Configuration File Reference

The following tables describe all the possible parameters that can be set in each section of the configuration file. Note that some sections are not necessary at all if a specific capability is not included. For example, you don't need a section configuring the nstext (full text capabilities) module for a server if that server does not include the nstext module.

Note on Boolean Parameter Values:

There are several ways to specify a boolean parameter value. The reference tables below use "on" for true and "off" for false. However, any of the following values are valid:

Boolean Value	Equivalent Boolean Values
on	y, yes, t, true, 1 (one)
off	n, no, f, false, 0 (zero)

The Parameters Section

[ns/parameters]

This section is used to specify global AOLserver parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
AllowRoot	off	Boolean value. Unix only. If set to on, AOLserver can be run as root if the User key is set to "root" or the Uid key is set to "0". Setting this parameter on is a potential security risk and is not recommended.
CatchExceptions	on	(Unix only) Boolean value. If set to on, it registers server handlers for SIGBUS, SIGILL, SIGSEGV, SIGFPE, SIGIOT, SIGEMT, and SIGSYS. You may want to set this parameter off when debugging a new C module.
CheckExitCode	off	Boolean value. If set to on, an error is reported when a child process exits with a non-zero status.
CheckInterval	60	The number of seconds between server checks for scheduled procedures.
Debug	off	Boolean value. If set to on, debug messages will be printed to the global server log. Note: Setting Debug on will produce a large amount of debug output.
DisableThread-LibraryCalls	on	(Windows NT only) Boolean value. If set to on, 'DisableThreadLibraryCalls' will be called for each loaded module to avoid the overhead of calling the module's DllMain when threads begin and exit.
DNSCache	on	Boolean. If set to on, enables DNS cache to speed lookup of remote IP addresses. Since the DNS cache can dramatically speed lookup time, especially in the case of a busy server with the nslog module set to resolve host names, it is recommended that DNSCache be left on.
DNSCache-PurgeInterval	240	The number of minutes after which DNS cache entries expire.
DNSCacheTimeout	60	The number of minutes between cache purges for the DNS cache.
Gid	(If neither Gid nor Group is set, the default group of the user specified by the User parameter is used.)	Unix group number.
Group	(If neither Gid nor Group is set, the default group of the user specified by the User parameter is used.)	Unix group name. This parameter is ignored if the gid parameter is set.
Home		The AOLserver home directory (the directory where AOLserver was installed). This parameter is required.
ListenBacklog	Unix: 32 NT: 128	The maximum length of the queue of pending connections.
LogExpanded	off	Boolean value. If set to on, each server log entry will be 2 lines long (instead of 1).
LogMaxBackup	10	The maximum number of server log backup files.
LogPid	on	Boolean value. If set to on, the pid (process id) will be included in server log entries.
LogRoll	on	Boolean value. If set to on, the server log file will be rolled on a SIGHUP.
LogServer	on	Boolean value. If set to on, the virtual server name will be included in server log entries.
LogTid	on	Boolean value. If set to on, the tid (thread id) will be included in server log entries.
LogTime	on	Boolean value. If set to on, timestamps will be included in server log entries.
MailHost	localhost	The SMTP server AOLserver should use when sending email using the Tcl ns_sendmail function.
MaxStartThreads	5	The number of threads to start AOLserver with.
MaxStartWait	0	Maximum number of seconds to wait for servers to start. If all servers have not initialized in this time, the server will be immediately stopped.
MaxStopWait	60	Maximum number of seconds to wait for servers to stop. If active connections are not completed in this time, the server will be immediately stopped.
ModuleDirectory	bin	The directory where the server loads modules from, specified as either an absolute path or a relative path from the server home directory.
OpenMax	Process limit on open files	Unix only. AOLserver will attempt to increase the maximum number of open files allowed for the process to the value specified.
PidFile	serverhome/log /nspid.setup-server-port	The pathname of the file where the server puts its pid.
ServerLog	/log/server.log under the AOLserver home directory	The file to contain any notices, warnings, or errors generated by AOLserver if AOLserver is run as a background process. If AOLserver is run in the foreground, messages are written to standard output, and this parameter is ignored.
StackSize	SGI and DEC OSF: 32000 All others: the operating system default	The thread stack size. You may need to increase this parameter if an AOLserver request function or Tcl script is deeply nested, exhausting the stack space of the thread.
Uid		Unix only: Unix uid which can be set instead of setting the User parameter.
Umask	022	Unix only. A 3-digit, octal mask (code) that refers to the read/write/execute file permissions for owner, group, and other, respectively. It is used to turn-off any of the the nine permission bits when a file is created by AOLserver. This applies to all files that the server creates. For example, a value of 022 would disable write permissions for everyone but the owner of the files. The default value of 0 does not turn off any permission bits, meaning files created by AOLserver have the value 644 for permissions, which gives read/write permission for the owner and read permission for everyone else.
User		Unix only: The user name that AOLserver is to be run as. If you start the AOLserver as the root user, you must set this parameter. If you have selected a port number below 1024 (a "privileged" port), you will need to start the AOLserver as the "root" and specify a Unix user for the server to change to after it acquires the port. If your port number is greater than 1024, you can leave this blank.

The Setup Server Section

[ns/setup]

This section is used to specify setup server parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
ContinueOnError	on	Boolean value. If on, AOLserver will continue to run the setup server even if an error occurs loading any of the other virtual servers at startup. If off, AOLserver will stop if all virtual servers do not sucessfully start an error occurs.
Enabled	on	Boolean value. If on, AOLserver will start up the setup server.
Password		The nsadmin password for the setup server. Note that if the password is left blank, anyone can modify your configuration.
Port	9876	The port number that the setup server listens on. Note that the setup server listens on all IP addresses, only the port may be varied.

The Servers Sections

[ns/servers]

This section lists (and names) each of the virtual servers that are to be run within the AOLserver process.

Parameter	Possible Values	Description
server-name	"description text"	The name (user-defined) of a virtual server, which must be all lowercase. The description text can be any user-defined comments. The "setup" and "nssetup" server names are reserved by the built-in setup server.

[ns/server/server-name]

This section configures a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server listed in the [ns/servers] section if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Assets	Unix: /servers/server/assets NT: \servers\server\assets	Directory where graphics files to be included in pages are stored. It must be an absolute path. If no directory is specified, the default directory (shown at left) under the installation directory is used. If the default directory does not exist, the /assets directory under the installation directory is used.
CheckInterval	60	The interval in seconds between internal server checks for dynamic thread creation or release.
Check-ModifiedSince	on	Boolean. If set to off, the "If-Modified-Since" headers will be ignored.
CreatMode	664	Unix only. A 3-digit, octal mask (code) that refers to the read/write/execute file permissions for owner, group, and other, respectively. It is used to set any of the nine permission bits for all content files that the server creates. For example, a value of 666 would allow read/write access for the owner, group, and other. The umask parameter is applied to this value. So, if this parameter was set to 666, and umask was set to 22, the resulting mode would be 644.
DirectoryFile	index.htm, index.html, index.shtml	A comma-separated list of default files to get if the URL specifies only a directory. For example: DirectoryFile=index.htm, index.html, index.shtml This virtual server will try each of the filenames in the list, left to right.
DirectoryListing	Simple	Valid values are "None", "Simple", "Stats", and "Fancy". Controls the level of detail in the automatically-generated directory listings. "None" specifies that no directory listing is generated and a forbidden response message will be returned. "Stats" is the same as "Fancy" except that the description is not listed.
ElevateAcceptPriority	Solaris: on All others: off	Boolean value. If set to on, the thread that accepts connections is given priority over threads that process connections, which can increase throughput.
FileLocking	on	Boolean. If set to on, AOLserver enables the locking of pages with AOLpress (version 1.2 or higher). If set to off, page locking is disabled, and the Lock and Unlock menu items will be dimmed in AOLpress.
FlushContent	on	Boolean. If set to on, this virtual server will read all HTTP client content before closing the connectoin.
FlushQueue	off	Boolean. If on, this virtual server flushes its connection queue before stopping.
ForbiddenResponse*		A URL to display when a "Forbidden" status is returned. For example: /errorpages/forbidden.html.
HeaderCase	Preserve	Determines how AOLserver treats the case of incoming HTTP header key names. (The case of header key values is always preserved.) If set to Preserve, case is preserved for key names. If set to ToLower, header key names are converted to lower case. If set to ToUpper, header key names are converted to upper case.
HideDotFiles	on	Boolean. If set to on, files that match ".*" (excluding "..") are not shown in a directory listing for the virtual server.
MaxLine	8192	The maximum number of bytes for the HTTP request or header line.
MaxHeaders	16384	The maximum number of bytes for all HTTP header lines in a request.
MaxPost	65536	The maximum size in bytes of an HTTP POST accessed through the Ns_ConnGetQuery function (in C) or the ns_conn form function (in Tcl). For larger POSTs, access the content directly with the Ns_ConnRead function.
Maxthreads	50	The maximum number of threads this virtual server can use within the AOLserver process. If additional threads are requested, the requests will be forced to wait.
MinThreadAge	60	The minimum lifetime in seconds for a connection thread. AOLserver will not terminate threads which were recently started even if the server is idle at the moment.
MinThreads	0	The number of threads in the AOLserver process to initialize when this virtual server is started.
MkdirMode	664	Unix only. A 3-digit, octal mask (code) that refers to the read/write/execute directory permissions for owner, group, and other, respectively. It is used to set any of the nine permission bits for all content directories that the server creates. For example, a value of 666 would allow read/write access for the owner, group, and other. The umask parameter is applied to this value. So, if this parameter was set to 666, and umask was set to 22, the resulting mode would be 644.
NotFoundResponse*		A URL to display when a "Not Found" status is returned. For example: /errorpages/notfound.html.
NoticeBackground		Background image for notice pages.
NoticeBgColor	#ffffff (white)	Background color for notice pages, specified as either a valid HTML color name or an RGB value.
PageRoot	Unix: /servers/server/pages NT: \servers\server\pages	Directory where pages for this virtual server are stored.
ServerInternalErrorResponse*		A URL to display when an internal server error occurs. For example: /errorpages/server-internal-error.html.
TrailerFindEnd	on	Boolean. If set to on, the trailer will be inserted just before any </BODY> and </HTML> end tags. Otherwise, the trailer is added after these tags and may be ignored by some browsers.
TrailerFmt	%c	The date/time format used for the result of the :LASTMOD: variable (if it is used in TrailerText).
TrailerText		HTML tags and text that make up the content of your trailer. Must be all on one line. You can use the :LASTMOD: variable to insert the date the page was last modified.
TrailerType	text/html	Set to text/html to enable a trailer that includes both text and HTML tags.
UnauthorizedResponse*		A URL to display when an "Unauthorized" status is returned. For example: /errorpages/unauthorized.html.
UserMapDir		The subdirectory under the user's home directory in which to search for files when a URL containing ~username is specified. If blank (the default), ~username URLs will not be mapped to user directories. Note that this parameter can be overridden by an URL to file mapping in the Aliases section if the mapping specifies "/~" as the URL. See Configuring URL to File Mappings for more information.
Verbose	off	Boolean value. Set to on to specify verbose status messages. Note: Setting Verbose on will result in a large amount of output in the server log.
Webmaster		The email address for the webmaster. If specified, a link to the webmaster's email address is provided on notice pages.

*These parameters allow you to define custom error message pages for specific AOLserver return statuses. If these custom error messages cause an error, AOLserver returns the normal error message page corresponding to the return status and logs the additional error to the error log.

[ns/server/server-name/aliases]

This section is used to specify the file returned for the specified URLs. All mappings are listed as URL=file pairs. See the "Configuring URL to File Mappings" section for details and examples.

Parameter	Value	Description
URL	filename	The URL is a relative URL to be mapped to a different filename. A leading slash "/" is optional, except for the special case where the specified URL consists only of a slash, in which case the mapping overrides the PageRoot parameter defined for this virtual server and defines the implicit root for all of the relative paths specified in the other mappings. The filename is the filename that the specified URL will be mapped to. You must specify a file and not another URL.

[ns/server/server-name/cgi]

This section configures CGI for a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Environment		Specifies a section in the configuration file to be used as the default environment for CGI scripts run on this server. For example, if you set Environment=CGIenv, you must include a [ns/environment/CGIenv] in the configuration file containing environment variable definitions. The environment variables will be in addition to the standard CGI variables.
Interps		Specifies a section in the configuration file to define mappings between extensions of CGI script files and programs. For example, if you set Interp=CGIinterps, you must include a [ns/interps/CGIinterps] section in the configuration file containing appropriate mappings. See below for a description of the format of an Interps section.
Map		Method, URL, and directory where CGI programs reside. A trailing slash on the URL is not allowed. The directory must be an absolute pathname. A trailing slash on the directory is optional. If the directory is missing, the pages directory is assumed. Examples: Map =GET /cgi /usr/local/cgi Map =POST /*.cgi You may have more than one Map entry. Typically, there are at least Map entries for the GET and POST methods.
MaxInput	1,024,000	Maximum number of bytes that the virtual server will send from an HTTP client as input into an NPH (non-parsed header) CGI program. This limit is provided because the input to an NPH script is provided as a temporary file which should not grow without bound instead of through a pipe.

[ns/server/server-name/db]

This section specifies the database pools that will be accesible by a virtual server. The available database pools are listed in the [ns/db/pools] section. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server if you want to restrict a virtual server's access to a subset of the available database pools.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
DefaultPool		The default pool for the ns_conn db and ns_db gethandle Tcl functions to access.
Pools	(no database pools are accessible by default)	A comma-delimited list of pool names specifying the pools that are to be accessible from this virtual server, or "*" to signify that all pools should be accessible. The available pools are listed in the [ns/db/pools] section.

[ns/server/server-name/mimeicons]

This section is used to add .gif icons for each MIME type when generating directory listings in Fancy mode (see the DirectoryListing parameter in the [ns/server/server-name] section). Each parameter specifies an application and a .gif file.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
application	(defaults listed below)	A .gif file corresponding to the MIME type application.

The default MimeIcons parameter definitions are:

    text/*=/NS/Asset/doc.gif
    image/*=/NS/Asset/image.gif
    video/*=/NS/Asset/video.gif
    audio/*=/NS/Asset/sound.gif

AOLserver checks the mappings from most restrictive to least restrictive, so you could add the following definition as a subset of the text/* mapping:

    text/plain=/NS/Asset/plain.gif

[ns/server/server-name/mimetypes]

This section is used to map file name extensions to the content-type headers returned to browsers. Each parameter specifies an extension and the type to return.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Default		The default MIME type to use if there is no explicit mapping specified for a file name extension.
file-extension	(default MIME types listed below)	A content-type to return in the header information.
NoExtension		The MIME type to use for files with no extension.

The default MIME type parameter definitions are:

    
    .ai=application/postscript
    .aif=audio/aiff
    .aiff=audio/aiff
    .ani=application/x-navi-animation
    .art=image/x-art
    .au=audio/basic
    .avi=video/x-msvideo
    .bin=application/x-macbinary
    .bmp=image/bmp
    .dcr=application/x-director
    .dir=application/x-director
    .dp=application/commonground
    .dxr=application/x-director
    .exe=application/octet-stream
    .gif=image/gif
    .gz=application/x-compressed
    .hqx=application/mac-binhex40
    .htm=text/html
    .html=text/html
    .jfif=image/jpeg
    .jpe=image/jpeg
    .jpg=image/jpeg
    .jpeg=image/jpeg
    .js=application/x-javascript
    .ls=application/x-javascript
    .map=application/x-navimap
    .mocha=application/x-javascript
    .mov=video/quicktime
    .mpe=video/mpeg
    .mpeg=video/mpeg
    .mpg=video/mpeg
    .nvd=application/x-navidoc
    .nvm=application/x-navimap
    .pbm=image/x-portable-bitmap
    .pdf=application/pdf
    .pgm=image/x-portable-graymap
    .pic=image/pict
    .pict=image/pict
    .pnm=image/x-portable-anymap
    .ps=application/postscript
    .qt=video/quicktime
    .ra=audio/x-pn-realaudio
    .ram=audio/x-pn-realaudio
    .ras=image/x-cmu-raster
    .rgb=image/x-rgb
    .rtf=application/rtf
    .sit=application/x-stuffit
    .snd=audio/basic
    .stl=application/x-navistyle
    .tar=appliation/x-tar
    .text=text/plain
    .tgz=application/x-compressed
    .tif=image/tiff
    .tiff=image/tiff
    .txt=text/plain
    .vrml=x-world/x-vrml
    .wav=audio/x-wav
    .wrl=x-world/x-vrml
    .xbm=image/x-xbitmap
    .xpm=image/x-xpixmap
    .z=application/x-compressed
    .zip=application/x-compressed
    

[ns/server/server-name/shtml]

This section configures server-parsed HTML for a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Map	/*.shtml	The Map parameter lets you specify which pages the server should parse. If the directory is missing, the pages directory is assumed. The format is: type_or_location or type_or_location(option, ...) The type_or_location can be a file extension (such as /*.shtml) or a directory (/usr/pages/parsed). It can also contain the * ? and [ ] wildcards. The options are: NoExec prevents the #exec command from being parsed. SubstituteErrors causes any error messages caused by invalid commands to be included in the page. Normally error messages are sent back instead of the parsed document. RunCmdInDir specifies that the #exec command will be run in the directory where the server-parsed HTML page resides, instead of the server home directory. For example: Map=/*.shtml(RunCmdInDir) NoIncludeSrc specifies that the server will not return the source of each command. If NoIncludeSrc is omitted (the default condition), the server will return the source of each command, followed by the results of parsing it, followed by "<!--#nsendcmd-->". This capability can be used by browsers that allow editing of server-parsed HTML, and will eventually be supported by AOLpress. For example, consider this command: <!-- #echo var="DATE_LOCAL" --> If NoIncludeSrc is omitted, AOLserver will translate the command into: <!-- #echo var="DATE_LOCAL" --> Fri May 03 18:22:01 1996 <!-- #nsendcmd --> A standard browser will ignore the SHTML command, because it is in a comment.

[ns/server/server-name/tcl]

This section configures Tcl for a specific virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
AutoClose	on	If AutoClose is on, all non-shared files opened by an individual interpreter in the group will be closed when Ns_TclDeAllocateInterp is invoked. (Other interpreters in the group are not affected.) Ns_TclDeAllocateInterp is called after each Tcl request procedure. It is recommended that you leave the AutoClose parameter set to on and share files between interpreters.
ClientDebug		An IP address to be enabled by default for client Tcl debugging. You can have multiple ClientDebug entries to specify multiple addresses. For example: ClientDebug=111.222.333.444 ClientDebug=111.222.333.445 Wildcards and significant bit designations are not supported when specifying addresses for ClientDebug.
InitScript	source [ns_library private]/init.tcl	Tcl script to run at startup.
Library	/servers/server/modules/tcl	Directory for private Tcl script library for this virtual server. Tcl scripts in this private library will override identically-named Tcl scripts in the shared Tcl library.
NumInterps	5	This parameter is ignored since AOLserver now uses linked interpreters. It is allowed for backwards compatibility only.
ReinitScript		Tcl script run before every Tcl script.
SharedLibrary	/modules/tcl	Directory for shared Tcl script library used by this virtual server. Any Tcl scripts in this shared library will be overridden by identically-named Tcl scripts in the private Tcl script library.

[ns/server/server-name/modules]

This section lists the AOLserver modules that are to be loaded into a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server listed in the [ns/servers] section.

The name of the module can be any name you choose, but it must then be referenced as the module name in the appropriate [ns/server/server-name/module/module-name] section. For example, if you specify mynsdb=nsdb.so, you must configure the module in a section called [ns/server/server-name/module/mynsdb] instead of [ns/server/server-name/module/nsdb].

The file specified as the usual value for each parameter exists in the bin directory under the AOLserver home directory by default. If it resides somewhere else, include an absolute path specification along with the file.

Parameter	Usual Value	Description
nslog	Unix: nslog.so NT: nslog.dll	If present, enables an access log for this virtual server.Configure the access log in the [ns/server/server-name/module/nslog] section
nsnlog	Unix: nsnlog.so NT: nsnlog.dll	If present, enables network logging for this virtual server.Configure network logging in the [ns/server/server-name/module/nsnlog] section
nsperm	Unix: nsperm.so NT: nsperm.dll	If present, enables access control capabilities for this virtual server. Configure these capabilities in the [ns/server/server-name/module/nsperm] section.
nssock	Unix: nssock.so NT: nssock.dll	If present, allows TCP/IP sockets connection for this virtual server.Configure the sockets connection in the [ns/server/server-name/module/nssock] section.
nsssl	Unix: nsssl.so NT: nsssl.dll	If present, allows SSL connections for this virtual server.Configure the SSL connection in the [ns/server/server-name/module/nsssl] section.
nstext	Unix: nstext.so NT: nstext.dll	If present, enables full-text processing for this virtual server. Configure the full-text module in the [ns/server/server-name/module/nstext] section

[ns/server/server-name/module/nslog]

This section configures the nslog module for a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server that includes an nslog module if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
EnableHostnameLookup	off	Boolean value. Select on to convert IP addresses into host names before logging entries in the access log file. Setting this parameter on will slow down the server, potentially to the point at which all threads are waiting for DNS response instead of servicing connections. Consider increasing the virtual server MaxThreads in this case.
ExtendedHeaders		Header information to be written to the access log. Specify a comma-separated list of headers or "*" to have all header information written to the access log. The possible headers are: ACCEPT, FROM, IF-MODIFIED-SINCE, REFERER, and USER-AGENT.
File	access.log	Name of the file where access log is to be stored. Accesses are logged in CERN Common Logfile Format.
LogCombined	off	Boolean value. If set to on, logs will be generated in the NCSA combined log format.
LogRefer	off	Boolean value. If set to on, the referring URL for each access will be logged, letting you track the sources of hits to your site. Note that this information is appended to each log line, and some log analysis tools may require its removal.
LogUserAgent	off	Boolean value. If set to on, the user-agent of each access will be logged, letting you track which browsers are being used to access your site. Note that this information is appended to each log line, and some log analysis tools may require its removal.
MaxBackup	5	The maximum number of access logs that will be saved. This amount includes the current access log. For example, a value of 5 means the current access log plus 4 backup logs.
RollDay	*	The day of the week on which to roll the access log, or "*" to roll the access log every day of the week. The day must be specified with at least the first three letters of its name, e.g., "Mon", "Mond", "Monda", or "Monday". The access log will be rolled at 12:01 a.m. on the specified day or days. The file name of the access log will be access.log.yymmdd, where yy is the year, mm is the month number, and dd is the day of the month.
RollFmt	%y-%m-%d	The format for the date and time to be appended to the log file name. Formats must be specified using the same format options as the strftime C library function. The complete log file name will be Fname.datetime, where Fname is determined by the File parameter, and datetime is determined by the RollFmt parameter.
RollHour	0 (midnight)	The hour at which the access log will be rolled on the day or days specified by the RollDay parameter. The hour must be specifed as an integer from 0 to 23 representing the hour in military time.
RollOnSignal	on	Boolean value. The default, "on", specifies that the access log will be rolled when a SIGHUP signal is sent to the process id of the running server. The process id can be found in the file specified by the PidFile parameter, or if PidFile is not specified, in the file: /serverhome/log/nspid.setup-server-port For example, if the setup server port is 9876, the process id is in the file nspid.9876 in the log subdirectory of the server home directory. If set to "off", the access log will not be rolled when a signal is sent.

[ns/server/server-name/module/nsnlog]

This section configures the nsnlog module for a virtual server, which configures network logging. The nsnlog module allows one or more AOLservers to log to another AOLserver. The advantage of doing this is that the single AOLserver receiving the log information will multiplex the log entries from the remote AOLservers into a single log file. This can be very useful to a busy web site that mirrors content on several identical servers, because they can all log to a single logging server.

There should be one of these sections for each virtual server that includes an nsnlog module.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Address		IP address to listen for remote connect requests on. If this parameter is not set, AOLserver will listen on all interfaces.
Directory		The default directory to store log files which aren't absolute. The default is for the remote server to request the file specified with the nslog File parameter. If the File parameter is missing, nslog will send the virtual server name as the File and the nsnlog logging server will store the file in this directory.
MaxBackup	10	The maximum number of access logs that will be saved. This amount includes the current access log. For example, a value of 5 means the current access log plus 4 backup logs.
Port		Port to listen for remote connect requests on.
RollOnSignal	on	Boolean value. The default, "on", specifies that all access logs will be rolled when a SIGHUP signal is sent to the process id of the running server. The process id can be found in the file specified by the PidFile parameter, or if PidFile is not specified, in the file: /serverhome/log/nspid.setup-server-port For example, if the setup server port is 9876, the process id is in the file nspid.9876 in the log subdirectory of the server home directory. If set to "off", the access logs will not be rolled when a signal is sent.

For example, suppose an AOLserver, called server1, has three virtual servers called vs1, vs2, and vs3. Each of the virtual servers has the nslog module loaded. vs1 and vs2 set the nslog File parameter to "/logs/abc.log", and vs3 doesn't set the nslog File parameter at all. The nslog Address parameter is set to the name of the second AOLserver (server2).

A second AOLserver, called server2, has an nsnlog module loaded for a virtual server called myvs. The nsnlog Port and Address parameters are set to listen for vs1, vs2, and vs3 on server1. The nsnlog Directory parameter is left unset and defaults to "servers/myvs/modules/nsnlog". The port specified in the Port parameter for the nsnlog module for the myvs virtual server must be the same as the port specified in the Port parameter in the nslog modules for the vs1, vs2, and vs3 virtual servers.

The log files created on the server2 machine are:

/logs/abc.log	contains multiplexed logs from vs1 and vs2
servers/myvs/modules/nsnlog/vs3	contains logs for vs3

The nsnlog module creates a new thread for each remote nslog connect request. In the example above, nsnlog would create three new threads and access to the abc.log file would be multiplexed between the log entries sent from vs1 and vs2.

[ns/server/server-name/module/nsperm]

This section configures the nsperm module for a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server that includes an nsperm module if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Directory	Unix: /servers/server/modules/perm NT: \servers\server\modules\perm	Directory where access control data files are stored. Each virtual server must have a different permissions directory.
EnableHostnameLookup	on	Boolean value. Select off to turn off DNS lookup of IP addresses into host names. This can increase the performance of the permissions module, but you cannot restrict access based on host name. You will still be able to restrict access based on numeric IP addresses.
Model	Small	Can be either Large or Small. By default, the Small model is chosen and you can pick users and groups from a selection box on the access control forms. Specify a Large model if you have a very large number of users and groups and you would rather type in comma-delimited lists of users and groups than select them from such a large selection box.

[ns/server/server-name/module/nssock]

This section configures the nssock module for a virtual server. Each virtual server must have either an nssock module or an nsssl module loaded. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server that includes an nssock module if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Address		IP Address where this virtual server listens for requests. If this parameter is not set, AOLserver will listen on all interfaces. This means that if one virtual server does not set an address, no other virtual server may use the same Port.
Debug	off	Boolean value. Set to on to enable debug message logging.
Hostname	AOLserver queries the DNS (Domain Name Service) for the host name.	Host name used in response to clients. This may be an alias for your site, such as www.avalon.com. Make sure the IP address of the Hostname you set is valid or users will be unable to process redirects from your site.
KeepAlive	on	Boolean. If set to on, the periodic transmission of messages on a connected socket is enabled. If the client fails to respond to these messages, the connection is considered broken. Setting KeepAlive to off may result in several dead connections held open.
Port	80	Port number where this virtual server listens for requests. If two virtual servers use the same port, they must use different Addresses.
ReceiveBufferSize	8K	TCP/IP socket receive buffer size.Valid range is 512 to 65535. A higher buffer size may increase performance.
SendBufferSize	8K	TCP/IP socket send buffer size. Valid range is 512 to 65535. A higher buffer size may increase performance.
SendMaxSize	0	The maximum number of bytes to send over the TCP/IP socket. If set to 0 (the default), there is no limit. Setting this to a value other than zero may be helpful if your server is located on a very slow Internet connection.
TimeOut	0	The maximum number of seconds to wait on a pending socket recv() or send(). A value of 0 (zero) indicates an infinite wait. Setting TimeOut to a value other than zero may be helpful in quickly detecting dead clients. However, the server must perform additional steps to implement the TimeOut which may reduce performance.

[ns/server/server-name/module/nsssl]

This section configures the SSL module for a virtual server. Each virtual server must have either an nssock module or an nsssl module loaded. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server that includes an SSL module if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters. Many of these parameters are shared with the nssock module.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Address		IP Address where this virtual server listens for requests. If this parameter is not set, AOLserver will listen on all interfaces. This means that if one virtual server does not set an address, no other virtual server may use the same Port.
CertFile		The file containing the signed certificate for this virtual server. The certificate contains information about the virtual server and your company that has been confirmed by a trusted third party (a Certification Authority). Note: You can put the private key in the same file if you want to.
Debug	off	Boolean value. Set to on to enable debug message logging.
Hostname	AOLserver queries the DNS (Domain Name Service) for the host name.	Host name used in response to clients. This may be an alias for your site, such as www.avalon.com. Make sure the IP address of the Hostname you set is valid or users will be unable to process redirects from your site.
KeepAlive	on	Boolean. If set to on, the periodic transmission of messages on a connected socket is enabled. If the client fails to respond to these messages, the connection is considered broken.
KeyFile		The full path and filename of the file that contains the virtual server's private key. Note: This parameter defaults to the contents of CertFile.
Port	443	Port number where this virtual server listens for requests. If two virtual servers use the same port, they must use different Addresses.
ReceiveBufferSize	32K	TCP/IP socket receive buffer size. Valid range is 512 to 65535.
SendBufferSize	32K	TCP/IP socket send buffer size. Valid range is 512 to 65535.

[ns/server/server-name/module/nstext]

This section configures the full-text module for a virtual server. There should be one of these sections for each virtual server that includes a full-text module if you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Archive	off	Boolean value. Set to on if you want pages archived, allowing you to retrieve deleted versions of pages through the Tools Administer Page Versions AOLpress menu item.
DbPool	pool-name	The name of the pool (see the [ns/db/pools] section) in which to store full-text information for pages. The pool must be a pool which connects to an Illustra database with the Text Datablade installed.
Index	off	Boolean value. Set to on if you want pages indexed. You must set this parameter to on if you want to be able to perform full-text searches on your pages. Then set the Searchable parameter according to whether you want users to be able to perform searches.
Searchable	off	Boolean value. Set to on to allow users to search this virtual server from the AOLpress Search Server menu option. (The nsadmin user will allways be able to search the virtual server from the Administration page if the Index parameter is on.)

[ns/server/server-name/module/tclstate]

This section configures Tcl to maintain state data, stored in a Tcl ns_set structure, across connections and server reboots for a specified amount of time. To enable Tcl to maintain state data, you must also load a Tcl-only module called "tclstate".

Parameter	Default Value	Description
TimeOut		The length of time (in minutes) state data is maintained.

Database Drivers and Pools

[ns/db/drivers]

This section lists the available database drivers to be used with the database pools. The name of the driver can be any name you choose, but it must then be referenced as the driver name in the appropriate [ns/db/driver/driver-name] section. Note that the driver parameter in the [ns/db/pool/pool-name] section must also reference the driver name to associate a database driver with a particular database pool.

The file specified as the usual value for each parameter exists in the bin directory under the AOLserver home directory by default. If it resides somewhere else, include an absolute path specification along with the file.

Parameter	Usual Value	Description
illustra	Unix: nsill.so NT: nsill.dll	If present, enables the Illustra database driver. Configure the Illustra driver in the [ns/db/driver/illustra] section.
odbc	nsodbc.dll	Windows NT only. If present, enables the ODBC database driver. No configuration is necessary for the ODBC driver.
extname	Unix: nsext.so NT: nsext.dll	The external database driver name. There can be multiple (uniquely-named) instances of this parameter, one for each proxy daemon interface. By convention, the external driver names are prepended with "ext". For example: extIll or extSyb.

[ns/db/driver/illustra]

This section configures the Illustra database driver. There should be one of these sections in your configuration file if the Illustra driver is listed in the [ns/db/drivers] section and you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Asynchronous	on	Boolean. If set to on, AOLserver will run asynchronously with respect to the Illustra libmi calls which can increase performance.
MiParams	Unix: MiParams file in the miadmin user's home directory. NT: Value of the Registry key: \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Illustra\Illustra ORDBMS	The location of the Illustra parameters file. It specifies various Illustra startup parameters and is used by AOLserver to locate the Illustra server.
UseAppLicenseKeys	on	Boolean. If set to on, the AOLserver will connect to Illustra as an AOLserver application and request AOLserver license key feature numbers. Set to off to use standard Illustra license keys.

[ns/db/driver/extname]

This section configures an external database driver. There should be one of these sections in your configuration file if an external driver is listed in the [ns/db/drivers] section and you want to change any of the default settings for the parameters.

Parameter	Usual Value	Description
LocalDaemon	Illustra: nsillpd Sybase: nssybpd	The local database proxy daemon. Use this parameter only for local database proxy daemons.
RemoteHost		A remote host name. Use this parameter only for remote database proxy daemons.
RemotePort		A remote port number. Use this parameter only for remote database proxy daemons.
Param	/usr/local/miadmin/MiParams	For Illustra, the location of the MiParams file. For Sybase, the value of the SYBASE environment variable.

[ns/db/pools]

This section lists (and names) each of the available database pools for AOLserver.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
pool-name	pool description	The name (user-defined) of a database pool, which is actually a collection of connections accessible to AOLserver to the associated database. The database connection itself is configured in the [ns/db/pool/pool-name] section. The pool description can be any user-specified comments about the pool.

[ns/db/pool/pool-name]

This section configures a database pool. There should be one of these sections for each database pool listed in the [ns/db/pools] section.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
Connections	2	The maximum number of connections that can be established at any one time. The server automatically makes connections as needed up to this maximum number. If additional connections are requested during processing, the requests must wait. Note: Some databases, for example a Microsoft Access ODBC database, do not handle multiple connections very well. In this case, you should set Connections to 1 (one).
Datasource	Illustra: default:nsdb ODBC:	For Illustra, the database server and the database name separated by a colon (:). The database server is specified in the Illustra parameters file. Note: The database server is not, in general, the same as the hostname on which the Illustra server runs. In a typical installation with AOLserver and Illustra running on the same host, the server name would be "default". For ODBC, the ODBC datasource.
Driver		Value can be any driver named in the [ns/db/drivers] section: illustra (for Illustra), odbc (for ODBC), or an external database driver.
ExtendedTableInfo	off	Boolean value. Set to on to store extended table information in the ns_tables and ns_columns tables in this database pool. If the ns_tables and ns_columns tables do not already exist in this database pool, they will be created.
MaxIdle	600	The maximum length of time in seconds that a database connection within this pool can remain open and idle. The default setting causes connections that are idle for 10 minutes to be closed. Note that MaxIdle will not have an effect if it is equal to MaxOpen.
MaxOpen	3600	The maximum length of time in seconds that a database connection within this pool can remain open. It is recommended that MaxOpen be a multiple of MaxIdle; otherwise, MaxOpen may be off by as much as (MaxOpen mod MaxIdle). The default setting causes all connections to be closed after one hour, regardless of activity level. Database pool connections will then be opened again as needed up to the value of the Connections parameter.
Password		Password to log into the database. Note: In the case of Illustra, this is the passsword of the database user as stored in the Illustra "users" system table which is not necessarily the same as the password of the miadmin Unix or NT user.
User	Illustra: miadmin ODBC:	Username to log into the database. Note: In the case of Illustra, this is the database username as stored in the Illustra "users" system table, not the user under which Illustra or the AOLserver runs.
Verbose	off	Boolean value. Set to on to enable verbose error messages. Note: Setting Verbose may result in a large amount of output in the server log file.

CGI Interpreters and Environment

[ns/interps/interps-name]

This section allows you to configure an interps section that can be used by CGI modules loaded into any of the virtual servers..

Parameter	Default Value	Description
file-extension	program(environment)	A CGI interpreter definition used by a CGI module. The environment is optional and specifies a section of environment variables to set in addition to the CGI variables before executing the interpreter program. For example: .pl=c:\perl\bin\perl.exe .sh=c:\mks\mksnt\sh.exe(MKSenv) In this case, Perl will be invoked to interpret CGI scripts which end in .pl; the variables in the [ns/environment/mksenv] section will be set before the MKS Bourne shell is invoked to interpret CGI scripts which end in .sh. To enable this section to be used by a specific CGI module, use the Interps parameter of the CGI module.

[ns/environment/environment-name]

This section allows you to configure an environment section that can be used by CGI modules loaded into any of the virtual servers..

Parameter	Default Value	Description
variable	definition	An environment variable definition used by a CGI module. To enable this section to be used by a specific CGI module, use the Environment parameter of the CGI module or add the optional environment name in the definition of a CGI interpreter.

SGI IRIX Sproc-Based Threads

[ns/threads]

This section allows you to configure sproc-based threads available on IRIX 5.3 or 6.2 (not the pthreads-based approach available on IRIX 6.2).

Note that these parameters are provided for advanced IRIX users who need to fine-tune their system. They are not accessible through the setup server; you must set them directly in the configuration file.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
ArenaFile	If ArenaSwapFile is on, the default is: /dev/zero Otherwise, the default is ArenaMktemp	An arena file.
ArenaMktemp	/var/tmp/nsArenaXXXXXX	A temporary file for the arena, used only if ArenaSwapFile is off.
ArenaSwapFile	on	Boolean value. Set to on to use the swap device for the arena.
AutoGrow	on	Boolean value. If set to off, the underlying file of the newly-created arena will be grown to its maximum size (InitSize) before the file is mmap'ed. If set to on, the underlying file of the arena will be mmap'ed with the MAP_AUTOGROW option (see mmap(2)). Note that the default case (on) can cause unexpected failures when the file system fills up.
AutoResv	off	Boolean value. If both AutoGrow and ArenaSwapFile are on, the underlying file of the arena will be mmap'ed with the MAP_AUTORESV option (see mmap(2)).
InitSize	SizePerUser * InitUsers	The arena size in bytes (minimum is 32768).
InitUsers	The maximum of either (10 + the number of virtual servers) or 1500	The maximum number of users for the arena (miminum is 10; maximum is 1500).
SizePerUser	16384	The number of bytes per user.

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