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Switching Painlessly from IIS to Apache?

Posted by Cliff on from the wormproofing-your-web dept.

Sheik Yerboutii asks: "The recent downtime caused by the Code Red and NIMDA worms has prompted my Manager to start considering moving away from IIS to Apache. I've been tasked with finding out just how difficult it will be to move to the new webserver. I've got to find out things like how to install and configure it (relatively easy, it's all documented at www.apache.org) but also, things like what do we de now that we've been working in VBScript ASP for about 6 moths?" We posted a similar question to this one, just over a year ago. Any changes or additions to the advice given in that discussion?

"I've read that Apache::ASP exists and that's got something to do with mod_perl but now I'm going in circles figuring out how to make this thing work. I also can't find straight answers on things like if we make the cut over, will we have to convert the VBScript ASP to Perl ASP?

Can anyone relay their experiences with cutting from IIS to Apache? Running ASP with Apache? Most importantly, what are the best resources available for Apache administrators? (hopefully something with a discussion forum)"

5 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Before taking the plunge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    As bad as the recent IIS worms have been, has your boss done a cost/benefit analysis of converting completely over to Apache? Depending upon how much your company has invested in VBScript ASP code, it may not be worth the extra investment to switch.

    Of course, if the codebase is relatively small, rewriting the ASP stuff in Perl or Python or C or PHP or... would be an easier task. (Not that I'd want to do it...)

  2. AFAIK... by cmowire · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Apache::ASP will, AFAIK, only work with PERL ASP code. ChiliSoft will do VBScript ASP code.

    i.e. you either use ChiliSoft or do a rewrite of your code base.

    The ActiveScripting people have some good options under Windows that might be helpful if you want to maximize code reuse.

    --
    Gentoo Sucks
  3. ChiliSoft ASP by wesmills · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ChiliSoft ASP is absolutely amazing. I moved several web sites from IIS to Apache, all of whom use FrontPage extensions and ASP, connecting to MySQL. The 3.6.0 release has a bundle install that will do Apache 1.3.12, FPSE 2000 (V4) and the ASP engine. Just let it run, copy your files over, and configure the DSNs with a handy web-based admin console.

    No, I don't work for them, but the $500 I spent was well worth it. If you want to see it in action, e-mail me privately and I'll give you a login to poke around.

  4. Re:asp2php by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    i tried asp2php at a place where i used to work. it does really well on most ASP, but for me anyways it barfed on things like ActiveX and DB things. my job at this place was to convert a massive amount of ASP(100-200 pages, some were 600 lines long) to PHP and it took about 3 months(i had never seen ASP before). When it was all said and done the PHP ran more reliably and faster than the comprable ASP... even under IIS and the switch to Apache/Linux was even more dramatic. I think that the time that i spent doing the conversion was well worth it.

  5. Apache configuration for dummies? by frankie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The non-profit that I work for can't afford to add a bearded Unix guy to the payroll. The IT staff is me and couple people who mainly know Windows and a little Netware.

    The rest of the group would rather just keep patching IIS every couple weeks, because the setup is trivial point and click. Twiddling with .conf files doesn't excite them.

    Suggestions?