.types
  Init fn=load-modules shlib="C:/SilverStream30/bin/sj4nsapi.dll" funcs="init_redirect,dispatch_redirect" 
  Init fn=init_redirect conf_file="C:/SilverStream30/Resources/SilverJunction.jdl" 
  
  <Object name=default>
  NameTrans fn=pfx2dir from=/ns-icons dir="C:/Netscape/SuiteSpot/ns-icons"
  NameTrans fn=pfx2dir from=/mc-icons dir="C:/Netscape/SuiteSpot/ns-icons"
  NameTrans fn="pfx2dir" from="/help" dir="C:/Netscape/SuiteSpot/manual/https/ug"
  NameTrans fn=document-root root="C:/Netscape/SuiteSpot/docs"
  PathCheck fn=nt-uri-clean
  PathCheck fn="check-acl" acl="default"
  PathCheck fn=find-pathinfo
  PathCheck fn=find-index index-names="index.html,home.html"
  ObjectType fn=type-by-extension
  ObjectType fn=force-type type=text/plain
  Service fn=dispatch_redirect 
  Service method=(GET|HEAD) type=magnus-internal/imagemap fn=imagemap
  Service method=(GET|HEAD) type=magnus-internal/directory fn=index-common
  Service method=(GET|HEAD) type=*~magnus-internal/* fn=send-file
  AddLog fn=flex-log name="access"
  </Object>
  
  <Object name=cgi>
  ObjectType fn=force-type type=magnus-internal/cgi
  Service fn=send-cgi
  </Object>

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