server side includes

Is it possible to have a server side include include a file from a different branch?

Our intranet has a different branch for each group that writes content, but I want to have a template that includes files from the root branch. Since a ssi doesn't go through the proxy server, I can't use any url remapping.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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tvaughan

I've got SSIs in a different branch (the 'share' branch) and I got the proxy server to behave correctly. Here's a section of my iw.cfg that might help:


#
[iwproxy_plugin_remap]
_debug=false

#
#  /cr-corpweb -> corporate/corpweb
#
_regex=WORKAREA/(.*)/cr-corpweb/include/(.*)=/iw-mount/default/main/homefront/corporate/corpweb/WORKAREA/$1/include/$2

_regex=cr-corpweb/include/(.*)=/iw-mount/default/main/homefront/corporate/corpweb/STAGING/content/include/$1

#
#  /cr-employee -> corporate/employee
#
_regex=WORKAREA/(.*)/cr-employee/include/(.*)=/iw-mount/default/main/homefront/corporate/employee/WORKAREA/$1/include/$2

_regex=cr-employee/include/(.*)=/iw-mount/default/main/homefront/corporate/employee/STAGING/content/include/$1

Note that these regexs are under the [iwproxy_plugin_remap] section. The first example basically says "If you're in a WORKAREA and you ask for some /cr-corpweb/include file, then really get the include from your WORKAREA in this homefront/corporate/corpweb branch." The second example says "If you're not in your WORKAREA, and ask for the same include, go get it from the STAGING area in homefront/corporate/corpweb"

The reason there are two versions of this /cr-corpweb/include regex is because if you're a content contributor and want to change both content and includes, I'll let you do that by redirecting your requests to your WORKAREA (where your under-construction work can remain unsubmitted).

Otherwise, if a request comes in from outside of a WORKAREA, I don't make any assumptions about the requestor having a WORKAREA in the corpweb branch, so I redirect the request to the STAGING area.

Kinda confusing, but it'll make sense in time.

Tom

laj1

Question:
Why did you choose plugin_remap, instaed of proxy_remap or proxy_redirect?

Thanks.
Len.

Len Jaffe
My Hear Is A Flower

Ottawa_IWOV

If you are running you include through a .tpl does this mean you still have to use <iw_include file> to parse the includes?

Thanks.

Lucas Cochrane
lcochrane@dc.com

jeremystitt

Tom-

Thanks a ton for your post. Once you mentioned the iwproxy_plugin_remap section, I was able to find some documentation on it. Your examples along with the documentation showed me exactly what to do.

One thing I did fight with for a while is that any changes to the iwproxy_plugin_remap section do not go into effect until the web server (in my case IIS) has been restarted. But once I restarted IIS, it worked like a champ.

Thanks again!

Ottawa_IWOV

I guess my question is....

Do you have to have the includes directory PRESENT in your WORKAREA for server side includes to work? If I delete the directories after I have the [iwproxy_plugin_remap] working everything is hunky dory, but when I RE-GENRATE the file, Teamsite templating says it cannot find the directory in the WORKAREA which holds the includes. This technique works fine for images and style sheets but not includes...

Am I missing something???

Thanks.

Lucas Cochrane
lcochrane@dc.com

tvaughan

Hi Laj,

It's my understanding that SSI's don't get translated through those sections-- that's only for plain-Jane content.

I could only get SSIs to work in the [iwproxy_plugin_remap] section.

Tom

tvaughan

The SSIs can live wherever you redirect the preview server to find them. . . .they don't have to be in your WORKAREA. For example, in my setup I have a 'corporate' branch for all the corporation's web pages and a 'share' branch for the more tightly-restricted set of global images, includes, and headers used by the corporate pages.

The share branch is purely a TeamSite construct-- there's no such directory on our web servers.

So what I do is have regex's that map any request coming from the corporate branch that starts with /include to point over to the share branch's STAGING/include directory.

Does that make sense?

If you're having problems during the preview, I'd try a couple things:

1) Compile the DCR via the command line with the iwpt_compile.ipl script and save the resulting executable off to some file like this:

iwpt_compile.ipl -pt something -ofile something -ocode ****.ipl

Then check out the contents of ****.ipl and see where the SSI is being called from.

2) Alternatively, if you generate the HTML and save it to your WORKAREA, tail the web server's error logs and watch what flies by. I'm using iPlanet Web Server and I usually get something like this:


[25/Oct/2002:11:27:53] failure ( 4887): for host aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd trying to GET 
/iw-mount/default/main/mycompany/share/STAGING/content/include/homeown/homeown_hdr_consumers_creditsmart_esp.html,
 parse-html reports: 
Unable to open 
/iwmnt/default/main/mycompany/share/STAGING/content/include/homeown/homeown_hdr_consumers_creditsmart_esp.html 
for reading

The first error tells me what TeamSite was requesting, and the second error tells me what the web server got as a translated request. You'll want to figure out why the first error message isn't matching some regex in your iw.cfg and therefore isn't get translated to a valid path (which is what the second error message is complaining about).

Last, but not least, try killing your iwproxy process and restarting it with the -d flag. . . .

iwproxy -d > /tmp/proxy.output

That gives you some confusing **** insight to the workings of the HTTP redirects.

Good luck,
Tom