Re: Running a website on the i -- MIDRANGE-L

13 years running an i web server (since '99,as400, iSeries, i) to the www and never taken down, never hacked, while every win server in same network has at one time or another been compromised. It's a good choice. Your logs will have lot's of script kiddie attempts (every external ip gets them). Do keep up with HTTP and security ptf group ptfs. The firewall forwards the port 80 http traffic to the i and blocks everything else that should not be coming in.
jim franz

----- Original Message ----- From: "Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2011 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: Running a website on the i

This sounds like a good low-risk way to learn about the i and using it
for web serving.

I have done a bit with the web server on the i and came away convinced
that this is a useful exercise for i shops, however the fear of
compromise seems destined to keep the i isolated.

On 11/4/2011 2:39 PM, Kurt Anderson wrote:

Thanks for the responses.

Jim: the wiki has already been chosen and is live on a Windows server. People are already learning its particular scripting style, I wasn't planning on suggesting a change in wiki. I'm also not sure I understand your point that if we'd put a wiki on the i, then why even have a wiki. The presentation is great, the scripting is easy, and it's a one-stop-shop for searching through documentation. I guess I should add that the point of using the i is not to access its data, but to use it as a reliable server (that's already paid for).

Rob: Ok, I should qualify 'never' to 'never goes down during work hours.'

All that said, I just discovered that we currently run an extranet from our server as well, and it uses JSP's like the wiki does. If I have more questions I'll do has Vern says, and move forums.

I appreciate the input.

Thanks,
Kurt

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Oberholtzer
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2011 12:45 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Running a website on the i

Alan,

While you can't dismiss the possibility of someone hacking either the Apache Server, or the Zend Server, IBM/Zend do a very good job patching security related issues. That said if the database access is set up properly within PHP and the user profiles that are used are properly set up with the appropriate authorities, your data is secure. Is it more complicated that pure green screen but not that much so.

Also was it not stated up front that this is an internal only web site?
At that point would the employees have a much easier route to the data than through the Wiki?

There are several Wikis available as open source that will run quite nicely with Zend. The last one I set up took about 20 minutes and was
functional within 30 minutes. Do some research on the
feature/function of the available Wikis, pick one, install it, and go for it.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects

On 11/4/2011 12:04 PM, Alan Campin wrote:

But doesn't this open your i to hacking? If someone gets into your web
server on a stand alone box they only have access to the box but if it
is running on your i, they have access to all your business
information or am I missing something?

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Holger Scherer<hs@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello Kurt,

that is not really an issue. Zend (PHP/MySQL) is available from
IBM even as community so you should be able to copy the wiki php
programs and the MySQL database with low hazzle.

I ran several wikis or other PHP based projects on several i
machines, but - to be honest - if ist only a small hosting, a
simple linux box will do the job, too. (and more stable than a windows box).

To host this on an i is good when you can combine this with native i data.

Holger
RZKH - IBM i hosting

-----Original Message-----
From:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kurt Anderson
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2011 3:24 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
(midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Subject: Running a website on the i

Can anyone provide any helpful links for going about this?
I searched a bit online and unfortunately wasn't using the right
keywords or something.

We currently have our wiki running on a Windows Server and boy is
it annoying when it's rebooting. I want to suggest having it run
on a server that will never go down, but would like some documentation to provide.

That said, what kind of IBM i overhead is there with a webpage?
At the moment it'd only be a wiki, and only accessible internally,
which is less than 50 employees.

We're on a Power 7, 7.1.

--

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--
Booth Martin
802-461-5349
http://www.martinvt.com
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