Use Apache HTTP Server with Synchronet

The Apache HTTP Server (httpd) supports dynamic content via external executables called CGI programs.

Probably the best way to integrate Synchronet behind Apache is to configure MOD_PROXY on Apache to reverse-proxy calls for .ssjs files to Synchronet's HTTP server running on a different port. It's worth noting that the current SBBS web interface is setup to use HTTP Authentication, and would need to be adjusted to support a cookie based authentication scheme. By configuring Apache to use the same directory as SBBS, you can rely on Apache to perform caching and compression of non-dynamic content to be delivered directly.

Roughneck BBS is currently using a custom reverse proxy for use with IIS. You may email the sysop for a copy.

The easiest way to get dynamic Synchronet content (e.g. users, messages, files) served by the Apache HTTP Server is by using binkit as a CGI program to execute JavaScript (e.g. .js or .ssjs) files that generate dynamic HTML (on stdout).

JavaScript code that generates dynamic CGI content must first send one or more headers, followed by a blank-line, followed by the actual content (e.g. HTML).

As an example, the following generates a very basic one-line header (declaring the content to be plain-text), followed by a blank line, followed by one line of text (the ubiquitous Hello, World!):

print("Content-Type: text/plain");
print();
print("Hello, world!");

If the content is going to contain HTML, then you would want to declare the Content-Type to be text/html instead.

For example, to execute the exec/nodelist-html.js script to display to a web client a dynamically-generated BBS node list in HTML, create a file named nodelist in your Apache content cgi-bin directory containing the following 2 lines:

#!/bin/sh
exec /sbbs/exec/jsexec -c/sbbs/ctrl nodelist-html.js

Don't forget to make the file executable: chmod a+x nodelist

Now when a web client requests the URL http://yourbbs.com/cgi-bin/nodelist from your Apache HTTP Server, they'll get the dynamic Synchronet node-list in HTML.

Another option is to embed the JavaScript code in the CGI executable file itself. As an example, creating the file cgi-bin/test.cgi containing the following 4 lines:

#!/usr/sbin/jsexec -c/sbbs/ctrl
print("Content-Type: text/plain");
print();
print("Hello, world!");

Don't forget to make the file executable: chmod a+x test.cgi

Now when a web client requests the URL http://yourbbs.com/cgi-bin/test.cgi from your Apache HTTP Server, they'll get the “Hello, world!” message.

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