How to make Apache run ASP.NET / ASP.NET 2.0

Apache Server Supports .Net Tech

Andy Patrizio 07.25.02

SAN DIEGO, California -- The cold war between Microsoft and the open-source world has thawed a little more following an announcement that the widely popular Apache Web server will support Microsoft's .Net technology.

Covalent Technologies, which sells the open-source Apache 2.0 server, said at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention that the server will be compatible with ASP.Net, the Active Server Pages component of .Net.

ASP pages are dynamically generated Web pages that draw information from data sources such as databases and applications.

Covalent's support of ASP.Net gives .Net users a choice of Web servers instead of one option, Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS). More importantly, it means Windows operating system users will finally get some support. Apache has been available on Windows 2000/XP for some time, but it was without any help from Microsoft.

"The Apache community have found a way to work with Microsoft software, but they had to do that by stopping other productive work and doing basic functions," said Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of system software research for IDC. "They've had little help from Microsoft other than what could be gleaned from public d0cuments. By building a bridge between the two worlds, it means getting information back and forth across the divide becomes easier."

With Covalent's Enterprise Ready Server, a server package that includes Apache, developers will also be able to use Microsoft development tools, which are fairly popular, to build their Apache applications. Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net includes Visual Basic.Net, Visual C++.Net and C-Sharp, a new C-like language from Microsoft that Java programmers say looks awfully familiar. All of these tools can be used to build Apache applications now.

It also means Apache will have access to Microsoft server technologies like SQL Server.Net, the company's database software.

It's a best-of-both worlds scenario, because Apache is extremely popular, with about 60 percent of the Web server market, but Microsoft has very popular developer tools.

"A lot of companies make operational decisions on what to deploy, which affects developer decisions. Now the operations group can let the developers who prefer to use Microsoft tools continue to do so and use the server they prefer, which is Apache," said Jim Zemlin, vice president of marketing for Covalent.

Apache 2.0, which was released in April, comes with a new Windows optimization technology called the Apache Portable Runtime (APR). Previous releases of Apache were not optimized for Windows, but with the 2.0 version and APR, Covalent promises an improvement in performance over previous releases.

With Apache in the .Net market, developers will have two choices for a Web server -- and other Web server vendors are likely to enter the market. But with IIS, developers will only have Microsoft technologies on the server side, like ASP.Net.

With Apache, developers will be able to use Java, Perl and PHP on a .Net platform, something they wouldn't get with IIS because Microsoft doesn't support those technologies.

Zemlin sees it as a further warming of Microsoft to the open-source world. "This is a good thing. Microsoft has said they would make an effort to work with open source. They may have called open source a cancer in the past, but it looks like they are trying to find a cure for cancer," he said.

Kusnetzky also likes the steps being taken. "I'm encouraged by the fact that those two organizations have found common ground on which to work and found ways to work together," he said. "Anything that takes the burden off their users' shoulders means they can focus on being productive rather than getting things to work together."

Apache 2.0 with support for ASP.Net is available now from Covalent.

Don’t ask me why… but i’ve been asked to make Apache run ASP.NET.

IT Worked !

Even worked with ASP.NET 2.0 Site !

Following are the instruction to make Asp.Net work under apache:

– Install Apache 2.0.54

– Install Mod_AspDotNet

– Addat the end ofC:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf the following lines

#asp.net
LoadModule aspdotnet_module "modules/mod_aspdotnet.so"

AddHandler asp.net asax ascx ashx asmx aspx axd config cs csproj licx rem resources resx soap vb vbproj vsdisco webinfo

<IfModule mod_aspdotnet.cpp>
# Mount the ASP.NET /asp application
AspNetMount /SampleASP "c:/SampleASP"
#/SampleASP is the alias name for asp.net to execute
#"c:/SampleASP" is the actual execution of files/folders in that location

# Map all requests for /asp to the application files
Alias /SampleASP "c:/SampleASP"
#maps /SampleASP request to "c:/SampleASP"
#now to get to the /SampleASP type http://localhost/SampleASP
#It'll redirect http://localhost/SampleASP to "c:/SampleASP"

# Allow asp.net scripts to be executed in the /SampleASP example
<Directory "c:/SampleASP">
Options FollowSymlinks ExecCGI
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
DirectoryIndex index.htm index.aspx
#default the index page to .htm and .aspx
</Directory>

# For all virtual ASP.NET webs, we need the aspnet_client files
# to serve the client-side helper scripts.
AliasMatch /aspnet_client/system_web/(\d+)_(\d+)_(\d+)_(\d+)/(.*) "C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v$1.$2.$3/ASP.NETClientFiles/$4"
<Directory "C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v*/ASP.NETClientFiles">
Options FollowSymlinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</IfModule>
#asp.net

– Create a directory c:\SampleASP and insert in it the index.aspx

– Restart apache server :
Start->Apache HTTP Server 2.0.54 ->
Control Apache Server -> Restart

– Open Explorer and navigate to http://localhost/SampleASP/index.aspx

If everything worked fine you should get a nice asp.net page working.

— index.aspx —

<%@ Page Language="VB" %>
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet"href="intro.css">
</head>
<body>
<center>
<form action="index.aspx" method="post">
<h3> Name: <input id="Name" type=text>
Category: <select id="Category" size=1>
<option>One</option>
<option>Two</option>
<option>Three</option>
</select>
</h3>
<input type=submit value="Lookup">
<p>
<% Dim I As Integer
For I = 0 to 7 %>
<font size="<%=I%>"> Sample ASP.NET TEST</font> <br>
<% Next %>
</form>
</center>
</body>
</html>