Forum Moderators: phranque

Message Too Old, No Replies

Migrate from Win2003/IIS6 to Win2003/Apache

Basically I want to get rid of IIS and move to apache

         

Seer

11:19 am on Oct 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I really want to move my website onto apache rather than IIS. Its a win2k3 server running IIS6 at the moment.
The site itself consists of mostly .shtml pages using coranto (cgi) as a the news scripter. There is a php gallery to keep and a few java scripts which are not significant.

Software-wise I have really just IIS6, PHP, Imagemagic (for the gallery) but also webmail running from exchange 2003 on there to consider.

So a few questions

1. Is it possible to run apache and iis side-by side and just switch one off when switching the other on (surely the ideal for migration and testing?)

2. Is it gonna be possible to do this without reinstalling the whole machine! Can I just uninstall IIS and install apache, fiddle a few settings and fly?

3. Can Exhange 2003 webmail run using apache?

These will do for starters but if you have any advice please let me know :)

gergoe

6:06 pm on Oct 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



1.)
Is it more than possible, but you need to know one thing before you run into the very common problem of the port pooling of the IIS. If you configure IIS to listen on port 80 one certain ip address only, IIS will bind itself to all of the ip addresses, regardless of what ip addresses you specified for the different virtual servers, making it impossible to run both IIS and Apache on port 80 on separate ip addresses. Do some googling on this "port pooling" topic if you're interested in this. Other solution is to put the Apache on port 8080 for example -then you'll not have this problem with the port pooling- and once you are ready to switch to Apache shut down and disable the IIS services ("IIS Admin", "World Wide Web Publishing" and perhaps the IIS built in ftp server); change the port in Apache back to 80 and finished.

2.)
See above; why you want to brother uninstalling it? Disable the services and it will not interfere with Apache at all.

3.)
That's a difficult question, which I can't answer; perhaps someone else knows it better. If you're interested on my idea about it, then I don't think so, Microsoft is usually aren't working with/for other software vendors, especially not with Apache Group. So likely if you want to keep the exchange webmail running you have the following choices (in the order of my recommendation):
a.) Use the services on different ip addresses on port 80, one ip address for apache, one ip address for the IIS (w/ exchange), but then you need to disable the port pooling mentioned in #1. This is the easiest, most convenient way
b.) Buy another mail server which has a standalone webmail interface or compatible with Apache
c.) Use the Apache on port 80, and put the IIS on port [whatever]
d.) Same as point c, but define a proxy on the apache and put the IIS behind an Apache proxy. Might be secure because of the stealth operation of the IIS behind the Apache, but waste of resources
There might be some more choice, but I think this is already enough.

Good luck

Seer

9:37 pm on Oct 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Brilliant advice all round :)

1. I have been playing with this tonight and everything is running no problems (well once I figure out SSI's in apache!)

2. Absolutely - this was a sort of 'if 1 isnt possiblem then can i do this'

3. I like idea C as it sounds the simplest :) Ill do some messing around and will have time for a thorough msdn search tomorrow. But its simple enough to pick a port and forward it hey presto (As long as authentication still works ... I dont see why not!)

So thanks very much for your assistance its appreciated - I have only even used apache briefly and unfortunately my company always insists on IIS :/ so now i have a home rig I can get this learning in :)