I just installed MS’s Personal Web Server so I could run asp pages with an access backend. Anyways, when I set up a test page named: default.asp in the wwwroot dir I got the error:
HTTP 403 (forbidden)
You are not authorized to view this page.
You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied.
I’m not sure what the problem is exactly. If it helps, we have a network in our home already (road runner cable with linksys).
I also sign onto Miami University’s servers with Novell when I boot up so I have access to some of my MU drives.
I ran through a setup tutorial on www.asp101’s site and it didn’t mention making any tweaks to PWS before testing to see if I could read my defualt.asp page. This leads me to think that the problem isn’t PWS, but that I’m already on a network (or two).
These questions aren’t as important, but would help me with my little project. (This is a learning project, all this is new so I’m reading a lot and understanding little):
Is PWS setting up an Intranet? Becuase eventually I want everyone to be able to access the site I’m building. Do I need to conntact an ISP once I have everything built and tested and then they can host the site? I have a friend trying to register a domain name as we speak.
Next, about how much can a PWS and Access setup handle in terms of traffic and users? This is a site that people at a University will hopefully use, it will have polls, evaluations, message boards, sign ups etc. If I have 15,000 students logging on and filling stuff out, I’m afraid the site will be down a lot. I’m assuming the space in the Databases will rely on my harddrive space but what determines what PWS can handle? I’d love to start out with Oracle or Coldfusion on IIS but the price was right for PWS/access 
Answers to any or all of these questions would be wonderful. Thanks in advance!!
–cyk
A 403 means that the account PWS is running on doesn’t have permission to open the file/directory you tried to pull (default.asp). Why this would be true for the default wwwroot directory is anyone’s guess, but you’ll need to change the security setting. A common (but insecure, and in some cases flat-out wrong) setting is “Owner: Full, Everyone: Read.” Code Red loves these people, but it should get you up and running.
Most likely the problem isn’t your other networks.
OTOH, congrats are in order. A 403 means that PWS is running correctly (well, sort of).
PWS has no control over who can and cannot access your site, unless you specify some funky security settings. That is controlled by 1) the routing policy on your Linksys box, 2) the forwarding policy of your ISP, and 3) DNS servers, mysterious beings from another planet that turn http://www.stuff.com into an IP address.
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Easiest things to do to make sure your router cooperates are issue a static IP to the box running PWS and forward port 80 to it. Check owner’s manual for both of these.
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Check with your ISP to see if they allow web servers. Also figure out what type of IP address they’re giving you (static, dynamic, super-dynamic ultranasty PPoE), and see if they’ll let you go static for a reasonable fee.
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Assuming you get 1 and 2 done, you could get your university people to your computer using just the IP address, like this: http://64.125.248.196/index.html Then you don’t have to worry about DNS servers. Otherwise, good luck.
As for heavy load, PWS is a POS, if you get my drift. It will break, and break quickly (hundreds of near-simultaneous server hits). Sorry. Even if it survives, Jet (the query engine that runs Access), will break. In fact, it may break first.
Coldfusion is also not great, but if you can get an academic discount on it, it’ll do what you need it to. Oracle or (yech) MSSQL is important, though.
HTH
Plavacek
So your saying I need a static IP? In other words, turn off DHCP in Internet Options and in connections specify a static IP instead? (or something along those lines, I can figure it out)
Also, where can I make changes to: “Owner: Full, Everyone: Read.”
Thanks for the help so far!
cykrider,
What OS are you using? win 98, win 2k, win XP?
You will need a static IP assigned by Roadrunner, and they may not be real helpful. My ISP will not assign IP addresses (although I am always assigned the same one :rolleyes: ) Then yes, you will have to turn off internal DHCP (at least for that machine), assign it an address, and forward inbound port 80 on your linksys to that machine. (My firewall assigns addresses up to .100, but recognizes up to .254, the high ones I assign by hand.)
Also, if you are looking at that kind of load, it will quickly overwhelm a PWS/Access machine, and it would be best to go with a dedicated machine. Especially if you are using templetes and generating pages on the fly, and it seems you are.
I would recommend Apache and the DB of your choice.
As for what you have there, an intranet is simply an internal use only webserver, usually with some fancy message boards, content management stuff, etc. To clarify, if I were to set up “Etherman’s Straight Dope” and only allow access from my internal network, it would be an intranet.
And to answer the question about ISP hosting, how much traffic are you expecting? It sounds like you are expecting enough traffic that a cable modem may be too small, but hosting at an ISP could run into serious bandwidth charges. However, hosting may be your only option here. If it is for your university, will they allow you to use their connection?
keep us posted how it’s going.
I’m planning on initially setting up the site on my Win 98 box and prehaps getting another computer somewhere down the road. I started on a Redhat box but I don’t have a lot of experience with it. (That’s a whole other project )
I have a copy of the .NET studio next to me with XP waiting to be installed if you think that would be more helpful, especially since I’m going to be using ASP. Any opinions?
I was originally planning on using Apache, but I thought it was for *nix boxes only, also the tutorial I trying to follow (on webmonkey) uses PWS. I think if I can set it up on PWS, it wont be too hard to move to Apache down the line once I have a good idea of what exactly I’m doing.
Thanks again.
I’m pretty sure your standard ASP won’t run on Apache unless you use ChiliSoft, which is ASP for Unix, in which case you might as well use PHP.
Install XP if you have XP pro and use IIS instead (if you have Home, I believe you can download IIS 5 from Microsoft. If not, look around for 2000 instead). PWS is, in my opinion, not for public use. It’s handy for running tests on your ASP scripts before letting others hit them, and that’s only if you can get the darn thing to run!
I also wouldn’t recommend using the WebMonkey tutorial to learn ASP. WebMonkey was handy about 2 or 3 years ago and for learning simple HTML and JavaScript stuff, but they dont’ seem to have very much good recent information. I suggest picking up a copy of “ASP For Dummies” and skimming through it to get the basic concepts, then reverse engineering some of the scripts they use. You’ll find some even have errors, and you’ll be an instant expert on the stuff once you figure out how to get it to work.
It’s always been my experience that working with Real Life apps is the best way to learn - that is, you thnk of what you want your scripts to do and lock yourself in a room for a weekend until you get it to work. You’ll be way proud of yourself and learn a lot in a short time.
Good luck!
Why use IIS when you can use Apache 2.0 for both speed and security?
If I were to go the ISP route, where the ISP hosts the site, would that clear up the whole Apache/IIS mess and the whole load bearing issue? And would I still be able to test the scripts?
Essentially, would it work like this:
ASP/HTML pages designed by me, located on my box and uploaded to ISP.
Database designed by me uploaded to ISP, changed with the ASP functions but I still can make changes to it on my box and reupload it or something.
Webserver run by ISP.
Is that the structure we’d be looking at?
cykrider wants to do ASP. As far as I know, you can’t do it on Apache.
cykrider, that is how it would work. You’d have an FTP address and just upload the files to your account and they’d be posted on the web. As soon as they’re posted, they’re “live” so you might want to hold off making your default.asp page until you’re ready to go.
When you get hosting service (which, for IIS, usually is about $25/mo) you will need to tell the hosting people what folder you want to put your database in so you can have write access to it. Once that folder is marked with write access you can upload your database (or databases) and re-up them whenever you please.
Shop around for a host that you like (check out their space and bandwidth alotment) and be sure that you are getting a Windows NT or 2000 server. Also, be sure the host has some referrals from customers because you might need to contact them more than once about permissions on things as your site grows, and you don’t want to have to wait days for tickets to go through. Some hosts might even have site management tools where you can bypass human interaction and change folder permissions through a web-based application.
You can still set up your site on your box for testing but like others have said, trying to run your own site is going to be tough.
Thanks, you guys have all been a great help so far. I’ll let you know how it goes with the ISP. My friends are kind of in charge of the $$$ (I’m the coder), so I’ll tell them what the ISP needs and then get back to you. In the mean time I’ll read about ASP and databases. Thanks again.