Information Systems:Apache Web Server Configuration on IBM i

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Overview

IBM HTTP Server for i is the built-in web server (licensed program) that serves, amongst other things, Infonet and Web Orders. It is a fork of Apache that IBM maintains. There are 4 important instances running:

  • WEBSMART (Web Orders)
  • WEBINTER (Infonet)
  • WEBTEST (Web Orders / Infonet Test Server, on a different port)
  • ADMIN (IBM Navigator)

To view and configure these instances:

  • Log in to IBM i Navigator using a browser.
  • The 'Welcome' tab should be open after the page is loaded. Click IBM i Tasks Page.
  • Click IBM i HTTP Server Administration.

For reference, here is the legacy way of viewing the configuration files: 

Access the Apache servers from a green screen command line by keying in WRKLNK and pressing enter.
 Option 5=Display on Object Link www.  
 Option 5=Display beside a server, for example WEBINTER.  
 Option 5=Display beside conf.  
 Option 5=Display beside HTTPD.CONF.

General Configuration

The Apache servers are configured to only run programs from explicit libraries. The following code for WEBINTER denies access to all directories (or libraries). 

<Directory />      
  Order Deny,Allow
  Deny From all   
</Directory>

This code allows access to programs in the PC environment. 

<Directory /webroot/unipharm>
  Order Allow,Deny        
  Allow From all          
</Directory>

This code allows access to the programs on the System i created by WebSmart. 

<Directory /QSYS.LIB/WEBPRDP.LIB/> 
  Order Allow,Deny                
  Allow From All                  
</Directory>

All our programs enforce the logon of a valid user. If a user tries to bypass this by simply keying a program name into the address line, the session is redirected to the log on program.

Specific configuration can be found here:

Infonet Proxy

With the introduction of Python/Django (2017-2018), the WEBINTER instance was modified to be a reverse-proxy, so that users can access and navigate between Infonet (WebSmart) and Infonext (Django) pages seamlessly and using the same URL/port. Thus, when users navigate to http://infonet.unipharm.local/unipharm/some_infonet_program.pgm, Apache will know to look for a WebSmart program, while a user navigating to http://infonet.unipharm.local/inx/123abcxyz, Apache will route the request to Django (or more specifically, the gunicorn HTTP server).

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