European Laboratory for Particle Physics NICE NT Web Services Alberto Di Meglio CERN IT/DIS/NCS

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 2 Introduction F The NICE Web Services l A set of services and tools to publish documents and share information on the Internet l A CERN-wide service, flexible, expandable and scalable l A front-end for a community of users who want to share information dynamically on the web without having to learn (too much of) the technical details l Study phase started in April, implementation phase started in October

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 3 History of the Service F One Windows NT Server (NICEWWW) l born in 1994 as an interface for the Novell NetWare-hosted user home directories l a special filter to access files via HTTP from a well-known URL ( l a useful, well-accepted service in need of an upgrade: no scripts, no ACLs, caching problems, server dependency

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 4 A Growing Demand F The need for publishing documents and sharing information, especially in the form of databases and dynamic charts is growing F New internet standards have emerged or are emerging (ASP, audio and video streaming, Internet calendars, interactive learning tools) F It is foreseeable that the XML/HTML format will be one of the standard document formats (Microsoft Office 2000?)

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 5 The New Architecture Main Servers Infrastructure F Two main series of servers l the web servers (NT 4. IIS 4,MTS, NetShow Services, FrontPage, IS) host the user web sites, documents, streams, iCalendars, etc. l the profile servers (NT 4) host the user profile directories, containing the NT profile, links to the user web sites and documents (a sort of enhanced home directory) F Profile servers are protected from web servers troubles and the structure is more flexible NTWEBxx NTHOMExx

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 6 The New Architecture User Profile Directory Structure User (share) Public files and folders Internet Server PublicProfile Www (links) Private files and folders

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 7 The New Architecture Additional Services (present and possible) F On-line training: l two servers set up in collaboration with the CERN Training Services, Gartner Learning and NETg to provide web-based tutorials (NT4,IIS3/4,SQL6.5) l NetShow Services to feed video and audio streams F Document indexing and serving (IS) F Internet Calendars: iCal, vCal, ICAP (in the profile directories or a dedicated web site

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 8 A Special URL Naming Scheme F A sub-domain is defined in the main domain (web.cern.ch) F One DNS alias is defined for each web as: webname.web servername F An ASP script in the root default page removes the directory dependency F The URL for each web becomes: F All this with only one IP address per server

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 9 Service Administration F Users can manage their web sites using a web interface (with authentication) to: l Register/Delete web sites l Edit permissions and properties (add/remove FrontPage Extensions, add/remove DSN for database support, change name and owner, etc.) l Search for/List documents using Index Server F The use of FrontPage Extensions allow easy, direct authoring with scripts, forms and database support F Administrators have a similar set of interfaces to manage servers and users

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 10 The Three-Tier Model Presentation Layer: Web Interfaces (IE or NS) to register, edit, delete web sites, access documents, etc. Uses ASP to produce HTML and activate COM objects Business Logic: a set of COM/DCOM components to perform the requested actions - VB/VC++ - FP/IIS ADSI objects (Active Directory), MTX Data Storage: an Access database with owners, webs, homes, quotas data. Can be upgraded to SQLS or Active Directory. Linked to the CERN general database on Oracle

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 11 The Transaction Model Client IIS parse ASP scripts, creating objects and calling methods MTX COM/ DCOM HTML Basic Authentication SSL

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 12 The Web Creation Script <% username = Request.Form("UserName") webname = Request.Form("WebName") webtype = Request.Form("WebType") set nwm = CreateObject("NICENTWeb.FP") if (nwm.IsOwnerValid(username) <> 1) then response.redirect ”…………" end if if (nwm.IsWebValid(webname) <> 1) then response.redirect ”…………" end if if webtype = "FP_Type" then LRes = nwm.CreateNICENTFPWeb(username,webname,username) end if set nwn = nothing %>

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 13 Quota Management F Several possibilities: l Now: no control, third-party products, SP4 (?), custom solutions l Later: Windows 2000 F Custom solution: l background check of folder size l owners looked up from the main web service database l actions: send a message, remove write access, lock account

2-4 December 1998HEPNT Days at CERN 14 Conclusions Advantages: F Rich set of features: FrontPage extensions, native ACL support, ASP and database support, streaming services, etc. F Easy to access and administer from a web browser anywhere (not necessarily from within CERN) with secure connections F Server independent: users don’t need to know where their homes or webs are, they use the generic name webname.web.cern.ch and can be moved transparently F Flexibility and scalability F Data is safe: daily backups, fault-tolerance Disadvantage: F Users are putting scripts on the web servers: security and stability must be carefully checked F Certificates for SSL are an open issue