Abyssws Win

USER’S GUIDE
Abyss Web Server TM
®
For Windows
Abyss Web Server For Windows User’s Guide
Copyright © 2001-2017 by Aprelium
Revision History
Revision 1.0.0 February 20, 2002
Revision 1.0.3 May 10, 2002
Revision 1.0.7 July 1, 2002
Revision 1.1.0 October 3, 2002
Revision 1.1.6 July 7, 2003
Revision 1.2.0 b1 October 18, 2003
Revision 1.2.0 b2 November 10, 2003
Revision 2.0.0 b2 August 28, 2004
Revision 2.0.0 February 18, 2005
Revision 2.0.1 April 20, 2005
Revision 2.0.6 June 10, 2005
Revision 2.3.0 b1 January 12, 2006
Revision 2.4.0.3 January 1, 2007
Revision 2.4.9 June 28, 2007
Revision 2.4.9.8 July 17, 2007
Revision 2.5 August 22, 2007
Revision 2.6 January 6, 2009
Revision 2.7 April 12, 2011
Revision 2.8 April 24, 2012
Revision 2.9 May 24, 2013
Revision 2.9.3 March 27, 2014

Revision 2.9.3.6 October 28, 2014
Revision 2.10 May 20, 2015
Revision 2.11 March 15, 2016
Revision 2.11.8 December 11, 2017
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
Aprelium makes no representations or warranties, either express or implied, by or with respect to anything in
this guide, and shall not be liable for any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or
for any indirect, special or consequential damages.
LICENSE NOTES
No part of this guide may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written consent of Aprelium. No patent liability
is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this guide, Aprelium assumes no responsibility
for errors or omissions. This guide and features described herein are subject to change without notice.
TRADEMARKS
Aprelium and The Aprelium logo are registered trademarks and Abyss Web Server is a trademark of
Aprelium SARL.
Other products or brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Web Site http://www.aprelium.com
Technical support http://www.aprelium.com/support
General inquiries http://www.aprelium.com/contact.html
Table of Contents
Before You Begin..................................................................................................... vii
System requirements ....................................................................................... vii
Alternative formats.......................................................................................... vii
What you should know................................................................................... vii
Chapter quick reference .................................................................................. vii
Conventions used in this guide .................................................................... viii
Typographical conventions ................................................................... viii
Terminology ............................................................................................. viii
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
What is Abyss Web Server? ............................................................................... 1
How do web servers work?............................................................................... 1
2. Getting Started ....................................................................................................... 3
Getting the software ........................................................................................... 3
Installing/Upgrading the software .................................................................. 3
First contact.......................................................................................................... 3
Setting up a web site........................................................................................... 6
Shutting down the server................................................................................... 6
Asking for support.............................................................................................. 7
3. Using The Console................................................................................................. 8
What is the console? ........................................................................................... 8
Accessing the console ......................................................................................... 8
Console interface basics ..................................................................................... 9
Help buttons ................................................................................................ 9
Tables ............................................................................................................ 9
Applying configuration changes .............................................................. 9
Console Configuration ..................................................................................... 10
Changing the console port and protocol ............................................... 10
Changing the console access credentials ............................................... 11
Changing the language ............................................................................ 12
Controlling the access to the console ..................................................... 13
4. Server Management............................................................................................. 15
Overview ............................................................................................................ 15
Server Statistics.................................................................................................. 15
Server Activity................................................................................................... 16
General server configuration........................................................................... 17
Parameters.................................................................................................. 17
MIME Types............................................................................................... 19
Global Bandwidth Limits......................................................................... 20
Anti-Hacking Protection .......................................................................... 21
Logging Parameters.................................................................................. 23
SSL/TLS Certificates......................................................................................... 23
Overview .................................................................................................... 24
Generating a private key.......................................................................... 25
iv
Importing a private key ........................................................................... 25
Generating a CSR ...................................................................................... 25
Adding a signed certificate...................................................................... 27
Creating a self-signed certificate............................................................. 27
5. Hosts Management .............................................................................................. 29
Overview ............................................................................................................ 29
Declaring a new host ........................................................................................ 29
Configuring a host ............................................................................................ 30
General........................................................................................................ 31
Index Files .................................................................................................. 34
Directory Listing ....................................................................................... 35
Aliases......................................................................................................... 37
XSSI Parameters ........................................................................................ 38
Users and Groups ..................................................................................... 39
Custom Error Pages .................................................................................. 40
Scripting Parameters................................................................................. 41
ASP.NET Parameters ................................................................................ 46
Access Control ........................................................................................... 49
IP Address Control ................................................................................... 50
URL Rewriting........................................................................................... 52
Compression .............................................................................................. 56
Bandwidth Limits ..................................................................................... 57
Logging....................................................................................................... 58
Reverse Proxy ............................................................................................ 60
Restricted Downloads Areas ................................................................... 61
Anti-Leeching ............................................................................................ 63
Statistics ...................................................................................................... 64
6. CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI.................................................................................... 66
Setting up an interpreter .................................................................................. 66
How are they run? ............................................................................................ 66
CGI environment variables.............................................................................. 67
FastCGI ............................................................................................................... 72
ISAPI Extensions ............................................................................................... 72
X-Sendfile Support............................................................................................ 72
7. eXtended Server Side Includes ......................................................................... 74
What are XSSI? .................................................................................................. 74
XSSI Syntax ........................................................................................................ 74
Attribute Values ................................................................................................ 74
Character Escaping ................................................................................... 74
Variables Expansion.................................................................................. 74
Directives............................................................................................................ 75
#config......................................................................................................... 75
#echo ........................................................................................................... 76
#exec............................................................................................................ 77
#flastmod .................................................................................................... 77
v
#fsize ........................................................................................................... 78
#include ...................................................................................................... 78
#printenv .................................................................................................... 78
#set............................................................................................................... 78
Conditional blocks ............................................................................................ 79
Syntax ......................................................................................................... 79
Expression evaluation .............................................................................. 79
Encoding............................................................................................................. 80
8. Custom Directory Listings ................................................................................. 82
Defining a template .......................................................................................... 82
Scripts ................................................................................................................. 84
Glossary ..................................................................................................................... 86
A. Command Line Parameters............................................................................... 88
B. Startup Configuration......................................................................................... 89
C. IP Addresses and Ranges Format..................................................................... 90
IPv4 Addresses and Ranges ............................................................................ 90
IPv6 Addresses and Ranges ............................................................................ 90
D. Patterns Format ................................................................................................... 92
E. Regular Expressions............................................................................................ 93
F. Uninstalling The Software................................................................................. 95
G. Solving Ports Listening Problems ................................................................... 96
H. Troubleshooting Guide ..................................................................................... 97
vi
Before You Begin
System requirements
Abyss Web Server is a multiplatform software designed for Microsoft
Windows 95, 98, Millennium Edition (ME), as well as all editions of NT 3.51,
NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 2008, 8, 8.1, 2012, 2016 and 10; Mac OS
X/macOS 10.2 and higher; and Linux (Kernel 2.4 and higher) systems. It is
compatible with both 32 and 64-bit architectures and operating systems.
This guide documents the Windows version. Abyss Web Server for Windows
minimum requirements are:
• An Intel 80486 processor at 33 MHz.

• 4 Mb of free RAM.
• A modern web browser with HTML 5.0 support. Legacy web browsers
(graphical or text-based) can still be used but the user experience will be
partially degraded.
• TCP/IP protocol stack installed.
Although Abyss Web Server can run on a standalone computer, it is

recommended to have a Modem or a network card and to be connected to a
LAN (Local Area Network) or to the Internet.
Alternative formats
This guide exists in several formats: Online HTML, Offline HTML, and PDF.
For more information, browse the documentation section at
http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws.
What you should know

Because it is impossible to provide highly detailed information for every given
instruction in this guide, you are encouraged to read the documentation
accompanying your operating system if you are not already familiar with it.
This guide assumes also that you master the basics of web browsing.
vii
Before You Begin
Chapter quick reference

This guide documents the features and capabilities of Abyss Web Server. It can
guide you to quickly master the basics and move on to use the advanced
features.
If you are new to web servers, go to Chapter 1, "Introduction," to get a quick
overview.
If you want to get started right away, go to Chapter 2, "Getting Started," for
step by step instruction on installing and running the software.
Chapter 3, "Using the Console," describes the web configuration interface of
Abyss Web Server.
Use Chapter 4, "Server Management," to understand how to configure your
web server and manage SSL/TLS certificates.
Chapter 5, "Hosts Management," focuses on all the parameters related to the
configuration of hosts served by Abyss Web Server.
See Chapter 6, "CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI," for information on using CGI,
FastCGI, and ISAPI interpreters or applications with Abyss Web Server and
making scripts work.
Read Chapter 7, "eXtended Server Side Includes," for the complete reference
on XSSI.
Chapter 8, "Directory Listings," provides all the necessary information on
directory listings templates and scripts.
Refer to the "Glossary" for definitions of key terms and concepts used in this
guide.
Conventions used in this guide

Typographical conventions
UI Object
Refers to user interface objects such as buttons, icons and text fields.
Computer I/O
Used for computer input and output such as URLs, filenames and
commands.
<Variable>
Indicates a variable. You have to substitute it with its real value.
viii
Before You Begin
Terminology
Your computer
The computer on which Abyss Web Server is installed.
The server
The instance of Abyss Web Server under execution.
The browser
The web browser you use.
The console
The web configuration interface of Abyss Web Server.
The network
The network to which your computer is connected. It can be:
• A single computer network if you are not physically connected to any
network and your computer is alone.
• A LAN (Local Area Network).
• The Internet
ix
Chapter 1. Introduction
What is Abyss Web Server?

Abyss Web Server turns your computer in a full-featured web server. People
all over the Internet can view documents, download graphics, listen to music
and view movies hosted on it. Abyss Web Server was designed with both
novice and experimented users in mind. That’s why it is easy to use and
incredibly powerful.
Abyss Web Server exists in two editions:
• Abyss Web Server X1: Free personal edition. It is a fully functional software
with no limitations, no nag screens, no spyware, and no advertisements.
• Abyss Web Server X2: Professional edition. It is suitable for demanding
users and medium to high loaded web sites. It supports virtual hosting,
dual hosts (HTTP+HTTPS), and advanced features. For more information,
visit http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/x2
For additional information about both editions and a comparison between
their feature set, browse http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws.
How do web servers work?

What happens when you enter in the address field of your browser the URL
http://www.aprelium.com/doc/sample.html?
First, the browser slices the URL in 3 parts:
• http://: This part indicates that the document you want to access can be
retrieved from web server, which understands the HTTP protocol. The
HTTP protocol is a standardized language of communication between
browsers and web servers.
• www.aprelium.com: This is the host name of the computer from which
the document can be downloaded.
• /doc/sample.html: This is the virtual path of the document in the
www.aprelium.com’s web server.
Then, the browser contacts a DNS (Domain Name Server) to know the IP
address of the computer which full qualified domain name is
www.aprelium.com. The domain name server is usually run by your ISP or
by your company.
1
Chapter 1. Introduction
The browser establishes a connection channel with the web server on the
computer which IP address was given by the DNS server and requests the
document on the host which name is www.aprelium.com and which virtual
path is doc/sample.html. The browser has to specify in the request the host
name because many modern web servers (including Abyss Web Server) have
the ability to serve more than a one host from a single computer with a single
IP address only. This is called virtual hosting. In such a case, the IP address of
this computer is associated with more than one domain name.
The server decodes the request and maps the virtual path to a real one, which
should match an existing file. The server sends the file to the browser with
some useful information such as its last modification time and its MIME type.
The MIME type helps the browser decide how to display the received
document. In our example, it is a HTML file. So the server sets its MIME type
to text/html and the browser understands that it must render it as text.
Sometimes you enter a URL without an explicit filename such as
http://www.aprelium.com/doc. The browser sends the request to the
web server as in the previous example. The server detects that the virtual path
maps to a directory and not to a file. It searches then in this directory an index
file. Index files are usually named index.html or index.htm. If it finds for
example index.html, it acts as if the requested URL was
http://www.aprelium.com/doc/index.html. If no index file is found,
the web server generates a listing of the directory contents and sends it to the
browser or reports an error.
2
Chapter 2. Getting Started
Getting the software

If you already have the Abyss Web Server installation package, skip this
section.
To download Abyss Web Server, browse
http://www.aprelium.com/downloads. Follow the provided
instructions and choose the correct version of the software suitable to your
computer and to the operating system you are using. Once done, the browser
displays a dialog box asking where to save the downloaded file. Choose a
directory and validate.
Installing/Upgrading the software

To setup Abyss Web Server:
• Open the directory where you have saved the software package.
• Double-click on the software package icon.
• If an old version of Abyss Web Server is already installed on your computer,
you may be asked to uninstall it. All you have to do is to follow the
on-screen instructions. IMPORTANT NOTICE: When the uninstaller asks you
to confirm the deletion of the installation directory, select No.
• Read carefully the license agreement. If you agree with it, press I Agree. If
you do not, press Cancel and delete Abyss Web Server package from your
computer.
• Deselect components you do not want to install. Auto Start enables Abyss
Web Server auto starting when a Windows session starts. Start Menu
Shortcuts enables adding Abyss Web Server shortcuts in the Start Menu.
Documentation installs help files.
• Press Next.
• Choose a directory where you want to install Abyss Web Server files. From
now on, <Abyss Web Server directory> will refer to this directory.
• Press Install.
After installing, you will be asked if you want to launch Abyss Web Server. If
you press No, you should press Close to close the setup program.
3
First contact
If Abyss Web Server is not running, open the Start menu, choose Programs,
then Abyss Web Server and select Abyss Web Server. You can also open the
directory where you have installed it and double-click on the abyssws.exe or
abyssws icon.
Figure 2-1. Abyss Web Server main window

Abyss Web Server inserts a small icon in the system tray. The icon represents a
globe that spins when the server is accessed.
Figure 2-2. Abyss Web Server icon in the system tray

Abyss Web Server creates automatically a configuration file where it stores the
web server’s parameters. Then, it opens the browser and displays the console.
Figure 2-3. Configuration file creation notification

Note: Refer to the "Troubleshooting Guide" appendix to solve the most common
problems that can occur with Abyss Web Server startup.
In the displayed browser window, press a button corresponding to the
language you want to use in the console.
4
Figure 2-4. Console Language setup

Next, choose a login and a password to and enter them in the form displayed
in the browser and press OK.
Figure 2-5. Console Access Credentials setup

The browser asks you for your credentials. Enter the login and the password
you have already chosen and validate.
5
Figure 2-6. Credentials dialog

Note: If you are using Abyss Web Server X2, you may be asked at this stage to enter
your license information in the console. Follow the on-screen instructions to enter the
required information. For more details, please refer to the instructions that were
provided to you when downloading Abyss Web Server X2 or its updates.
At this point, Abyss Web Server is ready to serve. To test it, point the browser
to the web server URL, which is printed on the server’s window . You should
see the Welcome to Abyss Web Server page.
Note: You can launch Abyss Web Server manually or configure it to run
automatically when your computer boots up or when you start a user session in
Windows.. See the "Startup Configuration" appendix for more information.
Setting up a web site

Using your favorite web pages editor (also known as HTML editor), create a
web site and put its files in the directory <Abyss Web Server
directory>/htdocs. The index files must be called index.html or
index.htm.
Other computers on the network can access your web site if they browse
http://<your host name>:<host port>.
<your host name> is the host name of your computer or its IP address. Ask
your network’s administrator for this information. If you want to connect to
the server from the computer it runs on, you can also use 127.0.0.1, ::1, or
localhost.
<host port> is the number of the port the server waits for connections on. It
is printed on the server’s window or terminal. If <host port> is 80 (which is
the default), it can be omitted from the URL and the web server can be
accessed with only http://<your host name>.
6
Shutting down the server

Select Exit from the Server menu or close the server’s main window. If the
server is running, you will be asked to confirm exiting.
Asking for support

If you have questions or need help, please select Help and Support in the
console and use one of the support links available there. Alternatively, browse
the official Abyss Web Server support pages at
http://www.aprelium.com/support.
7
Chapter 3. Using The Console
What is the console?

The console is a remote web based configuration and monitoring system. With
the console, you can:
• Configure Abyss Web Server.

• Stop, run and shutdown the web server.
• View the web server’s access statistics.
• Read the documentation.
Accessing the console

From your computer (locally)
Browse http://127.0.0.1:<console port>,
http://[::1]:<console port>, or
http://localhost:<console port>.
From any computer or device connected to the network
Browse http://<your host name>:<console port>. Note that by
default, only the local access to the console is allowed so that only the
computer where Abyss Web Server is installed (which IPv4 address is
127.0.0.1 and IPv6 address is ::1) and computers connected to your
LAN (which IPv4 addresses range from 192.168.0.1 to
192.168.255.254, from 172.16.0.1 to 172.31.255.254, and from
10.0.0.1 to 10.255.255.254) are able to browse the console. Remote
access from other computers is disabled by default. To enable it, please
read "Configuring the console IP Address Control".
<console port> is printed on the web server’s window . It is 9999 by
default.
8
Figure 3-1. Console homepage

Note: Starting from Abyss Web Server version 2.11, the console interface features a
responsive design which allows it to offer a user experience carefully adapted to the
device you are using to access it, be it a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop or a desktop
computer.
Console interface basics

Although the console has an intuitive point and click interface, some of its
elements are described more in depth in this section.
Help buttons
A small tip is displayed when you put the mouse cursor on a help button .
Pressing it displays the related documentation topic.
Note: Not all the browsers support displaying tips.
Tables
Each line of a table contains a pen button and a wastebin button . Press the
pen button on a line to display a dialog where you can modify its contents or
press the wastebin button to delete it. Pressing Add displays a dialog where
you can enter the contents of a new line.
9
Applying configuration changes

After any configuration change, the console displays a request to restart the
server. Just press the Restart button and wait until the server restarts.
Note: You can accumulate many configuration changes before restarting.
Console Configuration
To change the console parameters, open the console and select Console
Configuration.
Figure 3-2. Console Configuration dialog
Changing the console port and protocol

In the Console Configuration dialog, select Parameters. In the displayed
dialog, Protocol can be set to HTTP or HTTPS. If HTTPS is selected, the
console will be accessible through secure connections using SSL/TLS and you
will have to set Certificate to the name of the certificate you want to use for
console accesses. A certificate that will be used for the console can be a
self-signed certificate and it is recommended to set its Host Name (Common
Name) to * to have it match with any host name you may use when accessing
the console.
You can also choose a new port number that will be used for the console in the
Port field. Press OK to validate the changes.
10
Figure 3-3. Console Parameters dialog

If the port number is invalid or is already used by another application on your
computer, the console displays an error and asks you to enter another value.
Advanced configuration options of the console can be accessed by pressing
Edit... next to Advanced Parameters. The advanced parameters dialog
contains the following fields:
• Bind to IP Address: The IP address of the network interface that the

console should listen on. When empty or set to *, the host listens for
incoming connections on all available network interface (which the default
and the recommended setting.)
• SSL/TLS Parameters: Detailed parameters of the SSL/TLS secure layer are
accessible by pressing Edit.... In the displayed dialog, SNI support (which is
enabled by default) can be disabled. SNI stands for Server Name Indication
as is an extension to the SSL/TLS protocol meant for allowing virtual
hosting on SSL/TLS. Original SSL/TLS protocol was limiting each IP
address and port to have a single certificate which limited HTTPS ports
sharing. SNI makes cetificate negotiation possible and lifts restrictions. The
displayed dialog makes also the SSL/TLS profile selection possible. It is
highly recommended to let the profile set to its default and recommended
value. If you set it Custom, it becomes possible to select the accepted
protocols and configure the Ciphers parameter to select the ciphers that the
server can accept to use when negotiating with a browser establishing a
HTTPS connection to the console. When set to Strong, no weak cipher (any
cipher with a key length strictly less than 128 bits) will be used. But this can
restrict access from some old browsers which do not support modern and
strong ciphers. For custom ciphers specification, set this parameter to
Custom Specification and fill the displayed text field with a string
conforming to the http:
//www.openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html#CIPHER_LIST_FORMAT.
11
Changing the console access credentials

Because the console access needs authorization, it is important to keep your
console access credentials secret. It is also highly recommended not to choose
them similar to your system login or password or any valuable credentials.
Indeed, as the console relies on the browser to perform the authorization and
as browsers use a relatively weak authorization scheme, console access
information could be intercepted and deciphered by malicious persons on the
network.
To change the console access credentials:
• Go to the Console Configuration dialog and select Access Credentials.

• Enter an administrator login.
• Enter a password. It is recommended to choose a password containing
characters, digits, and special symbols. This password should not be a
dictionary word.
• Reenter the same password.
• Press OK.
Figure 3-4. Console Access Credentials dialog

Once the change is made, the browser asks you to enter the new login and
password.
12
Changing the language

To change the language used in the console:
• Go to the Console Configuration dialog and select Language.

• Select a language by pressing one of displayed buttons.
Figure 3-5. Console Language dialog

To add support for an additional language, download the corresponding
language file from http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/languages
and save it inside <Abyss Web Server directory>/lang. You may need
to restart the server to have it take into account the new language file.
Controlling the access to the console

To restrict or grant access to the console to an IP address or an IP address
range, go to the Console Configuration dialog and select IP Address Control.
13
Figure 3-6. Console IP Address Control dialog

The displayed dialog contains the following items:
• Order: The order that the server follows to check if access is granted to a
client based on its IP address. If it is set to Allow/Deny, access is denied by
default and is allowed only if the IP address is in the Allow for list and is
not in the Deny for list. If it is set to Deny/Allow, access is allowed by
default and is denied only if the IP address is in the Deny for list and is not
in the Allow for list.
• Allowed IP Addresses: The list of IP addresses and IP address ranges for
which access is allowed. Refer to "IP Addresses and Ranges Format"
appendix for more information about the IP addresses and ranges.
• Denied IP Addresses: The list of IP addresses and IP address ranges for
which access is denied. Refer to "IP Addresses and Ranges Format"
Note: The access to the console is always allowed for the computer on which Abyss
Web Server runs (which IPv4 address is 127.0.0.1 and IPv6 address is ::1.)
Note: If Denied IP Addresses list is empty and the order is Deny/Allow, access is
granted to any IP address.
14
Chapter 4. Server Management
Overview
All the server management tasks can be accomplished using the console. In
this section, you will learn how to:
• Configure the global parameters of the web server.

• Add, delete, and configure hosts.
• Start or stop hosts.
• Monitor the accesses to the web server and to every host.
• Create, manage, and request signature of SSL/TLS certificates.
Server Statistics
Open the console and select Server Statistics. The console displays a dialog
containing a set of statistics on the server’s activity since the installation or the
last server statistics reset:
• Total Uptime: The total time during which the server was up.
• Uptime since Last Restart: The time during which the server was up since
the last start or restart.
• Total Hits: The total number of processed requests for all the hosts. It
includes also bad requests that were not targeting a specific host and that
resulted in an error.
• Compressed Hits: The number of processed requests that resulted in
compressed responses across all the hosts.
• Error Hits: The number of requests for which the server replied by an error.
• HTML Hits: The number of requests the server replied to by a document
which MIME type was text/html.
• Image Hits: The number of requests the server replied to by a document
which MIME type starts with image/.
• Not Modified Hits: The number of requests for which the server detected
that the requested document has not changed.
• Transferred Data: The total size of the payload sent by the server to the
clients.
15
• Compression Savings: The amount of data that was saved thanks to the
compressed responses sent by the server to the clients.
Figure 4-1. Server Statistics dialog

The server statistics are refreshed automatically every 10 seconds. You can also
press Refresh for immediate refreshing. They can be reset by pressing Reset.
Press OK to go back to the main console page.
Note: The statistics are preserved when the server is shut down.
Note: The server statistics are also available in real time to scripts and XSSI pages.
Refer to the "CGI environment variables" for more information.
Server Activity
Open the console and select Server Activity. The console displays a dialog
listing the current active connections. For each connection, the following
properties are reported:
• The IP address of the client

• The HTTP verb of the request being served on the connection
16
• The URL being served on the connection

• The HTTP status code of the response served on the connection
• The elapsed time since the beginning of the service of the request associated
to the connection
• The amount of data sent so far as a response on the connection
The list of the active connections is automatically refreshed every 10 seconds.

Pressing the Refresh button forces an immediate update of the view.
Press OK to go back to the main console page.
Note: Connections that are still established waiting for a subsequent request are
shown with the text Kept-alive connection. These connections are actually made
from HTTP/1.1 clients which support the HTTP keep-alive feature (serving more than
a single request on one connection.)
Note: The listing may include the connection serving the URL associated with the
Server Activity feature.
General server configuration

Open the console and select Server Configuration to display the general
server configuration dialog.
Figure 4-2. General server configuration dialog

The following subsections describe the server configuration options.
Parameters
Select Parameters in the Server Configuration dialog to display the server
parameters dialog.
17
Figure 4-3. Server Parameters dialog

The dialog includes the following fields:
• Server Root: The root path of the web server. By default, it is the directory
where Abyss Web Server executable is installed. It is used as the base path
for all relative real paths in the configuration.
• Timeout: How many seconds the server waits for an inactive connection
before closing it.
• Keep-Alive Requests: The maximum number of requests that can be
served over the same connection. Only HTTP/1.1 and some HTTP/1.0
compliant browsers can benefit from this feature.
• Maximum Simultaneous Requests: The maximum number of requests the
server can serve in parallel.
• Advanced Parameters: Press Edit... to access the advanced parameters
dialog. This dialog has the following fields:
• Maximum length of the HTTP request line: The maximum length in
bytes of the HTTP request line. Requests which do not respect this limit
are refused and a HTTP error 414 (Request-URI Too Long) is reported to
the client.
• Maximum length of the HTTP request headers: The maximum length in
bytes of all the HTTP request headers. Requests which exceed this limit
are refused and a HTTP error 413 (Request Entity Too Large) is reported
to the client.
• Back-end Operation Support: When Abyss Web Server is used as a

back-end for another reverse proxy, it can be configured to restore the
original IP address of the reverse proxy client and other details before
processing the request. This can help make the frontal reverse proxy
18
completely transparent to Web applications running on Abyss Web Server

and to the logging taking place on it.
Press Edit... to control the back-end operation support settings. This dialog
contains the following fields:
• Proxies: The list of IP addresses of computers which are recognized as
reverse proxies and for which the server should act as a transparent
back-end.
• Forwarded-For Headers: The names of the headers that should be
checked for the original IP of the reverse proxy client.
X-Forwarded-For and X-Real-IP are the most common ones widely
used in reverse proxies.
• Forwarded-Host Headers: The names of the headers that should be
checked for the original Host header value as the client sent it to the
frontal reverse proxy. X-Forwarded-Host and X-Host are the most
common header names used for that purpose. Note that when the Host
value is restored, the request will be normally processed and checked
against the host names of each of the hosts managed by the server.
MIME Types
When the server sends a document to a browser, it also sends its MIME type.
This information helps the browser to know what kind of file it is (HTML, ZIP,
JPEG image, etc. . . ) and what to do with it (display it, save it on the disk,
launch a configured application to read it, etc. . . ). Abyss Web Server comes
with a list of common MIME types used as a default.
A MIME Type has the format type/subtype and is associated to one or
more extensions separated by spaces.
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Figure 4-4. MIME Types dialog

Use the Custom MIME Types table to edit, remove or add custom MIME
types. If a MIME Type is declared in both the Custom MIME Types table and
the Default MIME Types table, the custom definition prevails.
Example: The text/html MIME type

HTML files have text/html as MIME type. By default, text/html is associated
to extensions html and htm. As a consequence, when the server sends to a browser a
document which extension is html or htm, it will also set the document’s MIME
type to text/html.
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Global Bandwidth Limits

Abyss Web Server gives you complete control over the bandwidth the server
uses when answering to requests. Select Global Bandwidth Limits in the
Server Configuration dialog to display the global bandwidth parameters
dialog. For finer bandwidth settings, you should use Bandwidth Limits in
every host configuration menu.
Figure 4-5. Global Bandwidth Limits dialog

The dialog contains the following fields:
• Maximum Total Bandwidth: The amount of output bandwidth that the

server should not exceed for all the connections. If set to Unlimited, the
total output bandwidth will be unrestricted.
• Maximum Bandwidth Per IP Address: The total amount of output
bandwidth that the server should not exceed for all the connections made
by a single IP address. No such limit will ever be applied if this parameter is
set to Unlimited.
• Maximum Connections Per IP Address: The maximum number of
simultaneous connections made by a single IP address to the server. To
disable such a limitation, set this parameter to Unlimited.
Note: Abyss Web Server does always its best to deliver data to clients while respecting
the restrictions set on the bandwidth. For example, assume that Maximum Total
Bandwidth is set to 10 KB/s and Maximum Bandwidth Per IP Address to 4
KB/s. If there are 2 clients connecting from different IP addresses, the server allocates
to each of them a bandwidth of 4 KB/s. But if there are 5 clients, the server will
allocate to each of them only 2 KB/s.
Anti-Hacking Protection
Although Abyss Web Server is secure and has an integrated system to prevent
malicious accesses to the server, it was equipped with an automatic
21
anti-hacking protection system to detect clients that are trying to attack the
server and to ban them. This system improves the overall security, detects at
an early stage denial of service attacks, and saves the bandwidth that could be
wasted during attacks.
To configure the anti-hacking system, select Anti-Hacking Protection in the
Server Configuration dialog.
Figure 4-6. Anti-Hacking Protection dialog

The displayed dialog is made of the following items:
• Enable Automatic Anti-Hacking Protection: Check it to enable the

automatic anti-hacking protection system.
• Do not Monitor Requests from: This table contains the IP addresses or IP
address ranges that should not be protected against hacking. Refer to "IP
Addresses and Ranges Format" appendix for more information about the IP
addresses and ranges. Fill this table with trusted IP addresses only.
• Bad Requests Count Before Banning: The number of tolerated bad
requests before considering the client as attempting to hack the server. A
request that results in a reply which HTTP status code is 400 or 401 is
counted as a bad request. A request that results in a reply which HTTP
status code is 403, 404, 405, or 408 is counted as half a bad request.
• Monitoring Period: The server considers only the bad requests that are
generated by a client during the last Monitoring Period to decide whether
to ban it or not. The bigger this parameter is, the more memory the
anti-hacking system needs to record all the bad requests.
• Banning Duration: How much time a client is banned when it is
considered as hacking the server.
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In other words, the anti-hacking system works as follows: If a client has

generated Bad Requests Count Before Banning bad requests during the last
Monitoring Period seconds, then ban it for the next Banning Duration
seconds. When a client is banned, the server will not accept connections from
it.
Note: The server preserves the list of banned clients when it is shutdown. So if a client
was banned for 2 hours at 10:00, and if the server was stopped at 10:15 and restarted
at 11:00, the server will continue to not accept requests from the banned client until
12:00.
Logging Parameters
Beside the common log format and the combined log format, Abyss Web
Server offers the possibility to define custom logging formats that can be used
in the configuration of hosts. Select Logging Parameters in the Server
Configuration dialog and use the Custom Logging Formats table to edit,
remove or add custom logging formats definitions.
Each format is defined by its name and a list of fields it contains. Fields refer
to information from the requests, the responses, or the CGI variables. They can
also refer to general information (such as the date and time) or to static text
that is to be inserted in each log line.
SSL/TLS Certificates
Open the console and select SSL/TLS Configuration to display the SSL/TLS
certificates management interface. With it, you can:
• Create and manage private keys.

• Create self-signed certificates.
• Add certificates signed by certification authorities.
• Generate certificate signing requests (CSR).
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Figure 4-7. Certificates management dialog
Overview
SSL/TLS is a communication protocol which encrypts data exchanged
between the server and the client. It is used to transfer HTTP requests and
responses securely on the network in order to prevent spying or data sniffing.
To secure one of your hosts or the console with SSL, you first need to generate
a private key. A private key should never be disclosed as it is used to cipher
(i.e. encode) transferred data.
SSL/TLS requires also that the server makes its real identity available to the
client by sending a certificate as soon as a connection is established between
both of them. A certificate contains information about the certificate holder. If
you intend to host a business site or a site where sensitive data is expected to
be gathered or displayed, we strongly recommend that the certificate is signed
by an independent certification authority which will check the holder
information. A certificate that is not signed by a certification authority will
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work but the visitors’ browsers will always display a warning message and
invite them to confirm that they trust your self-signed certificate.
To sign a certificate by a certification authority, you have to create a CSR
(Certificate Signing Request). A CSR is generated by choosing a private key
and by entering your information. Once the CSR generated, you will have to
send it to a certification authority which will do the necessary to check your
information and to generate a signed certificate. Note that only the CSR has to
be sent to the certification authority; the private key used to generate it should
never be sent to them. When you receive the signed certificate, all you have to
do is to enter it in Abyss Web Server console to start using it.
Generating a private key

To create a new private key, press Add in the Private Keys table. In the
displayed dialog, choose a distinctive name for the key and enter it in the
Name field. Set Action to Generate and select the key type using the
dropdown menu Type. When you press OK, the private key generation starts.
It can take from a second to a minute depending on your computer speed and
the type of the key you have chosen.
Figure 4-8. Private key generation dialog
Importing a private key

If you already have a private key and want to use it in Abyss Web Server, press
Add in the Private Keys table. In the displayed dialog, choose a distinctive
name for the key and enter it in the Name field. Set Action to Import and copy
the private key text contents in the Key Contents text area. Note that a private
key stored in a file using the PEM encoding can be opened with any text
editor and its contents copied then pasted in Key Contents to import it.
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Generating a CSR
To obtain a certificate signed by a certification authority, press Generate in
front of Certificate Signing Request. In the displayed dialog, choose a private
key that the certificate will be based on. Next fill the listed fields with your
information. Note that you must enter accurate information as most
certification authorities will verify them before issuing the signed certificate.
Keep the Secure Hash Algorithm to its default unless instructed by your
certification authority to use a specific signature algorithm or need to
interoperate with old clients which only understand SHA1 (deprecated as of
2015 and planned to be phased out by most browsers by 2016.) Press OK
when you are done. The console will then display the CSR contents in a text
area. Depending on your certification authority, you may have to send it, copy
it in an online form, or put it in a text file and forward it to them. We strongly
recommend that you check with your certification authority about the best
way to provide them with the CSR.
Figure 4-9. CSR generation dialog

Note: The Host name (Common Name) must be filled with the name of the host
which will use the certificate. If the host name is www.example.com, that field
should contain www.example.com and not only example.com.
Note: Some certification authorities support wildcard certificates. In such a case, you
can enter in that field *.example.com which will create a CSR for a certificate that
will be valid for www.example.com, test.example.com, or
mail.example.com. However that certificate will not be valid for
example.com or test.mail.example.com.
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Note: Some certification authorities may also support certificates with more than one
host name. To generate a CSR for such a certification authority, enter in the Host
name (Common Name) all the host names separated with spaces. For example, if a
certificate is to be associated with both test.example.com and
mail.example.com, enter test.example.com mail.example.com.
Note: Some certification authorities will ask you about your server type. This
information is mainly used for statistical purposes and makes no difference on the
final signed certificate they will deliver. If you do not find Abyss Web Server on their
list, select Other Web Server or Other. If no such choices are available, you can
select OpenSSL or OpenSSL-based server. Again if no such choices are available,
you can safely select Apache or ModSSL as our SSL/TLS implementation is based on
OpenSSL which is also used by Apache and ModSSL.
Note: Abyss Web Server accepts IDN (International Domain Names) in the Host
name (Common Name) field. It will recognize them and convert them to the proper
format for use inside a CSR.
Adding a signed certificate

To import a certificate signed by a certification authority into Abyss Web
Server, press Add in the Certificates table. In the displayed dialog, choose a
name for the new certificate and enter it in Name. Set Private Key to the
private key that the certificate is based on: It is the same private key that you
selected when generating the CSR associated with that certificate. Next set
Type to Signed by a Certification Authority (CA). Enter the main certificate
in Main Certificate. If it was delivered in a file, open it with a text editor and
copy its contents to Main Certificate.
If the certification authority provided you with additional certificates that are
necessary to establish the trust chain, they must be entered in the
Intermediate Certificates. If more than a single intermediate certificate is
available, enter their contents one after the other in that field.
The last field CA Root Certificate must be filled with the CA (Certification
Authority) or root certificate if available. Press OK to validate the new
certificate.
Creating a self-signed certificate

If your use of SSL is limited or if you do not mind having your visitors get a
warning from their browser about your certificate each time they access your
site, you can generate a self-signed certificate using the console.
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Figure 4-10. Self-signed certificate creation dialog

To generate a self-signed certificate, press Add in the Certificates table. In the
displayed dialog, choose a name for the new certificate and enter it in Name.
Use Private Key to select the private key that the certificate will be based on.
Next set Type to Self-Signed Certificate. Fill the information fields with your
details. Keep the Secure Hash Algorithm to its default unless you need to test
a specific signature algorithm or need to interoperate with old clients which
understand only SHA1. Finally press OK to create the certificate.
Note: A site using a self-signed certificate offers the same security as a site using a
certificate signed by a certification authority since the encryption is private key
dependent only. But consider that self-signed certificates cannot be trusted by visitors
who do not know you. So use them only for tests or for sites which access is limited
and which visitors trust you (for example in an Intranet or for a family Web site).
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Chapter 5. Hosts Management
Overview
The main console dialog contains a table listing all the declared hosts in the
server. Each line in this table is associated with a host and contains:
• Its name or identifier

• Its status: It can be Running, Stopped, or Error when the host cannot be
started because of a configuration error; in such a case, click Error to have
detailed information about the problem.
• A Start or Stop button.
• A Configure to access the host configuration dialog.
Declaring a new host

To add a new host to the web server, go to the main console dialog and press
Add in the Hosts table.
Figure 5-1. New host dialog

The displayed dialog contains the following fields:
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• Protocol: Set it to HTTP if the host will use normal non-secure connections.
If you want to have the host serve content over secure connections only
using SSL/TLS, set it to HTTPS. If you are on Abyss Web Server X2, you
can also choose to have the host serve content on both secure and
non-secure connections by setting Protocol to HTTP+HTTPS. In such a
situation, you can configure some virtual paths to be accessible on secure
connections only by adding them to the Exclusively Serve On HTTPS table.
• HTTP Port: The port on which the new host will wait for HTTP
connections. Its default value is 80. This field is not available if the Protocol
is set to HTTPS only.
• HTTPS Port: The port on which the new host will wait for secure HTTPS
is set to HTTP only.
• Certificate: The certificate that will be used for secure connections with the
new host. This field is not available if the Protocol is set to HTTP only. Note
that the certificate’s Host Name (Common Name) should be equal to or
match with the names of the new host that you are declaring. Otherwise,
visitors’ browsers will report a warning about mismatched names on every
access to the host.
• Host Name: The main name of the new host. If the field is empty, the host
will not be associated with any name and will answer to all requests that
reach it on the configured port. The host can also have more than one name:
additional names should be declared later in the Host Names table in the
General dialog related to the host. The host name may be an Internation
Domain Name (IDN) containing non-Latin characters. The host name can
also be a pattern such as *.mysite.com. Refer to the "Patterns Format"
appendix for more information about patterns.
• Documents Path: The path of the web site files. If it is a relative path then it
is considered as a subpath of the server root.
• Log File: The path of the log file. If it is relative, it is considered as a
subpath of the server root. If empty, logging is disabled.
• Copy Configuration From: The configuration of the new host is cloned
from the configuration of already defined hosts or from the default
configuration.
Note: Adding a new host is only possible in Abyss Web Server X2. Abyss Web Server
X1 can only manage a single host.
Configuring a host
To open the configuration dialog of a host, go to the main console dialog and
press the Configure button located on the same line as the host name in the
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Hosts dialog.
Figure 5-2. Host configuration dialog

The following subsections describe all the host configuration options.
General
The General dialog contains the general configuration parameters of a host.
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Figure 5-3. General dialog

This dialog has the following elements:
• Documents Path: The path of the web site files. If it is a relative path then it
is considered as a subpath of the server root.
• Protocol: Set it to HTTP to configure the host to use normal non-secure
connections. To have the host serve content over secure connections only
using SSL/TLS, set it to HTTPS. On Abyss Web Server X2, the host can be
configured to serve content on both secure and non-secure connections by
setting Protocol to HTTP+HTTPS. In such a situation, you can configure
some virtual paths to be accessible on secure connections only by adding
them to the Exclusively Serve On HTTPS table.
• HTTP Port: The port on which the host waits for HTTP connections. Its
default value is 80. This field is not available if the Protocol is set to HTTPS
only.
• HTTPS Port: The port on which the host waits for secure HTTPS
is set to HTTP only.
• Certificate: The certificate that is used for secure connections with the
current host. This field is not available if the Protocol is set to HTTP only.
Note that the certificate’s Host Name (Common Name) should be equal to
or match with the names associated with the current host. Otherwise,
32
visitors’ browsers will report a warning about mismatched names on every

access to the host.
• Host Names: This table contains the names associated with the current
host. If the table is empty, the host is not associated with a specific name and
will answer any request that reaches it on the configured port. A host can
also have one or more names. Names may contain non-Latin characters ans
Abyss Web Server supports International Domain Names (IDN) natively. A
host name in this table can also be a pattern such as *.mysite.com. Refer
to the "Patterns Format" appendix for more information about patterns.
• Advanced Parameters: Press Edit... to open the advanced parameters
dialog which contains the following fields:
• Bind to IP Address: The IP address of the network interface that the host
should listen on. When empty or set to *, the host listens for incoming
connections on all available network interface (which the default and the
recommended setting.)
• SSL/TLS Parameters: Detailed parameters of the SSL/TLS secure layer
are accessible by pressing Edit.... In the displayed disalog, it is possible to
set the SSL/TLS profile. It is highly recommended to let it set to its
default and recommended value. If you set it Custom, it becomes possible
to select the accepted protocols and configure the Ciphers parameter to
select the ciphers that the server can accept to use when negotiating with
a browser establishing a HTTPS connection to the console. When set to
Strong, no weak cipher (any cipher with a key length strictly less than 128
bits) will be used. But this can restrict access from some old browsers
which do not support modern and strong ciphers. For custom ciphers
specification, set this parameter to Custom Specification and fill the
displayed text field with a string conforming to the http:
//www.openssl.org/docs/apps/ciphers.html#CIPHER_LIST_FORMAT.
• Disable Download Resuming for: Download resuming (through the
Range HTTP header) is disabled for requests which path matches one of
the virtual paths listed in this table.
• Disable Caching Negotiation for: Caching negotiation with the browser
(through the If-modified HTTP headers) is disabled for requests
which path matches one of the virtual paths listed in this table.
• Custom HTTP Headers: Use this table to declare custom HTTP headers
that will be included in the server responses. A custom header is added
when the request’s virtual path matches with the value or the pattern of
its associated Virtual Path field. See the "Patterns Format" appendix for
more information about patterns. The HTTP headers Server,
Connection, Keep-Alive, Transfer-Encoding, and
Content-Length cannot be customized.
• Exclusively Serve On HTTPS: If a request’s virtual path matches with
one of the paths or the patterns declared in that table, and if the request
33
was received on a non-secure (HTTP) connection, the server generates a

redirection to the same virtual path but using HTTPS to force it to be
served on a secure connection. The Exclusively Serve On HTTPS table is
available on Abyss Web Server X2 only when the current host’s Protocol
is set to HTTP+HTTPS.
• Request Body Restrictions: Restriction on the request body (sent by
client for HTTP POST requests for example) are applied for requests
which path matches one of the virtual paths listed in this table. Each of
these virtual paths could be associated with a restriction on the total
length of request body (controlled through the Maximum Length
parameter.) Similarly, request bodies which are sent by the client using
chunked encoding could be automatically dechunked and served as
normal request bodies to scripts and Web applications which are not
compatible with chunked encoding. Note that CGI and FastCGI
compatible scripts and Web applications need dechunking as these
specification do not support chunked encoding. The parameter Dechunk
controls the support of that feature for a given virtual path and
Maximum Dechunk Length defines the maximum size of the dechunk
buffer. Since dechunking requires buffering in the memory, do not set this
limit too high especially on busy servers.
• File Expiration Times: If the virtual path of a request matches with one
of the paths or the patterns declared in this table and if it refers to a static
file, the MIME type of the file is compared to the one in the matching rule.
If it matches, an Expire HTTP header is injected in the reply. The
expiration date is set using the value of the Time Delta field relatively to
the Time Base which is either the file’s last modification date or the
current date (now.)
• Do not serve file requests with Pathinfo in: By default, if a virtual path
such as /photos/2014/house.jpg refers to an actual static file or SSI
page, a request for virtual path
/photos/2014/house.jpg/extra/goes/here will be successful
and will serve the same content as the previous and shorter virtual path.
/extra/goes/here is called the path information (or simply Pathinfo.)
If the virtual path of a request matches with one of the paths or the
patterns declared in this table, if it refers to a static or SSI file, and if path
information is present, the server replies with an error which status code
is 404 (Not found) instead of serving the file.
Note: The Host Names table is only available in Abyss Web Server X2. Abyss Web
Server X1 answers to all the requests that reach the main host on the configured port
regardless of the host name used in the browser.
34
Index Files
When a browser asks for a URL that does not contain a filename, the server
checks for the existence of each index file in the mapped directory. If none is
found and automatic directory indexing is enabled, a directory listing is
generated and sent to the browser. Otherwise, an error is reported.
Figure 5-4. Index Files dialog

To edit, remove or add index filenames, use the Index Files table in the Index
Files dialog.
Example: index.htm and index.html as index files

Assume that index.html and index.htm are set as index filenames. If a browser
asks for http://<your host name>:<host port>/hello/, the server
checks if <documents path>/hello/index.html exists. If not, it checks if
<documents path>/hello/index.htm exists. If so, it is sent to the browser.
If not, a listing of the directory <documents path>/hello/ is generated and
sent to the browser if automatic directory indexing is enabled. If it is disabled, the
server replies with a forbidden error message.
Directory Listing
When a browser asks for a URL that does not contain a filename, and if the
server does not find an index file in the mapped directory, it generates a
directory listing.
35
Figure 5-5. Directory Listing dialog

This dialog contains the following elements:
• Type: The type of listing that should be generated. It can be:
• Disabled: Disables directory listing. In this case, the server generates

error 403 instead of a listing.
• Standard Listing: A listing based on a standard and fixed basic template
is generated.
• From Template: A listing is generated according to the configured
custom template. See the "Custom Directory Listings" chapter for detailed
information about creating custom templates.
• From Script: A listing is generated by the script configured in the Script
field. Refer to the "Custom Directory Listings" chapter for detailed
information about creating directory listing scripts.
• Scope: Press Edit... to configure the virtual paths where directory listing is
permitted. The displayed dialog has the following items:
• Order: The order that the server follows to check if directory listing is
permitted for a virtual path. If it is set to Allow/Deny, listing is denied by
default and is allowed only if the virtual path is in the Allow for list and
is not in the Deny for list. If it is set to Deny/Allow, listing is allowed by
default and is denied only if the virtual path is in the Deny for list and is
not in the Allow for list.
• Allow for: The list of virtual paths for which directory listing is allowed.
The table can contain also path patterns. See the "Patterns Format"
36
• Deny for: The list of virtual paths for which directory listing is denied.
• Hidden Files: The file names that are equal or that match with the listed file
name patterns in this table are not included in the directory listings. See the
"Patterns Format" appendix for more information about patterns. This table
should only contain file names with no path references.
Aliases
Select Aliases in the host configuration menu to display the aliases table.
Figure 5-6. Aliases dialog

If a URL matches an alias’ virtual path, the web server maps it to the alias’
associated real path.
Use the displayed table to edit, remove or add aliases.
Example: Relative real path

Assume that there exists an alias which virtual path is /images and which real path
is web/artwork. If a browser asks for http://<your host name>:<host
port>/images/logo.jpg, the server maps the requested URL to the file
<server root>/web/artwork/logo.jpg. The <server root> is added
because the real path was relative.
Example: Absolute real path

Assume now that there exists an alias which virtual path is /images and which real
path is d:\web\artwork. If a browser asks for http://<your host
name>:<host port>/images/logo.jpg, the server maps the requested URL
37
to the file d:\web\artwork\logo.jpg. The difference with the previous example

is that the real path is absolute and not relative.
XSSI Parameters
To configure XSSI (eXtended Server Side Includes), select XSSI Parameters in
the host configuration menu.
Figure 5-7. XSSI Parameters dialog

This dialog includes the following fields:
• Enable XSSI Processing: Enable/disable XSSI processing.

• XSSI Error Message: The default error message that the server inserts
when an error is detected while processing an XSSI directive. If empty, an
accurate error description with debugging information is generated.
• Time Format String: The default time format string that the server uses to
display times while processing XSSI directives. If empty, the string %A,
%d-%b-%Y %H:%M:%S %Z is used. For the complete reference of the time
38
format string, read the description of  directive in "eXtended Server Side
Includes" chapter.
• Abbreviated File Size: The default way to display file sizes. If it is checked,
file sizes are displayed in KB or MB. Otherwise, they are displayed in bytes.
• Process "#Exec cmd" Directives: Enable/disable the execution of shell
commands in XSSI.
• Associated Extensions: If a file name extension matches with one of these
extensions or extensions patterns, it is processed as an XSSI file. Read the
"Patterns Format" appendix for more information about patterns. By
default, the server is configured to process XSSI directives in files which
extensions are shtml, shtm, or stm.
• "#Exec cgi" Search Paths: If the argument of a #exec cgi directive is a
relative path, the server will try to locate the file inside the directory
containing the currently processed XSSI file. If it is not found there, it will
search for it inside the virtual paths listed in ’#exec cgi’ Search Paths.
For more information about XSSI, refer to "eXtended Server Side Includes"
chapter.
Users and Groups

Select Users and Groups in the host configuration menu to display the users
and groups tables.
39
Figure 5-8. Users and Groups dialog

Use the displayed tables to edit, remove or add users and groups.
A user is defined by its name and its password. A group is defined by its
name and its members which can be users and other groups.
Note: The console hides automatically groups that can lead to circular references
when editing a group.
Custom Error Pages

With Abyss Web Server, you can override the standard error pages and
replace them with yours. To do so, select Custom Error Pages in the host
configuration menu.
40
Figure 5-9. Custom Error Pages dialog

This dialog includes the following elements:
• Custom Error Pages: This table contains the customized errors and their
associated URLs.
• Default Custom Error Page: The URL used when an error which code is
not listed in the Custom Error Pages table occurs. If empty, Abyss Web
Server generates automatically a standard error page.
An error URL can be:
• Local: If it begins with a slash /, the URL is local to the web server.
• Global: If it begins with http://, the URL is global and the web server
informs the browser a redirect to that URL when an error occurs.
Note: It is only relevant to set 4xx and 5xx error codes. Other error codes are handled
internally in the web server and do not lead to displaying an error page.
Note: When using a local URL that is a CGI script or an XSSI page as a custom error
page, the server operates an internal redirection and adds to the custom error page’s
environment variables all the faulty request environment variables prefixed with
REDIRECT_. It adds also the special variables REDIRECT_STATUS and
REDIRECT_STATUS_CODE which contain the status code of the faulty request. For
more information, read "CGI environment variables" section in "CGI, FastCGI, and
ISAPI" chapter.
41
Scripting Parameters
To configure CGI, FastCGI, ISAPI, and scripts execution, select Scripting
Parameters in the host configuration menu.
Figure 5-10. Scripting Parameters dialog

This dialog includes the following fields:
• Enable Scripts Execution: Enable/disable CGI, FastCGI, ISAPI, and scripts

execution.
• CGI Parameters: Press Edit... to access the CGI parameters dialog which
contains the following elements:
42
• Error File: The path of the file where CGI scripts write error messages.
You can leave it empty if you do not want to trace CGI scripts’ errors.
• I/O Timeout: How long (in seconds) the server should wait for a CGI
script or application to deliver content before aborting it.
• Resolve Interpreter from the Windows Registry: Use the Windows
Registry to automatically find the interpreter which can run a CGI script.
This parameter should be used very carefully as it can make the server
report Error 500 (Internal Server Error) for normal documents. For
example, if a HTML file is in one of the CGI Paths (or matches with one of
the CGI Paths patterns), and if this parameter is checked, the server asks
the Windows Registry about the executable that is normally used to open
HTML files (in a similar fashion to what does Windows Explorer to know
what application to launch when you double-click on a document icon).
The Windows Registry gives back your browser executable path and
Abyss Web Server runs the HTML file as a CGI Script with this browser
as its interpreter. But after launching it, Abyss Web Server understands
that this executable is not a valid CGI Interpreter. So it aborts the
executable and reports Error 500.
• Resolve Interpreter using the #! Line: Read the first line of the CGI
script. If it begins with #!, the rest of the line is considered as the path to
the script’s interpreter.
• ISAPI Parameters: Press Edit... to access the ISAPI parameters dialog

which contains the following elements:
• Error File: The path of the file where ISAPI extensions write error
messages and where the server logs ISAPI activity when Debugging
Level is set to a value other than None. You can leave it empty if you do
not want to trace ISAPI errors.
• Debugging Level: The type of information Abyss Web Server should log
when an ISAPI is invoked. It should be set the None unless you are
developing or debugging an ISAPI extension.
• ISAPI Filename Extensions: This table contains the file name extensions
that helps the server recognize if a file is an ISAPI or not. It is filled with
dll by default. This table is used for example to know if a declared
interpreter is an ISAPI extension or not.
• FastCGI Parameters: Press Edit... to access the FastCGI parameters dialog

which contains the following elements:
• Error File: The path of the file where FastCGI executables and
interpreters write error messages and where the server logs their activity
when Debugging Level is set to a value other than None. You can leave it
empty if you do not want to trace FastCGI errors.
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• Debugging Level: The type of information Abyss Web Server should log
when a FastCGI executable or interpreter is running.
• I/O Timeout: How long (in seconds) the server should wait for a FastCGI
process to deliver content before aborting the connection with it and
reporting an error.
• FastCGI Processes Timeout: How long (in seconds) the server should let
an unused FastCGI process wait before aborting it.
The dialog contains also the following tables:
• Interpreters: The server uses this table to know which interpreter to use to
execute a script. The choice is based on the script’s file name extension: an
interpreter runs a script if the extension of that script matches with one of
the associated extensions or extensions patterns of the interpreter.
Each interpreter is defined by its:
• Interface: It has to be set to FastCGI (Local - Pipes) or FastCGI (Local -
TCP/IP Sockets) if the interpreter supports FastCGI and its executable is
available on the computer where the Web server is installed. If you have a
standalone or remote FastCGI server, set it to FastCGI (Remote - Pipes)
or FastCGI (Remote - TCP/IP Sockets) depending on the type of network
protocol it supports. Otherwise, Interface should be set to CGI/ISAPI.
Note that for most FastCGI compliant interpreters, you can either choose
FastCGI (Local - Pipes) or FastCGI (Local - TCP/IP Sockets) with no
noticeable difference as both modes provide comparable performances.
But some FastCGI interpreters such as PHP 5.1.3 and later only support a
single mode of operation. So if an interpreter fails to work in a given
mode, select the other and retry. You can also refer to Aprelium’s Web site
to know which mode is supported by that interpreter. Note also that both
FastCGI (Local - Pipes) and FastCGI (Remote - Pipes) are not available
on Windows 95, 98, and ME.
• Interpreter: The path of the FastCGI/CGI executable or the ISAPI
extension (not available if Interface is set to FastCGI (Remote - Pipes) or
FastCGI (Remote - TCP/IP Sockets)).
• Arguments: The additional arguments that are used to run a
FastCGI/CGI executable (not available if Interface is set to FastCGI
(Remote - Pipes) or FastCGI (Remote - TCP/IP Sockets)). These
arguments are ignored if the interpreter is an ISAPI extension. Any
occurrence of %1 or $1 in the arguments is replaced by the script file
name when running the FastCGI/CGI interpreter.
• Advanced Parameters: If Interface is set to FastCGI (Local - Pipes) or
FastCGI (Local - TCP/IP Sockets), press Edit... to access the advanced
parameters dialog which contains the following elements:
44
• Minimum Processes: The minimum number of processes of the

FastCGI interpreter that the Web server will maintain available and
running. If this field is empty, no processes are maintained running and
new ones are created on demand.
• Maximum Processes: The maximum number of processes of the
FastCGI interpreter that the Web server will allow to be running at the
same time. If this field is empty, no maximum limit is imposed.
• Conservative Behavior Process Count Threshold: When the number
of processes of the FastCGI interpreter reaches this parameter’s value,
new processes are not immediately created on demand: the Web server
will wait for some amount of time for an already running process to be
ready. If no process is ready after that wait, a new one is created. If
empty, no such soft limit exists.
• Conservative Behavior Polling Interval: The amount of time in
milliseconds the Web server waits for before creating a new process for
the FastCGI interpreter if the Conservative Behavior Process Count
Threshold is reached and no process becomes available. If empty, it
defaults to 1000 milliseconds (1 second.)
• Request Count Before Process Recycling: When a given process of
the current FastCGI interpreter has processed as many requests as
indicated by this parameter, it is gracefully shut down and restarted.
An Unlimited value means that no recycling will ever occur.
• Maximum Process Age Before Recycling: When a given process of
the current FastCGI interpreter has been running for the duration
indicated by this parameter, it is gracefully shut down and restarted.
No recycling will ever occur if this parameter is set to Unlimited.
• Recycle when the following file changes: If this field is not empty,
any change to the specified file will trigger the the restart of all the
processes associated with the current FastCGI interpreter.
• Pipe Path: The full path of the pipe that will be used to communicate
with the interpreter if Interface is set to FastCGI (Remote - Pipes). If the
FastCGI server is running locally, its pipe path should be of the form
\\.\pipe\name where name is the name of the pipe. If the FastCGI
server is available on another computer on the LAN, its pipe path should
be of the form \\computer\pipe\name where computer is the name
of the computer hosting the FastCGI server.
• Remote Server IP Address: The IP address of the computer that is
hosting the interpreter’s FastCGI server (available only if Interface is set
to FastCGI (Remote - TCP/IP Sockets)).
• Port: The number of the port the interpreter’s FastCGI server is listening
on (available only if Interface is set to FastCGI (Remote - TCP/IP
Sockets)).
45
• Check for file existence before execution: If enabled, the server will
report an error when the script file requested is not physically available
on the disk. If this option is disabled, the server will launch the
interpreter associated with the requested script without even if its file
does not exist on the disk. It is then up to the interpreter to report an error
or to act accordingly.
• Type: Some interpreters are not fully conforming to the FastCGI/CGI or
the ISAPI specifications. By setting this parameter to the correct value, the
server activates a special workaround mode to support them. PHP
interpreters (both FastCGI/CGI and ISAPI version) and Shorthand ISAPI
should have their Type set to PHP Style. ActiveState ActivePerl ISAPI
should have its Type set to ActivePerl ISAPI. For any other interpreter,
set Type to Standard.
• Associated Extensions: The list of file name extensions that are to be
handled by the current interpreter. You can also define an extension
pattern. Refer to the "Patterns Format" appendix for more information
about patterns. To associate more than a single extension with an
interpreter, press Add... for every extension to declare it.
When adding or editing an interpreter, letting Use the associated

extensions to automatically update the Script Paths checked makes Abyss
Web Server automatically add/remove the pattern /*.ext in the Script
Paths table for every added/removed extension ext in the Associated
Extensions list.
• Script Paths: Only files that are in one of the Script Paths or their subpaths,
or that match with one of the Script Paths patterns can be processed as
scripts. These paths are virtual paths. See the "Patterns Format" appendix
for more information about patterns. An executable located in each path or
its subpaths is considered as CGI or FastCGI applications according to the
setting of Interface type of executables in this path of the corresponding
script path. If X-SendFile Support is enabled, scripts or executables can
emit an X-Sendfile CGI header which value will be used to serve a static
file relative to the Files Root Path. For more details about that feature, refer
to the "X-Sendfile Support" section. It is also possible to enable or disable
bufering the output of scripts or executables in that path by setting the
value of Output Buffer Size.
• Custom Environment Variables: This table contains the variables you want
to add to the execution environment of the FastCGI/CGI interpreters and
scripts. Each variable is defined by its name and its value.
For more information about scripts, see "CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI" chapter.
46
ASP.NET Parameters
Select ASP.NET Parameters in the host configuration menu to display the
ASP.NET applications table.
Figure 5-11. ASP.NET Parameters dialog

Abyss Web Server features genuine support for ASP.NET applications. If you
do not see the ASP.NET Parameters icon in the host menu, it is probably
because you have not installed ASP.NET support in Abyss Web Server. To
remedy to that, launch the installer package again to upgrade your current
setup of Abyss Web Server and ensure that the ASP.NET Support component
is selected.
If you do not have a version of Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 (or higher)
correctly installed on your system, Abyss Web Server will report the problem
and provide you with a link to install the missing system component.
Unlike other scripting languages and platforms, ASP.NET has the concept of
application which is a set of files related to the same ASP.NET program.
ASP.NET must know where each program is to be able to locate the
configuration files of the application and to process it correctly.
If ASP.NET support is correctly set up and a recognized Microsoft .NET
Framework version is installed, the ASP.NET Parameters dialog shows a table
to edit, remove or add ASP.NET applications.
Each ASP.NET application is defined by the following parameters:
• Virtual Path: The virtual path containing all the ASP.NET application files
and subdirectories.
• .NET Version: The version of .NET Framework that will be used to run the
ASP.NET application.
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• Preload: If checked, the ASP.NET application is loaded during server

startup. Otherwise, it is loaded on demand when the first request for it is
received by the Web server.
• Request Count Before Process Recycling: When the ASP.NET connector
process (powering the particular .NET Version specified for the current
ASP.NET application) has processed as many requests as indicated by this
parameter, it is gracefully shut down and restarted. No recycling will ever
occur if this parameter is set to Unlimited.
• Maximum Process Age Before Process: When the ASP.NET connector
process (powering the particular .NET Version specified for the current
ASP.NET application) has been running for a period of time indicated by
this parameter, it is gracefully shut down and restarted. A value of
Unlimited for this parameter means that no recycling will ever occur.
• Preload Type: If set to Standard, the ASP.NET application is preloaded by
starting an ASP.NET connector process. To enable a full preload and
possibly the warm-up of the ASP.NET application (by forcing an immediate
compilation of its code behind files), Preload Type should be set to Internal
HTTP HEAD request which simulates a first request at the server startup to
force a full preload of the application and its components.
• Preload Subpath: The value of that field is appended to the value of
Virtual Path to build a URL that will be requested internally by the server
when preloading the ASP.NET application. Most old ASP.NET applications
require that field set to default.aspx. Modern ASP.NET applications
(with routes, MVC or AJAX) can be started with no value for that field.
• Isolated: By default, all ASP.NET applications that are run with Isolated
not checked share the same .NET framework application domain.. When
Isolated is checked, the ASP.NET application is loaded in its own .NET
framework application domain.
• Handling: This parameter defines the parts of the virtual path that should
be served by the ASP.NET application. When set to All the subdirectory, all
the virtual paths (even those which do not relate to actual files) will be
forwarded to the ASP.NET application. This is the default setting and it is
recommended for modern ASP.NET applications especially those taking
advantage of routes, MVC or AJAX. If you want to delegate the processing
of some specific files to the ASP.NET application and have the rest of them
handled by the Web server for maximum performance, Handling should be
set Specific File Extensions. In such a case, the ASP.NET application will
only process files which exist and which file name extension is listed in the
Associated Extensions table.
• Associated Extensions: Files inside the ASP.NET application virtual path
which extensions are listed in this table are processed by the ASP.NET
engine. Note that Associated Extensions is always filled with the full list of
file name extensions that can be handled by the .NET version you have
48
selected when defining the ASP.NET application. So it is rarely necessary to

update this table.
Access Control
To restrict and manage the access to paths in your web site, select Access
Control in the host configuration.
Figure 5-12. Access Control dialog

To edit, remove or add path access rules, use the displayed table.
49
Figure 5-13. Path access dialog

The path access edition dialog contains the following fields:
• Virtual Path: The virtual path which contents’ access is to be restricted. It

must always begin with a slash /. This field accepts also path patterns. In
that case, the access rule applies to any virtual path that matches with the
specified pattern. Refer to the "Patterns Format" appendix for more
information about patterns.
• Realm: A short description of the path’s contents. It is prompted to users
by the browser when it asks them for credentials.
user. If it is set to Allow/Deny, access is denied by default and is allowed
only if the user is in the Allow for list and is not in the Deny for list. If it is
set to Deny/Allow, access is allowed by default and is denied only if the
user is in the Deny for list and is not in the Allow for list.
• Allow for: The list of users and groups for whom access is allowed.
• Deny for: The list of users and groups for whom access is denied.
Note: If Deny for list is empty and the order is Deny/Allow, access is granted to all
declared users and groups.
50
IP Address Control
To restrict and manage the access to paths in your web site, select IP Address
Control in the host configuration.
Figure 5-14. IP Address Control dialog

To edit, remove or add path IP Address Control rules, use the displayed table.
Figure 5-15. IP Address Control Rule dialog

The IP address control rule edition dialog contains the following fields:
51
• Virtual Path: The virtual path which contents’ access is to be restricted. It

must always begin with a slash /. This field accepts also path patterns. In
that case, the access rule applies to any virtual path that matches with the
specified pattern. Refer to the "Patterns Format" appendix for more
client according to its IP address. If it is set to Allow/Deny, access is denied
by default and is allowed only if the client IP address is in the Allowed IP
Addresses list and is not in the Denied IP Addresses list. If it is set to
Deny/Allow, access is allowed by default and is denied only if the client IP
address is in the Denied IP Addresses list and is not in the Allowed IP
Addresses list.
• Allowed IP Addresses: The list of IP addresses or IP address ranges for
which access is allowed. Refer to "IP Addresses and Ranges Format"
• Denied IP Addresses: The list of IP addresses or IP address ranges for
which access is denied. Refer to "IP Addresses and Ranges Format"
Note: If Denied IP Addresses list is empty and the order is Deny/Allow, access is
granted to any client.
URL Rewriting
To automatically redirect certain requests or rewrite their URL, select URL
Rewriting in the host configuration menu.
52
Figure 5-16. URL Rewriting dialog

This dialog includes the following elements:
• URL Rewriting Rules: Use this table to edit, remove or add URL rewriting
rules. The URL rewriting rule definition dialog contains the following items:
53
Figure 5-17. URL Rewriting Rule dialog
• Enabled Rule: Enable/disable the current URL rewriting rule.

• Type: The rule can be Global or Relative (the paths will be defined
relatively to a base path defined in the Base Virtual Path.)
• Virtual Path Regular Expression: If Type is set to Global, the current
URL rewriting rule will be examined for virtual paths which match with
this regular expression. But if Type is set to Relative, the URL rewriting
rule will only be applied for virtual paths which head equals Base Virtual
Path and which tail matches with this regular expression. For more
information about regular expressions syntax, see the "Regular
Expressions" appendix.
• Case Sensitive: The above regular expression is matched case sensitively
if this option is checked. Otherwise, no difference between lower and
upper cases is made while matching.
• Conditions: If all the conditions in this table are verified (are true), the
URL rewriting rule will apply. Otherwise, it is skipped and ignored. Each
condition consists in a test of the value of a CGI variable of the current
request with an operator and possibly an operand. Three kinds of
operators are available: string operators (regular expression matching,
54
and lexicographical ordering), numerical operators (numerical ordering),

and file operators (is a file, is a directory, is not a file or is empty).
• Apply to subrequests too: If checked, the rule is tested on subrequests
too. Subrequests are requests that are internally generated by the server
and not directly invoked by a client. For instance, XSSI include directives
generate subrequests.
• If the rule matches: The action to perform when the virtual path matches
with the regular expression and when all the conditions are verified:
• Perform an internal redirection: The server will continue the
processing of the request as if the requested virtual path was the one
that is specified in Redirect to. That virtual path could contain
backreferences to the groups of the regular expression specified in
Virtual Path Regular Expression. Occurrences of $1 are substituted
with the backreference of the first group (if any), occurrences of $2 are
substituted with the backreference of the second group (if any), and so
on. Occurrences of %1, %2, ..., %9 are substituted with the
backreferences of the groups (if any) of the last evaluated condition. For
more information about backreferences, refer to the "Regular
Expressions" appendix. Occurrences of %{VARIABLE} are substituted
with the value of the CGI variable VARIABLE (see "CGI environment
variables" in the "CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI" chapter.) You also decide
with Next Action if URL rewriting has to be stopped, restarted, or
continued after the application of the current URL rewriting rule.
• Perform an external redirection: The server will redirect the client to
the URL or the virtual path set in Redirect to. That URL or virtual path
could contain backreferences to the groups of the regular expression
specified in Virtual Path Regular Expression. For more information
about backreferences, refer to the "Regular Expressions" appendix. By
default, the external redirection results in a HTTP response with a 302
status code but you can choose a more appropriate one by setting
Status Code to another value between 300 and 399.
• Report an error to the client: The server will report an error to the
client. The Status Code of that error must be in the 400-999 range.
• Abort connection: The server will abruptly abort the connection with
the client without further processing. This action is not recommended
as it breaks the HTTP protocol. It should only be used in a few special
situations inside a set of rules aimed at banning bandwidth consuming
bots or automated clients.
When a Redirect To field is available, the checkbox Append Query String

is used to control the automatic addition of the original query string to
the final redirected URL or virtual path. The original query string is the
substring after the ? character in the original request URL. If Redirect To
already contains a query string and if the original URL’s query string is
55
not empty, both are concatenated in the final URL or virtual path that the
request will be redirected to.
The Escape Redirection Location option should be unchecked only when
the Redirect To field contains a location which is already URL escaped.
Note that if Type is set to Relative and the virtual path resulting from the
processing of Redirect to is relative (which means that it does not begin
with /), the value of Base Virtual Path is prepended to it.

dialog which contains the following elements:
• Log File: The path of the file where the Abyss Web Server will log
extensive debugging information about the processing of each request by
the URL rewriting engine. The size of that file can become very huge very
quickly as each request results in several dozen lines of logged debugging
information. For that reason, it is recommended to turn it off on
production servers.
• Log variables: If checked, the CGI variables of each request are logged
along with the URL rewriting processing details.
Compression
Compression is performed on any content (be it static or dynamically
generated) provided that all the following conditions are satisfied:
• The browser requesting the content claims support for HTTP

decompression by including an Accept-Encoding header in the HTTP
request;
• The virtual path of the content belongs to the compression scope;
• The MIME type of the content matches with one of the MIME types listed in
the MIME Types table.
If one or more of the above conditions is not met, the current content is sent
back to the browser uncompressed.
56
Figure 5-18. Compression dialog

The Compression dialog contains the following elements:
• Level: The compression level. It ranges from 1 (Minimum compression -

Faster) to 9 (Maximum compression - Slower). If it is set to 0, compression is
disabled.
• Scope: Press Edit... to configure the virtual paths where compression is
considered. The displayed dialog has the following items:
• Order: The order that the server follows to check if compression is
considered for a virtual path. If it is set to Allow/Deny, compression is
denied by default and is allowed only if the virtual path is in the Allow
for list and is not in the Deny for list. If it is set to Deny/Allow,
compression is allowed by default and is denied only if the virtual path is
in the Deny for list and is not in the Allow for list.
• Allow for: The list of virtual paths for which compression is allowed.
• Deny for: The list of virtual paths for which compression is denied. The
table can contain also path patterns. See the "Patterns Format" appendix
for more information about patterns.
• Compress Error Pages: Enable/Disable compression of responses which

status codes correspond to an error.
• MIME Types: Compression is considered for contents which MIME types
are equal or match with the listed MIME type patterns in this table. See the
"Patterns Format" appendix for more information about patterns.
57
Bandwidth Limits
With Abyss Web Server, you can have fine control on the bandwidth every
host uses. You can even control the bandwidth allowed for a particular file or
script, or for the contents of a directory.
The Bandwidth Limits dialog has the following fields:
• Enable Bandwidth Throttling: Enable/Disable bandwidth throttling for

the current host.
• Limits: This table contains the bandwidth limits that are configured for this
host.
Each limit is defined by its:
• Scope: This table contains the virtual paths for which this bandwidth
limit applies. A virtual path must begin with a slash /. It can also be a
path patterns. In such a case, the limit applies for any virtual path that
matches with the specified pattern. Refer to the "Patterns Format"
• Maximum Bandwidth: The amount of output bandwidth that the host
should not exceed for all the requests which virtual path matches with
one of paths listed in the Scope table. If set to Unlimited, no such
bandwidth restriction will apply.
• Maximum Bandwidth Per IP Address: The total amount of output
bandwidth that the host should not exceed for all the requests made by a
single IP address and which virtual path matches with one of paths listed
in the Scope table. If this parameter is set to Unlimited, no limit will be
applied.
• Maximum Connections Per IP Address: The maximum number of
simultaneous requests made by a single IP address to the host and which
virtual path matches with one of paths listed in the Scope table. No limit
will ever be applied if this parameter is set to Unlimited.
Note: To set a limitation on the bandwidth of the whole host, add a bandwidth limit
with / as its scope.
Note: If the virtual path of a request matches with more than a single bandwidth
limit, Abyss Web Server will respect all of them.
Logging
Select Logging in the host configuration menu to display the Logging options.
58
Figure 5-19. Logging dialog

• Log File: The path of the log file. If it is relative, it is considered as a

subpath of the server root. If empty, logging is disabled.
• Log Rotation: To prevent the log file from growing indefinitely, press Edit...
to configure the way it is rotated:
• No rotation is performed if Type is set to Disabled.
• Rotation can occur when the size of the log file reaches a certain threshold
set in Maximum Log Size Before Rotation. The rotated files are then
stored in the directory set in Rotated Files Path. Rotated file names are
made of the concatenation of the value in Rotated File Names Prefix and
an ordinal number. The last rotated file has number 0. The previous one
has number 1, the so forth.The maximum number of preserved rotated
files is set in Maximum Number of Retained Rotated Files .
• Rotation is time based when Type is set to By Time. Use Rotation
Frequency to set when rotation should occur. If Use Local Time is
unchecked, the clock is converted to UTC/GMT to determine if a period
of time relative to the frequency lapsed and rotation has to happen or not.
The rotated files are then stored in the directory set in Rotated Files Path.
Rotated file names are made of the concatenation of the value in Rotated
File Names Prefix and a time reference which depends on the value of
Rotation Frequency. For example, if rotation is on yearly basis, the time
reference is the year only YYYY. If the rotation is on a hourly basis, the
time reference is of the form HH-DD-MM-YYYY.
• Logging Format: This parameter sets the format to be used in the log file for
the current host. It offers the choice between the standard formats Common
59
Log Format or the Combined Log Format, and the custom logging formats
defined under the Logging Parameter dialog in Server Configuration.
• Do not Log Requests for: This table contains the virtual paths for which
logging is disabled. A virtual path must begin with a slash /. It can also be a
path patterns. In such a case, the logging is disabled for any virtual path
that matches with the specified pattern. Refer to the "Patterns Format"
• Do not Log Requests from: This table contains the IP addresses or IP
address ranges for which logging is disabled. Refer to "IP Addresses and
Ranges Format" appendix for more information about the IP addresses and
ranges.
Reverse Proxy
Abyss Web Server can act as a reverse proxy to provide content transparently
from another Web server behind it (commonly called a back-end server.) The
proxied server can be another Web server or an application server with a
restricted or even a trivial HTTP support that has to be shielded from external
clients. Reverse proxying is also the recommended way to take advantage of
JSP (Java Servlet Pages) and Tomcat Web applications. Abyss Web Server
automatically selects the best version of the HTTP protocol when
communicating with a back-end server. It is also able to keep-alive
connections with HTTP/1.1 back-end servers and sharing pools of
connections between several requests and hosts.
Select Reverse Proxy in the host configuration menu to display a dialog
containing the Reverse Proxy Rules table. Use that table to to edit, remove or
add reverse proxy mapping rules rewriting rules.
Each reverse proxy mapping rule is defined by the following parameters:
• Local Virtual Path: The local virtual path on the current host which
contents will be mapped to the remote virtual path on the reverse proxy.
• Remote IP Address: The IP address of the back-end server.
• Remote Port: The port on which the Web server is listening on the back-end
server.
• Remote Virtual Path
dialog. This dialog exposes the following fields:
• Fix URLs in Cookies: If checked, HTTP Cookies received from the
back-end are rewritten to appear as if they were originated from the
current host.
60
• Fix URLs in Location Response Headers: If checked, the Location,

Content-Location, and URI HTTP headers received from the
back-end are rewritten to appear as if they were originated from the
current host.
• Extra Request Headers: The HTTP headers defined in this table are
added to each request targeting the the back-end.
• Timeout: The timeout value in seconds is used to determine how long to
wait for an inactive connection to the back-end before closing it.
Example: An example of a reverse proxy rule

Let’s assume that the current host includes a reverse proxy rule defined with the
following parameters:
• Local Virtual Path: /app/photo
• Remote IP Address: 192.168.1.233
• Remote Port: 8080
• Remote Virtual Path: /txp
If a client makes a request to the virtual path /app/photo/abc/test.py on the
current host, the local Web server will forward the request to the URL
http://192.168.1.233:8080/txp/abc/test.py. The retrieved result is
sent back to the client.
Restricted Downloads Areas

To prevent direct access to files contained in some directories, it is possible to
create links to them which expire after a certain duration and which may be
restricted to a certain IP address. Such links are to be generated using scripts
and look like:
http://www.mysite.com/dir1/dir2/1d0dc35b10df59a45638a78228fdfe4d/5183d1da/file.txt
To configure virtual paths associated with such a behavior, select Restricted

Downloads Areas in the host configuration menu. Each restricted downloads
area is defined by the following parameters:
• Virtual Path: The virtual path associated with the restricted downloads
area. This virtual path will be prepended to all URLs referring to that area.
• Files Root Path: The real directory which contains the files that are served
from that area.
• Secret String: The secret string which is used to compute the hash included
in the URL.
61
• Timeout: The maximum duration of validity of URLs referring to files in

that area (in seconds.)
• Limit To Originating IP: If checked, the hash should be generated
including the originating IP address and validity of URLs in that area takes
into account that information.
An URL referring to a restricted download area is of the form: http://<your

host name>:<host port>/vpath/hash/hextimestamp/file.ext:
• /vpath is the virtual path associated with the area.

• hextimestamp is the hexadecimal representation of the number of seconds
since January 1st, 1970 GMT. The timestamp is used to determine if the link
is still valid based on the Timeout value.
• file.ext is the path of the file inside the Files Root Path.
• hash is a hexadecimal string which is the value of MD5(secret +
"/file.ext" + hextimestamp) if Limit To Originating IP is
unchecked. Otherwise, it is the value of MD5(secret + "/file.ext" +
hextimestamp + ip) where ip is the IP of the client.
Example: Script to generate a restricted download URL (PHP version)

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<TITLE>
Test
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<?php
$secret_string = "secret string";

$virtual_path = "/downloads/";
$limit_by_ip = false;
$hex_timestamp = dechex(time());
$file_name = "/file_to_protect.txt";
if ($limit_by_ip) {
$t = $secret_string . $file_name . $hex_timestamp . $_SERVER[’REMOTE_ADDR’];
}
else {
$t = $secret_string . $file_name . $hex_timestamp;
}
$hash = md5($t);
$url = $virtual_path . $hash . "/" . $hex_timestamp . $file_name;
echo "<TR><TD><A HREF=\"$url\">Click here to download the file</A>";

?>
</BODY>
</HTML>
62
Example: Script to generate a restricted download URL (Python version)

import os, time, hashlib
secret_string = "secret string"

virtual_path = "/downloads/"
limit_by_ip = False
hex_timestamp = "{0:x}".format(int(time.time()))
file_name = "/file_to_protect.txt"
if limit_by_ip:
t = secret_string + file_name + hex_timestamp + os.environ["REMOTE_ADDR"]
else:
t = secret_string + file_name + hex_timestamp
hash = hashlib.md5(t).hexdigest()
url = virtual_path + hash + "/" + hex_timestamp + file_name
# Output CGI headers

print "Content-Type : text/html"
print
# Output body
print ’<HTML><BODY><A SRC="%s">Click here to download the file</A></BODY></HTML>’ % url
Anti-Leeching
Anti-Leeching is a system that prevents web pages not belonging to your host
from referring or linking to materials available in your web site. Leeching is
also known as cross-site linking.
When a request is sent to the host, and if its virtual path is in the configured
Anti-Leeching Scope, the server checks if the Referer header in the request
matches with the current host or with one of the host names or the patterns in
the Allow Links from table. The Referer header is usually set by the
browser to indicate to the server from which web page the current URL was
requested (or linked to.) If it does not match, the request is considered as a
leeching attempt and is redirected to the URL configured in the Redirect
Leechers to URL parameter.
63
Figure 5-20. Anti-Leeching dialog

• Anti-Leeching Scope: Any request which virtual path is in or matches with

one of listed virtual paths in this table is protected against leeching.
• Redirect Leechers to URL: A request that is considered as a leeching
request is redirected to this URL. It can be a full URL referencing another
web site or a virtual path pointing on a document in the current host. If this
field is empty, the server returns error 403 to the client.
• Refuse Requests with no "Referer" Header: If checked, the system adopts
a strict behavior and will consider requests that do not contain a Referer
header as anti-leeching requests. It is not recommended to check this
parameter since it may prevent browsers configured to not send the
Referer header from viewing documents in your host.
• Allow Links from: This table contains the names of hosts that are allowed
to link to files and materials in the current host and that are not monitored
against leeching. A host name in this table can also be a pattern such as
*.mysite.com. Refer to the "Patterns Format" appendix for more
64
Statistics
The Statistics dialog displays a set of statistics on the host’s activity since the
server installation or the last host statistics reset:
• Total Uptime: The total time during which the host was up.
• Uptime since Last Restart: The time during which the host was up since
the last server start or restart. If the host is stopped, its value is zero.
• Total Hits: The total number of requests processed by the current host.
• Compressed Hits: The number of requests processed by the current host
that resulted in compressed responses.
• Error Hits: The number of requests targeting the current host that resulted
in an error.
• HTML Hits: The number of requests the host replied to by a document
which MIME type was text/html.
• Image Hits: The number of requests the host replied to by a document
which MIME type starts with image/.
• Not Modified Hits: The number of requests for which the host detected
that the requested document has not changed.
• Transferred Data: The total size of the payload sent by the current host to
the clients.
• Compression Savings: The amount of data that was saved thanks to the
compressed responses sent by the current host to the clients.
The host statistics are refreshed automatically every 10 seconds. You can also
press Refresh for immediate refreshing. They can be reset by pressing Reset.
Note: The statistics are preserved when the server is shut down or when the host is
stopped.
Note: The host statistics are also available in real time to scripts and XSSI pages.
Refer to the "CGI environment variables" for more information.
65
Chapter 6. CGI, FastCGI, and
ISAPI
Abyss Web Server supports CGI (Common Gateway Interface), FastCGI, and
ISAPI Extensions (Internet Server Advanced Programming Interface
Extensions) standards for dynamic content generation. It can process scripts
by CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI interpreters and serve content generated by CGI,
FastCGI, and ISAPI applications.
Setting up an interpreter
To setup a language interpreter to be used by scripts in Abyss Web Server,
follow these instructions:
• Download the language package.

• Install it. Refer to the documentation accompanying it for details about this
operation.
• In the Scripting Parameters dialog, use the Interpreters table to add the
new interpreter and the filename extensions it handles.
• Scripts requiring this interpreter to run must have their filename extensions
set to one of the declared extensions.
Visit http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws to get updated information

about downloading and setting up PHP, Perl, Python, and other scripting
languages.
How are they run?

When the server is asked for a document, it first checks if it is a script. Scripts
must belong to one of the script paths or their subpaths, or must match with
one of the path patterns listed in the Script Paths table.
Abyss Web Server is able to run standalone CGI or FastCGI executables. These
executables can be GUI or non-GUI Windows applications or MS-DOS EXE or
COM programs. The Script Paths table must contain explicitly the general
patterns /*.exe and/or /*.com (or more path restrictive patterns ending
with *.exe and/or *.com) in order to have them executed. Otherwise, the
executable files are downloaded to the client browser.
Abyss Web Server can also run standalone ISAPI extensions. The Script Paths
table must contain explicitly the virtual path of a module or a matching
66
Chapter 6. CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI
pattern to have it executed. A file is considered as being an ISAPI module if its

file name extension matches one of the declared ISAPI file name extensions.
For other kinds of scripts, the server tries to find the suitable interpreter able
to run them by:
• Checking the Interpreters table and trying to match the script’s extension
with a declared interpreter.
• Using the Windows Registry to match the script’s extension with an
available interpreter.
• Reading the first line of the script. If it begins with #!, the rest of the line
must contain a valid interpreter path.
If none of these steps is successful, the file is considered as a normal document

and will be sent to the browser.
Abyss Web Server automatically detects NPH (Non Parsed Headers) scripts.
NPH scripts output is sent directly to the browser without prior header
decoding by the server. It is up to NPH scripts to generate correctly all the
necessary HTTP response headers. Abyss Web Server considers a script to be
NPH if the first line it outputs starts with the string HTTP/.
CGI environment variables

Before running a CGI application or interpreter, Abyss Web Server sets its
environment variables in conformity with the CGI/1.1 specification (as
described in http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi) and adds variables
declared in the Custom Environment Variables table as well as the system
environment variables. Some Abyss Web Server specific variables are also set.
The following list contains the variables documented in the CGI/1.1
specification and some variables commonly set by web servers:
• PATH_INFO: The extra path information, as given in the requested URL. In

fact, scripts can be accessed by their virtual path, followed by extra
information at the end of this path. The extra information is sent in
PATH_INFO.
• PATH_TRANSLATED: The virtual-to-real mapped version of PATH_INFO.
• SCRIPT_NAME: The virtual path of the script being executed.
• SCRIPT_FILENAME and REQUEST_FILENAME: The real path of the script
being executed.
• SCRIPT_URI: The full URL to the current object requested by the client.
67
• URL: The full URI of the current request. It is made of the concatenation of
SCRIPT_NAME and PATH_INFO (if available.)
• SCRIPT_URL and REQUEST_URI: The original request URI sent by the
client.
• REQUEST_METHOD: The method used by the current request; usually set to
GET or POST.
• QUERY_STRING: The information which follows the ? character in the
requested URL.
• CONTENT_TYPE: The MIME type of the request body; set only for POST or
PUT requests.
• CONTENT_LENGTH: The length in bytes of the request body; set only for
POST or PUT requests.
• AUTH_TYPE: The authentication type if the client has authenticated itself to
access the script.
• AUTH_USER and REMOTE_USER: The name of the user as issued by the
client when authenticating itself to access the script.
• ALL_HTTP: All HTTP headers sent by the client. Headers are separated by
carriage return characters (ASCII 13 - \n) and each header name is prefixed
by HTTP_, transformed to upper cases, and - characters it contains are
replaced by _ characters.
• ALL_RAW: All HTTP headers as sent by the client in raw form. No
transformation on the header names is applied.
• SERVER_SOFTWARE: The web server’s software identity.
• SERVER_NAME: The host name or the IP address of the computer running
the web server as given in the requested URL.
• SERVER_ADDR: The IP address of the computer running the web server.
• SERVER_PORT: The port to which the request was sent.
• GATEWAY_INTERFACE: The CGI Specification version supported by the
web server; always set to CGI/1.1.
• SERVER_PROTOCOL: The HTTP protocol version used by the current
request.
• REMOTE_ADDR: The IP address of the computer that sent the request.
• REMOTE_PORT: The port from which the request was sent.
• DOCUMENT_ROOT: The absolute path of the web site files. It has the same
value as Documents Path.
• INSTANCE_ID: The numerical identifier of the host which served the
request. On Abyss Web Server X1, it is always set to 1 since there is only a
single host.
68
• APPL_MD_PATH: The virtual path of the deepest alias which contains the
request URI. If no alias contains the request URI, the variable is set to /.
• APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH: The real path of the deepest alias which contains
the request URI. If no alias contains the request URI, the variable is set to the
same value as DOCUMENT_ROOT.
• IS_SUBREQ: It is set to true if the current request is a subrequest, i.e. a
request not directly invoked by a client. Otherwise, it is set to true.
Subrequests are generated by the server for internal processing. XSSI
includes for example result in subrequests.
If the current request is served by an SSL enabled host, the following SSL
related variables are also available:
• SSL_PROTOCOL: The SSL protocol version. It could be SSLv2, SSLv3, or

TLSv1.
• SSL_CIPHER and HTTPS_CIPHER: The SSL protocol version. It could be
SSLv2, SSLv3, or TLSv1.
• SSL_CIPHER_EXPORT: It is set to true if the cipher is conforming to US
export restrictions (i.e. it is limited to 56 bit symmetric keys and 1024
asymmetric keys).
• SSL_CIPHER_USEKEYSIZE and HTTPS_SECRETKEYSIZE: The number of
cipher bits currently used.
• SSL_CIPHER_ALGKEYSIZE and HTTPS_KEYSIZE: The maximum number
of cipher bits that could be used.
• SSL_SERVER_M_VERSION: The version of the server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_M_SERIAL: The serial number of the server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_V_START: The date corresponding to the start of the validity
the server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_V_END: The date corresponding to the end of the validity the
server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_A_SIG: The algorithm used to sign the server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_A_KEY: The encryption type of the private key of the server’s
certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_S_DN and HTTPS_SERVER_SUBJECT: The value of the
subject’s DN (distinguished name) of the server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_S_DN_component: The value of the component of the subject’s
DN (distinguished name) of the server’s certificate. component can be CN
(Common Name), C (Country), ST or SP (State/Province), L (Locality), O
(Organization), OU (Organization Unit), T (Title), I (Initials), G (Given
Name), S (Surname), D (Description), Email (Contact Email).
69
• SSL_SERVER_I_DN and HTTPS_SERVER_ISSUER: The value of the

issuer’s DN (distinguished name) of the server’s certificate.
• SSL_SERVER_I_DN_component: The value of the component of the issuer’s
DN (distinguished name) of the server’s certificate.
The Abyss Web Server specific variables provide a means to access to server
and host statistics. They are listed below:
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_UPTIME: The total time in seconds during

which the server was up.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_CURRENT_UPTIME: The total time in seconds
during which the server was up since the last start or restart.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_TOTAL: The total number of processed requests
for all the hosts. It includes also bad requests that were not targeting a
specific host and that resulted in an error.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_ERROR: The number of requests for which the
server replied by an error.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_HTML: The number of requests the server
replied to by a document which MIME type was text/html.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_IMAGE: The number of requests the server
replied to by a document which MIME type starts with image/.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_NOTMODIFIED: The number of requests for
which the server detected that the requested document has not changed.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_OUTPUT: The total size in bytes of the payload
sent by the server to the clients.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_COMPRESS_TOTAL: The total number of
compressed responses for all the hosts.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_COMPRESS_OUTPUT_TOTAL: The total size in
bytes of the payload sent by the server to the clients in compressed
responses.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_SERVER_COMPRESS_ORIGINAL_OUTPUT: The total
original uncompressed size in bytes of the payload sent by the server to the
clients in compressed responses.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_UPTIME: The total time in seconds during which
the current host was up.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_CURRENT_UPTIME: The time in seconds during
which the current host was up since the last server start or restart.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_TOTAL: The total number of requests processed by
the current host.
70
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_ERROR: The number of requests targeting the

current host that resulted in an error.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_HTML: The number of requests the current host
replied to by a document which MIME type was text/html.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_IMAGE: The number of requests the current host
replied to by a document which MIME type starts with image/.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_NOTMODIFIED: The number of requests for which
the current host detected that the requested document has not changed.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_OUTPUT: The total size in bytes of the payload
sent by the current host to the clients.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_COMPRESS_TOTAL: The total number of
compressed responses for the current host.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_COMPRESS_OUTPUT_TOTAL: The total size in
bytes of the payload sent by the current host to the clients in compressed
responses.
• X_ABYSS_STATS_HOST_COMPRESS_ORIGINAL_OUTPUT: The total
original uncompressed size in bytes of the payload sent by the current host
to the clients in compressed responses.
In addition to these variables, all header lines received in the request are
added to the environment with the prefix HTTP_ followed by the header name
in upper cases. All - characters in the header name are changed to underscore
_ characters. For example, User-Agent is translated to HTTP_USER_AGENT.
If the request results from an internal redirection (from an XSSI document or if
it is used as a custom error page for example), the environment variables of
the parent request are also added and each variable name is prefixed by
REDIRECT_. The parent request’s status code is stored in the special variables
REDIRECT_STATUS and REDIRECT_STATUS_CODE. The cookies of the
parent request are also passed to the redirected request in the COOKIES
environment variable. REDIRECT_STATUS_CODE may seem redundant but it
is actually useful when with PHP scripts as some PHP configurations require
setting REDIRECT_STATUS to a fixed value.
Example: Using the redirection information in scripts

If a script is invoked after an internal redirection, it can retrieve some interesting
information from the environment about its parent request such as:
• REDIRECT_SCRIPT_NAME: The virtual path of the parent document.
• REDIRECT_STATUS_CODE: The status code of the parent request. It is useful
when writing scripts that generate custom error pages.
71
Note: The CGI environment variables are not only useful for CGI applications and
interpreters. They are also available and used in XSSI pages and ISAPI interpreters
and applications.
FastCGI
Abyss Web Server features a full support for the FastCGI responder role as
described in the FastCGI specification version 1.0 available in
http://www.fastcgi.com/devkit/doc/fcgi-spec.html.
It supports mono-threaded and multi-threaded FastCGI applications and
automatically spawns the required number of FastCGI processes to
accommodate the current server load. Processes that have not been used after
a period of time (as set in FastCGI Processes Timeout) are aborted. Abyss
Web Server supports also connecting to and using remote FastCGI servers.
FastCGI developers benefit also from advanced debugging capabilities in
Abyss Web Server since it can be configured to log errors only or all the
input/output and low level information exchanged between the FastCGI
application and the server.
ISAPI Extensions
Abyss Web Server supports a large subset of the ISAPI 5.0 specification
suitable for running most of the ISAPI extensions available to date. ISAPI
extensions are loaded in the server process space on demand. They remain
there until the server is restarted or stopped. Since ISAPI extensions live in the
server process space (contrarily to CGI application which are launched in their
own process), any ISAPI error or crash affects the whole server. But thanks to
the APX (Anti-crash Protection eXtension) architecture of Abyss Web Server
such problems can be immediately detected and the server is restarted with
almost no noticeable downtime.
Abyss Web Server makes ISAPI development easier thanks to its advanced
debugging capabilities: With the help of the Debugging Level parameter in
ISAPI Parameters, you can configure the server to log unhandled callback to
the ISAPI extension, all callbacks, or all callbacks with all the exchanged
input/output between the extension and the server.
X-Sendfile Support
Scripts and Web applications using CGI, FastCGI or ISAPI (as well as ASP.NET
applications) can accelerate file service by emitting the special CGI header
X-Sendfile. Such an acceleration is actually performed by delegating to the
low-level parts of the Web server the service of the static file to the client.
72
For that header to be processed, the script or Web application must be in a

script path declared with X-Sendfile Support enabled as outlined in the
description of "Script Paths".
Example: A very simple script taking advanatge of X-Sendfile support (PHP version)
<?php
/* Output the special header */

header("X-Sendfile: hello.txt")
?>
The virtual path of the above script should be added to Script Paths. The declared
script path should have its X-Sendfile Support enabled and its Files Root Path set
to the real directory from which the file hello.txt should be served.
73
Chapter 7. eXtended Server Side
Includes
What are XSSI?

XSSI (eXtended Server Side Includes) are a set of directives that can be put in a
HTML page and interpreted by the web server while it sends the page to a
client. You can use XSSI to insert in your HTML page:
• The value of an environment variable.

• The size and the last modification time of a file.
• A file.
• The output of a script or a shell command.
XSSI also supports conditional processing as well as declaring variables and
setting their values.
XSSI Syntax

Directives are enclosed in standard HTML comments. So if XSSI processing is
not enabled, your browser will ignore them. Otherwise, each directive is
evaluated and replaced by its results.
Note: Enclosing an attribute’s value in double quotes is not mandatory if it does not
contain whitespaces or references to variables.
Note: A whitespace should precede the comment terminator -->.
Attribute Values
If an attribute value is enclosed between single quotes, only character
escaping is performed on it.
If an attribute value is enclosed between double quotes, both character
escaping and variables expansion are performed on it.
Character Escaping
To preserve the literal value of a special character (\, ", ’, , {, } or $), precede
it with a backslash \ character.
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Chapter 7. eXtended Server Side Includes
Variables Expansion
Parts of the attribute value string that are of the form $VARNAME are
substituted with the actual value of variable VARNAME. If VARNAME is not
declared, it is replaced by an empty string. The variable name must be
enclosed between braces as in ${VARNAME} if the characters following it may
be considered as part of the name.
Example: Variable Expansion Example

If variable DOCUMENT_NAME is set to test.shtml and variable REMOTE_PORT
is set to 12345, then the directive:

will set the variable Foo to test.shtml_12345.
Directives
#config
This directive is used to override the default XSSI settings while processing
the XSSI file.
Form 1: 

#config errmsg is used to change the message sent to the client when an
XSSI error occurs. By default, XSSI errors are reported in a detailed manner to
allow easy debugging.
Form 2: 

#config sizefmt controls the way the server displays XSSI file sizes.
size_format can have two values:
• ABBREV: displays file sizes in kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB).

• BYTES: displays file sizes in bytes. It is the default.
Form 3: 

#config timefmt specifies the format in which XSSI dates are inserted.
time_format must contain formatting tokens that are substituted by the
corresponding parts of the date. The available tokens are listed below with the
description of their substitution:
• %a: Abbreviated English name for day of the week.

• %A: Complete English name for day of the week.
75
• %b: Abbreviated English month name.

• %B: Complete English month name.
• %c: Date and time representation. It is the equivalent of %m/%d/%y
%H:%M:%S.
• %d: Day of the month (01-31).
• %e: Day of the month (1-31). If it is a single digit, it is padded with a space.
• %H: Hour in 24-hour format (00-23).
• %I: Hour in 12-hour format (01-12).
• %j: Day of the year as a decimal number (001-366).
• %m: Month as a decimal number (01-12).
• %M: Minute as a decimal number (00-59).
• %p: A.M. or P.M. indicator for 12-hour format.
• %S: Second as a decimal number (00-59).
• %U: Week of the year as a number (00-51). Sunday is the first day of the
week.
• %w: Day of the week as a number (0-6). Sunday is the first day of the week.
• %W: Week of the year as a number (00-51). Monday is the first day of the
week.
• %x: Date representation. It is the equivalent of %m/%d/%y.
• %X: Time representation. It is the equivalent of %H:%M:%S.
• %y: Year without the century (00-99).
• %Y: Year with the century (0000-9999).
• %z and %Z: Time zone name; empty if unknown.
• %%: Percent sign.
#echo
Form: 
#echo inserts the value of an XSSI environment variable. XSSI environment
variables include those set using the #set directive, those available for CGI
scripts (see "CGI environment variables" in the "CGI, FastCGI, and ISAPI"
chapter), and five special variables:
• DOCUMENT_NAME: The name of the processed XSSI file.

• DOCUMENT_URI: The virtual path to the current processed file.
76
• DATE_LOCAL: The current local date.

• DATE_GMT: The current date expressed in UTC (coordinated universal time,
formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT).
• LAST_MODIFIED: The last modification date of the processed file expressed
in UTC (coordinated universal time).
If variable_name is not a valid XSSI environment variable, the directive is
ignored.
#exec
Form 1: 
#exec cgi executes a script and inserts its output. If cgi_file begins with
a /, it is considered as a virtual path and the directive will behave as if it is
. If cgi_file does not begin
with a /, it is considered as a relative file name and the server will try to locate
it inside the directory containing the currently processed XSSI file. If it is
found there, #exec cgi will behave as if it is . Otherwise, cgi_file will be searched inside the
virtual paths listed in #exec cgi’ Search Paths in the XSSI Parameters of the
current host.
Form 2: 

#exec cmd executes a shell command and inserts its output. The shell
executable path is found in the system environment variable COMSPEC. If this
variable is empty or does not exist, command.com is used as the default shell.
Note: #exec cmd execution must be used with extreme care. If users can edit or
modify HTML pages in your web sites (which is the case if you have a forum or a
guestbook for instance), you must disable it. In fact, they can include XSSI tags with
dangerous #exec cmd directives and remotely invoke them.
#flastmod
Form 1: 
#flastmod file inserts the last modification date of the file file_name.
file_name is a relative path from the directory containing the processed
XSSI file. It file can only be in the same directory or in one of its subdirectories.
77
Form 2: 

#flastmod virtual inserts the last modification date of the file which
virtual path is virt_path.
#fsize
Form 1: 
#fsize file inserts the size of the file file_name. file_name is a relative
path from the directory containing the processed XSSI file. It can only be in the
same directory or in one of its subdirectories.
Form 2: 

#fsize virtual inserts the size of the content resulting from requesting
virt_path from the server. If virt_path is a static file, its size will be
inserted. If it is a CGI script or a XSSI file, it is evaluated by the server and the
size of the resulting output is inserted.
#include
Form 1: 
#include file instructs the web server to insert a file which must contain
valid HTML contents. file_name is a relative path from the directory
containing the processed XSSI file. The included file can only be in the same
directory or in one of its subdirectories.
Form 2: 

#include virtual inserts the content resulting from requesting
virt_path from the server. If virt_path is a static file, its contents will be
included "as is". If it is a CGI script or a XSSI file, it is evaluated by the server
and the results are inserted. virt_path must contain or generate valid
HTML content.
#printenv
Form: 
#printenv outputs the current CGI environment variables. For more
information, refer to the "CGI environment variables" section.
78
#set
Form: 
#set sets the value of the variable variable_name to variable_value. If
no variable called variable_name exists, it is created before being set. #set
can be used to change the value of CGI variables or any already declared
variable.
Conditional blocks
Syntax
Conditional blocks in XSSI look as follows:

Content to process if test_expr_1 is true

Content to process if test_expr_2 is true
.
.

Content to process if test_expr_n is true

Content to process if all the above tests are false

#elif sections are optional. A conditional block can have zero or many of
them. The #else is optional and a conditional block can have either no
#else or exactly one.
Conditional blocks can be nested.
Expression evaluation
The value of the expr attribute inside #if and #elif directives is considered
as an expression which evaluates to true or false according to these rules:
string
Evaluates to true if string is not empty.
string_1 < string_2
string_1 <= string_2
string_1 > string_2
string_1 >= string_2
string_1 == string_2
Performs a lexicographic comparison between string_1 and string_2.
79
string_1 = string_2
string_1 != string_2
Performs a lexicographic comparison between string_1 and string_2. If
string_2 has the form /regex/, a regular expression matching operation
will take place instead. Matched sub-strings are captured inside the
variables $0, $1, ..., $9. For more information about backreferences, refer
to the "Regular Expressions" appendix.
test_expr_1 && test_expr_2
Evaluates to true if both test_expr_1 and test_expr_2 expressions are true.
test_expr_1 || test_expr_2
Evaluates to true if at least one of the expressions test_expr_1 and
test_expr_2 is true.
! test_expr
Evaluates to true if test_expr is false.
( test_expr )
Evaluates to true if test_expr is true. Parentheses are used to enclose
sub-expressions and supersede the priorities of their operators.
! has higher priority than && and || which at their turn have higher priority
than =, !=, ==, <=, >=, <, and >.
Encoding
In Abyss Web Server, the directives #echo, #exec, #fsize, #flastmod, and
#include accept an optional argument encoding.
The value of this argument determines which conversion method is to be
applied to the output of an XSSI directive. It can be:
• none: No conversion is performed and the output is transmitted without

any modification.
• entity: The output is converted using the XML/HTML escaping: < is
converted to <, > to >, & to &, " to ", and ’ to '.
• url: All non-alphanumerical characters in the output except -_.!~*’()/
are replaced with a percent sign % followed by two hexadecimal digits. This
conversion conforms to the URL encoding scheme as described in
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt and is useful to output well formed
URLs.
• reverse-url: Sequences made of a percent sign % followed by two
hexadecimal digits are decoded according to the URL encoding scheme.
80
If no encoding argument is present in #echo, #fsize, or #flastmod

directives, the server will perform entity conversion.
If the encoding argument is present in #exec or #include directives, the
server will perform no conversion of the output.
Example: Using the encoding argument in #include

<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>XSSI Test</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
The HTML source code of page test.html is:
<PRE></PRE>
</BODY>
</HTML>
81
Chapter 8. Custom Directory
Listings
Directory listings are fully customizable in Abyss Web Server. If you do not
like their standard look, you can provide the server with your listing template.
Advanced users can do better by writing a script to generate custom listings.
Defining a template
A directory listing template is defined by its:
• MIME Type: It is by default text/html; charset=utf-8. Since file

names are provided using the UTF-8 text encoding, the template MIME
type should always contain this text encoding (charset) value.
• Header: It is the header of the listing page that will be rendered.
• Body Line: It is the template of each file or directory line in the listing.
• Footer: It is the footer of the listing page.
When generating a directory listing using a template, the server creates a

special XSSI environment before processing the header, the line description for
every file in the listing, and the footer. So you can (in fact, you should) use
XSSI directives to insert information about every file in the generated page.
While processing the line description for a given file, the server sets the
following environment variables in addition to the standard CGI environment
variables:
• DIRLIST_FILE_NAME: The name of the current file. This name is UTF-8

encoded.
• DIRLIST_FILE_URL: The relative URL of the current file.
• DIRLIST_FILE_SIZE: The size of the current file. It will be conforming to
the current XSSI size format. This parameter can be configured in the XSSI
section of the console or temporarily modified using the  directive. If the current file is a directory,
this variable is set to the - (hyphen) symbol.
• DIRLIST_FILE_DATE: The last modification date of the current file
expressed in UTC (coordinated universal time). It will be conforming to the
current XSSI time format. This parameter can be configured in the XSSI
section of the console or temporarily modified using the  directive.
82
Chapter 8. Custom Directory Listings
• DIRLIST_FILE_LOCAL_DATE: The last modification date of the current file

expressed in local time. It will be conforming to the current XSSI time
format. This parameter can be configured in the XSSI section of the console
or temporarily modified using the  directive.
• DIRLIST_FILE_MIME_TYPE: The MIME type of the current file. If the file
is a directory, the value of this variable is set to Directory.
• DIRLIST_FILE_MIME_MAIN_TYPE: The main MIME type of the current
file. For example, if its MIME type is text/html, this variable will contain
text. If the file is a directory, the value of this variable is set to Directory
• DIRLIST_FILE_MIME_SUB_TYPE: The MIME sub-type of the current file.
For example, if its MIME type of is text/html, this variable will be set to
html. If the file is a directory, the value of this variable will contain
Directory.
• DIRLIST_FILE_TYPE: The type of the current file. It is set to file if the
current file is a regular file, to dir if it is a directory, or to parentdir for
the special directory .. which points to the parent directory
• DIRLIST_FILES_COUNT: The total number of the files in the directory
listing (including the regular files, the directories, and the special directory
.. if available.)
• DIRLIST_FILE_INDEX: The index of the current file in the listing. The
value of this variable is always between 1 and DIRLIST_FILES_COUNT.
Example: A simple directory listing template
• MIME Type:
text/html; charset=utf-8
• Header:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>
Index of 
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR>
<TD>Name</TD>
<TD>Size</TD>
<TD>Date</TD>
<TD>MIME Type</TD>
</TR>
• Body Line:
<TR>
<TD>
<A HREF="">

</A>
</TD>
<TD>  </TD>
<TD>  </TD>
83
<TD>  </TD>

</TR>
• Footer:
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Scripts
When a directory listing is generated through a script, the server gathers the
information related to the files inside the listed directory and packs it in a
special string. Then the script is executed and the special string is POSTed to it
inside a variable called files. The server also POSTs the directory virtual
path in a variable which name is path as well as an URL encoded (escaped)
version of the virtual path in a variable named encoded_path.
This special string passed in the files variable is of the form:
name1−→ url1−→ size1−→ date1−→ MIME-

type1[CR]
name2−→ url2−→ size2−→ date2−→ MIME-

type2[CR]
. . . .
. . . .
namen-1−→ urln-1−→ sizen-1−→ daten-1−→ MIME-typen-
1[CR]
namen−→ urln−→ sizen−→ daten−→ MIME-typen
−→ represents the tabulation character (ASCII code 9 - \t) and [CR]

represents the carriage return character (ASCII code 13 - \n). The tuple
(namei, urli, sizei, datei, MIME-typei) is the information related
to the ith file in the listing.
The name and the URL of every file are UTF-8 encoded. The size is in bytes.
The date is conforming to the format YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss which is
equivalent in strftime semantics to %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.
The MIME type of a directory is empty, i.e. it is equal to the empty string. The
name of a directory contains always a trailing slash.
The script should split the files variable value on the carriage return
characters then split each line on the tabulation character to have the
information related to each file.
84
Example: A very simple directory listing script (PHP version)

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<TITLE>
Index of <?php echo $_POST[’path’]; ?>
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE BORDER="0">
<TR>
<TD>Name</TD>
<TD>Size</TD>
<TD>Date</TD>
<TD>MIME Type</TD>
</TR>
<?php
/* Split and get the lines */

$lines = explode("\n", $_POST[’files’]);
/* For each line do... */

foreach ($lines as $line)
{
/* Split the line and get the file information */
list($name, $url, $size, $date, $mimetype) = explode("\t", $line);
if ($mimetype == "")
$mimetype = "Directory";
echo "<TR><TD><A HREF=\"$url\">" . htmlentities($name) .

"</A></TD><TD>$size</TD><TD>$date</TD><TD>$mimetype</TD></TR>";
}
?>
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Example: A very simple directory listing script (Python version)

import cgi, string, os
posted_data = cgi.FieldStorage()
# Write the CGI header

print "Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8"
print
print "<HTML><HEAD>"
print "<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"Content-Type\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">"
print "<TITLE>Index of %s</TITLE></HEAD>" % posted_data["path"].value
print "<TABLE BORDER=’0’><TR><TD>Name</TD><TD>Size</TD><TD>Date</TD><TD>MIME Type</TD></TR>"
# Split and get the lines

lines = (posted_data["files"].value).split("\n")
# for each line do...

for line in lines:
# Split the line and get the file information
(name, url, size, date, mimetype) = line.split("\t")
if (mimetype == ""):
mimetype = "Directory"
print "<TR><TD><A HREF=\"%s\">%s</A></TD>" % ( url, cgi.escape(name) )

print "<TD>%d</TD><TD>%s</TD><TD>%s</TD></TR>" % (int(size), date, mimetype)
print "</TABLE></BODY></HTML>"
85
Glossary
C
Common Gateway Interface
CGI defines how web servers interact with an external program in order
to generate dynamic content. Such programs can be written in any
programming language including C, Perl and PHP.
H
Host Name
Each computer on a TCP/IP network has usually one or more host names.
Networking software transparently translates them to IP Addresses for
internal use.
HyperText Markup Language
HTML is a markup language used to describe web pages.
HyperText Transfer Protocol
HTTP defines how browsers and web servers communicate over a TCP/IP
network.
I
Internet Protocol
IP is a low level networking protocol. It defines how computers can

exchange messages over a network. IP is usually used in conjunction with
TCP, a higher-level protocol.
86
Glossary
IP Address
An IP Address is a unique identifier for a computer connected to a TCP/IP

network. It is made of four numbers separated by dots. Each number is
between 0 and 255.
S
eXtended Server Side Includes
XSSI are a set of directives that can be included in HTML pages and
processed by the web server to create simple dynamic documents.
T
Transport Control Protocol
TCP is a high level networking protocol. It allows establishment of virtual

connections between computers to send and receive data streams. TCP
relies on IP.
TCP/IP
TCP/IP is a protocol suite developed by the U.S. Department of Defense

for communications between computers. It has become the de facto
standard for data transmission over networks, including the Internet.
TCP and IP are the main protocols of TCP/IP.
U
Universal Resource Locator
An URL is the address of a document or a resource available on the

Internet.
87
Appendix A. Command Line
Parameters
Abyss Web Server command line parameters are as follows:
abyssws [-h] [-c configuration file] [-p console

port] [--service-install] [--service-uninstall] [--stop] [--service]
• -h: Display the command line parameters help.

• -c: Specify an alternate configuration file. If the file does not exist, it is
created and filled with the default options values.
• -p: Specify an alternate console port. It overrides the console port value in
the configuration file.
• --service-install: Install Abyss Web Server as a system service.
• --service-uninstall: Remove Abyss Web Server from the system
services list.
• --stop: Send a stop signal to the currently running instance of Abyss Web
Server.
• --service: Run the server as a system service. Abyss Web Server is
executed in the background with no user interaction and no messages or
windows are displayed on the screen.
88
Appendix B. Startup
Configuration
Select Startup Configuration in the Server menu to choose how Abyss Web
Server should start up. The displayed dialog offers the following choices:
• Manual startup: Abyss Web Server is to be launched manually by the user

(by double-clicking on its icon for example.)
• Automatic startup on user logon: Abyss Web Server is automatically
launched when a user session is started.
• Install as a System Service: Abyss Web Server is installed as a Windows
system service. This choice is not supported on Windows 95, 98, and
Millennium Edition (ME) due to the operating system limitations. Check
Start automatically on computer startup to have Abyss Web Server
launched automatically at computer boot time without requiring having a
user logged on.
89
Appendix C. IP Addresses and
Ranges Format
IPv4 Addresses and Ranges

An IPv4 address is made of 4 numbers separated by dots as in
aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd, each number ranges from 0 to 255.
An IPv4 address range must conform to one of the following forms:
• *: the range includes all valid IP addresses,

• aaa.*: the range includes the IPv4 addresses which first part is equal to
aaa,
• aaa.bbb.*: the range includes the IPv4 addresses which first and second
parts are respectively equal to aaa and bbb,
• aaa.bbb.ccc.*: the range includes the IPv4 addresses which first,
second, and third parts are respectively equal to aaa, bbb, and ccc,
• aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd-iii.jjj.kkk.lll: the range includes the IPv4
addresses between aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd and iii.jjj.kkk.lll,
• aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/n: the range includes all the IPv4 addresses that
belong to the subnet which network prefix or CIDR (Classless Interdomain
Routing) notation is aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/n. An IPv4 address that is
included in this range has its first n bits identical to the first n bits of
aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd,
• aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd-iii.jjj.kkk.lll/n: An IPv4 address that is
included in this range is comprised between aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd and
iii.jjj.kkk.lll, and has its first n bits identical to the first n bits of
aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd and iii.jjj.kkk.lll.
Example: CIDR Notation Example

220.78.168.0/21 represents IPv4 addresses between 220.78.168.0 and
220.78.175.255. Actually, 220.78.168.0 in binary is 11011100 01001110
10101000 00000000. So 220.78.168.0/21 includes all the IPv4 addresses which
21 first bits are 11011100 01001110 10101. Therefore, it represents the range
220.78.168.0-220.78.175.255 (in binary 11011100 01001110 10101000
00000000 - 11011100 01001110 10101111 11111111.)
90
Appendix C. IP Addresses and Ranges Format
IPv6 Addresses and Ranges

An IPv6 address is made of 8 groups of 16-bit hexadecimal values separated
by colons as in 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334.
IPv6 addresses can be abbreviated by omitting leading zeroes in 16-bit values
and by replacing each group of consecutive zeroes by a double colon. As such,
2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 is equivalent to
2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334.
An IPv6 address range must conform to one of the following forms:
• *: the range includes all valid IP addresses,

• ipA-ipB: the range includes the IPv6 addresses between ipA and ipB,
• ipA/n: the range includes all the IPv6 addresses which first n bits are
identical to the first n bits of ipA,
• ipA-ipB/n: An IPv6 address that is included in this range is comprised
between ipA and ipB, and has its first n bits identical to the first n bits of
ipA and ipB.
91
Appendix D. Patterns Format
When matching a string (a sequence of characters containing an extension or a
virtual path) with a pattern, the following rules apply:
• * matches any sequence of characters with any length (zero or more),

• ? matches any character,
• [set] matches any character in the specified set,
• [!set] or [^set] matches any character not in the specified set,
• \ suppresses the syntactic significance of a special character.
A set is made of characters or ranges. A range is formed by two characters

with a - in the middle (as in 0-9 or a-z).
Preceding a special character with \ makes it loose its syntactic significance
and match that character exactly. The special characters are []*?!^-\.
Example: Examples of Patterns
• *: any string including the empty string matches with this pattern.
• *.*: list.txt and holiday.jpeg match while my-directory doesn’t.
• /*.php: /hello.php and /mysite/scripts/test.php match but
/mysite/test2.pl doesn’t.
• /*/*.php: /mysite/test.php and /mysite/scripts/test.php
match with this pattern while /test.php doesn’t.
• mp?: Any 3 character long string that begins with mp matches.
• ?????: Any 5 character long string matches.
• mp[2-4]: Only mp2, mp3, and mp4 match.
• mp[!2-4]: All 3 character long strings that begin with mp match except mp2,
mp3, and mp4.
• mp[2-4g]: Only mp2, mp3, mp4, and mpg match.
• mp[2\-4]file: Only mp2file, mp-file, and mp4file match.
92
Appendix E. Regular Expressions
Regular expressions in Abyss Web Server conform to the PCRE syntax (Perl
Compatible Regular Expressions). This appendix is a quick guide to
understand the basics of regular expressions. For an extensive description of
their syntax, refer to the PCREPATTERN section in
http://pcre.org/pcre.txt.
When matching a string (a sequence of characters) with a regular expression,
the following rules apply:
• . matches any character,

• * repeats the previous match zero or more times,
• + repeats the previous match one or more times,
• ? repeats the previous match zero or one time at most,
• {n,m} repeats the previous match n times at least and m times at most (n
and m are positive integers),
• {n} repeats the previous match exactly n times,
• {n,} repeats the previous match n times at least,
• {,m} repeats the previous match m times at most,
• ^ is an anchor which matches with the beginning of a string,
• $ is an anchor which matches with the end of a string,
• [set] matches any character in the specified set,
• [^set] matches any character not in the specified set,
• \ suppresses the syntactic significance of a special character,
• (expression) groups the characters between the parentheses into a single
unit and captures a match for later use as a backreference ($1, ... , $9).
A set is made of characters or ranges. A range is formed by two characters

with a - in the middle (as in 0-9 or a-z).
Preceding a special character with \ makes it loose its syntactic significance
and match that character exactly. Outside a set, the special characters are
()[]{}.*+?^$\. Inside a set, the special characters are []\-^.
Example: Examples of Regular Expressions
• abc: any string containing the substring abc matches with this regular
expression.
• abcd*: any string containing the substring abc followed by zero or more d
characters matches with this regular expression.
93
Appendix E. Regular Expressions
• abcd?: any string containing the substring abc or abcd matches with this
regular expression.
• ab(cd)?: any string containing the substring ab or abcd matches with this
regular expression.
• ^/dir: any string starting with the substring /dir matches with this regular
expression.
• \.exe$: any string ending with the substring .exe matches with this regular
expression. Note here that the character . has been escaped to remove its special
meaning.
• ^/dir/.*\.exe$: any string beginning with /dir and ending with .exe
matches with this regular expression.
• ^/dir/[^./]+\.exe$: any string starting with /dir followed by 1 or more
characters except . and /, and followed by .exe matches with this regular
expression.
Example: Examples of Backreferences
• /dir/test.exe matches with ^/dir/([^./]+)\.exe$. This regular

expression has a single group ([^./]+) which defines the backreference $1. In
this case, $1’s value is test.
• /dir/test.exec matches with /dir/([^./]+)\.(exe.*)$. This regular
expression has two groups: ([^./]+) which defines the backreference $1, and
(exe.*) which defines the backreference $2. In this case, $1’s value is test and
$2’s value is exec.
94
Appendix F. Uninstalling The
Software
To run the uninstaller, open the Start menu, choose Programs, then Abyss
Web Server and select Uninstall. An alternative way is to open the
Add/Remove Programs section in the Window’s Control Panel, select Abyss
Web Server from the dialog’s list box and press Install/Uninstall. . . .
Follow the on-screen information to remove Abyss Web Server. The
uninstaller may ask you if you wish to completely delete Abyss Web Server’s
directory. Be careful! If you confirm, it erases the server’s configuration file
and eventually the hosted web site.
95
Appendix G. Solving Ports
Listening Problems
TCP/IP ports range from 1 to 65535. Abyss Web Server reports a listening
problem on a port when one of the following situations is happening:
• Another instance of Abyss Web Server is already running on your computer.

• The port is already used by another application: Try stopping the other
applications running on your computer to know which one is already using
this port. More specifically, port 80 is usually used by other web servers. So
if Abyss Web Server cannot listen to this port, there are chances that another
web server is already running. Some Windows versions install by default
Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) which uses port 80. If you do not
use IIS, disable it or uninstall it to free this port.
An alternative solution would be to configure Abyss Web Server to use

another web host or console port. For more information about changing the
host port, refer to "Hosts Management".
If you have to change the console port, select Settings. . . in the main window,
enter a new value in the Port field , press OK and confirm starting the server.
96
Appendix H. Troubleshooting
Guide
1. The console or the web site cannot be accessed from the computer on which
Abyss Web Server is running.
If you cannot browse 127.0.0.1, ::1, or localhost, check if you have
configured a HTTP proxy in the browser. If so, disable proxy usage for
127.0.0.1, ::1, and localhost.
2. Abyss Web Server reports the following error at startup: "Cannot start the
host XYZ (listening problem)"
This error arises when the XYZ’s host port is already used by another
application or if you do not have the privilege to use it. You have to choose
another port for the host using the console. Refer to "Solving Ports Listening
Problems" for more information.
3. Abyss Web Server reports the following error at startup: "Cannot start the
console (listening problem)"
This error occurs when the console port is already used by another application
or if you do not have the privilege to use it. Refer also to "Solving Ports
Listening Problems" for more information.
97

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USER’S GUIDE

Abyss Web Server TM

Revision 1.0.3 May 10, 2002

Revision 1.0.7 July 1, 2002

Revision 1.1.0 October 3, 2002

Revision 1.1.6 July 7, 2003

Revision 1.2.0 b1 October 18, 2003

Revision 1.2.0 b2 November 10, 2003

Revision 2.0.0 b2 August 28, 2004

Revision 2.0.0 b3 November 3, 2004

Revision 2.0.0 February 18, 2005

Revision 2.0.1 April 20, 2005

Revision 2.0.6 June 10, 2005

Revision 2.3.0 b1 January 12, 2006

Revision 2.3.1 May 08, 2006

Revision 2.3.2 May 21, 2006

Revision 2.4.0 b1 November 8, 2006

Revision 2.4.0 b2 November 30, 2006

Revision 2.4.0.3 January 1, 2007

Revision 2.4.9 June 28, 2007

Revision 2.4.9.8 July 17, 2007

Revision 2.5 August 22, 2007

Revision 2.6 January 6, 2009

Revision 2.7 April 12, 2011

Revision 2.8 April 24, 2012

Revision 2.9 May 24, 2013

Revision 2.9.3 March 27, 2014

Revision 2.10 May 20, 2015

Revision 2.11 March 15, 2016

Revision 2.11.8 December 11, 2017

• An Intel 80486 processor at 33 MHz.

Although Abyss Web Server can run on a standalone computer, it is

What you should know

Chapter quick reference

Conventions used in this guide

What is Abyss Web Server?

How do web servers work?

Getting the software

Installing/Upgrading the software

Figure 2-1. Abyss Web Server main window

Figure 2-2. Abyss Web Server icon in the system tray

Figure 2-3. Configuration file creation notification

Figure 2-4. Console Language setup

Figure 2-5. Console Access Credentials setup

Figure 2-6. Credentials dialog

Setting up a web site

Shutting down the server

Asking for support

What is the console?

• Configure Abyss Web Server.

Accessing the console

Figure 3-1. Console homepage

Console interface basics

Applying configuration changes

Figure 3-2. Console Configuration dialog

Changing the console port and protocol

Figure 3-3. Console Parameters dialog

• Bind to IP Address: The IP address of the network interface that the

Changing the console access credentials