Summary of May 17 Web-Walkers Meeting
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 10:20:20 -0400 From: Judy Hallman To: web-walkers@unc.edu Subject: Summary of May 17 Web-Walkers Meeting
Summary of May 17 Web-Walkers meeting on Web forms, cgi programs, and ADP's direction (particularly with regard to the Netscape secure server and the Windows server), with a few additions from Joel Dunn
[Thanks to Bob Schreiner for his notes.]
Joel Dunn, Administrative Data Processing (ADP), gave an excellent presentation to a group of 40-50 Web-Walkers.
We began the meeting with the usual question/answer session.
Q: How do you get your server registered, so that your information is included in the big indexes?
A: You can tell Yahoo and NCSA. On the other hand, if your stay out there long enough, you'll be discovered. Cindy Rhine offered to send a message to the Web-Walkers list describing the registration process.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 09:23:12 -0400 From: Cynthia Rhine To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: registering www pages Since there's not formal registration for world wide web, here are some suggested places to send announcements with the status of your page: www-announce@wwwO.cern.ch comp.infosystems.announce www-request@info.cern.ch whats-new@ncsa.uiuc.edu Also, be sure and keep meaningful titles in your highest level headers since some indexers will index titles and major headers. You might want to also check out the book "Managing Internet Information Services" published by O'Reilly - it's in the bookstore and is where I got the above mentioned newsgroups and lists from. It has good overview of setting up web servers and home pages. --Cindy Rhine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel started by discussing the Netscape secure server. ADP and security are almost synonymous. ADP is very interested in using emerging technology to present information. For example, ADP provides the UNC-CH Email ID Database Lookup, which uses a Sybase interface. They can do much more with a secure system -- for example, grades and student information.
When ADP purchased Netscape, they had to certify that they really are ADP, the Administrative Data Processing department of UNC-Chapel Hill. Then they could get their public key from RSA. That has been done.
ADP will use the Netscape server to develop forms-based applications; they want to integrate enterprise information into the Web.
Joel pointed out that information provided by the Netscape server can only be viewed using the Netscape browser, but that will not be a problem because Netscape is the browser of choice of the UNC-CH campus (support by OIT).
ADP is also testing a Windows server.
Joel then described the public/private key encryption concept. "I give you my public key, but only my private key can decode my public key." He suggests that you not put your public key in your signature line on e-mail messages, but put it in your finger file and tell people to finger you to get your key. Then people will always get your latest public key. The reason you might change your public key is that if someone steals your private key, you need to make sure everyone else stops using
it. For example, if your public key was published in a phone book and it the matching private key was stolen (or just lost), people who used that old public key would not get the desired security.
The Netscape browser gets the public key of the server and generates a session key.
Besides the Netscape server, ADP will be using the 1.3 NCSA server and the Windows server.
The ADP secure web server is at "https://www-s1.adp.unc.edu/" Most links from this page are not secure (they are back to "www.adp.unc.edu", but the campus directory link via
Sybase is secure, for example). This way folks can actually see what
happens (security messages, "whole" key, etc.) when they use Netscape security.
Joel then talked from his Master's thesis, Application Development with HTML, at http://www.adp.unc.edu/wwwclass, Chapter 5, "What is an HTML Application?" In that section, he scrolled down a few pages to the section beginning, "A major feature that differentiates HTML from static markup languages is the "<FORM> ...</FORM>" identifier. " [It's 3 paragraphs above Example 5.2.]. And he worked through that section.
Essentially, he said that forms add interactive capabilities to HTML applications. The Web server processes data gathered from the browser and invokes an operating system script file with the parameter gleaned from the form. This is called the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) in the HTTP daemon.
Joel described the html code for a sample form (Example 5.2) and its presentation (shown in Figure 5.3) and then gave a live example by clicking on the "live example" hot link in his paper!
He also described the code that processes the form (Example 5.3). The processing can be done by a perl script, Bourne shell, C shell, C program, ... whatever. The program processes the values taken from the browser. There are environment variables that can be used in the program.
Joel then described and demonstrated an application that looks at who's logged on and fingers someone. The selections (userids) are given in a scroll bar. (See Example 5.5, Figure 5.5, and Example 5.6.)
Again, Joel ran the application by clicking on "run the form" in his paper. He selected Mary Overby's userid and showed her finger file, complete with her home page and work plan. Then he showed his finger file, which has his picture as a link to his home page, and has the Netscape PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) public encryption key at the bottom of the file.
Next, Joel gave us a brief tour of the ADP home page -- http://www.adp.unc.edu/, showing "Search and Directory Utilities," and then "UNC-CH Email ID Database Lookup," which generates an SQL query.
In the "ADP Applications" section (on the home page), he showed "UNC Organizations List," which runs on a server on a very old PC. This Visual Basic program shows the potential for being able to search files by running IDMS or Sybase on the ADP mainframe.
Joel then brought up http://www.charm.net/~web/Vlib/Providers/CGI.html, which has a lot of CGI scripts.
Atttendees:
Ron Bennet, Registrar's Office
Rodney Bishop, Registrar's Office
Lea Blanton, Friday Center
Bonnie Bowen, ADP
Paula Carson, SIS Coordinator
Kathleen Crook, Sheps Ctr. for HSR
Nancy Doyle, ADP/Registrar
Lynn Eades, HSL
Brian Flynn, Nursing
Scott Freeman, ADP
Shirley Gunter, General College
Judy Hallman, OIT
Jeff Harrell
Tom Hocking, Morehead Planetarium
D. Jarrell, OIT
Nancy Jesser, OIT
David Johnston, Arts & Sciences
Joanne Kucharski, Registrar's Office
Ken Langley, OIS
John Meeker, Pharmacy
Deb Morley, ADP
Tim Murphy, OCIS
Jim Murrell, OIT
Mary Overby, ADP
Wendy Perry, ADP
Clarence Potter, SOM/GCRC
Cindy Rhine, City & Regional Planning
Bob Schreiner, SPH
Eric Sessoms, General College
Dennis Sherman, TRLN
Tom Sherrod, ADP
Kathy Thomas, OIT
Chery Ward, CPC
Judy Hallman (judy_hallman@unc.edu)
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