COP3832  Section 01
Advanced Web Server Communication
Spring 2002

Homework Grading Policy
Each assignment (6 or 7)		0 to 20 points
Exams and Assignments
	Exam 1	Exam 2	Homework
% of Grade	30%	40%	30%
Dates	Wednesday, 2/20	Wednesday, 4/24 1230-1515	Various
Texts
CGI Programming with Perl, Second Edition; Guelich, Gundavaram, Birnieks; O'Reilly, 2000
Learning Perl, Third Edition; Schwartz & Christiansen, O'Reilly, 2001
On-line References
HTML Reference Apache Reference PERL Reference CSS 1 Reference CSS 2 Reference
Room and Time
ECS-143 MW 1400-1515

Attendance I recommend that you attend every class. Those who attend class have a better chance of passing the course.

Prerequisites COP2210 or equivalent course, CGS3559 or equivalent kowledge.

Late Assignment Policy Assignments are due at the START of class. You lose 1 point off the grade for every 6 hours. You may hand in a nassignment up to 1 week late, I will start the grading for very late assignments at 12 points (60%).

Working Together on Assignments is NOT ALLOWED. There is a large difference between discussing general aspects of the course and discussing specific aspects of an assignment. Do not discuss your solution of a problem with others. Assignments that are too similar will not be graded. With a second occurrence, you will earn an F in the course.

Things you should already know

• How to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to upload files
• How to use Telnet to connect to a remote computer
• A programming language: C, C++, Java, or Pascal. Please note that Visual Basic is probably not enough of a background for this course
• How to use a web browser
• How to use email

Course Content

1. Getting started- UNIX, HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (3 lectures)

   • UNIX commands.
   • Solix and JCCL accounts
   • Configuring solix to display your home page.
   • Creating Hypertext Documents - HTML, character styles, paragraph styles, lists, images, tables, hypertext links.
   • Cascading Style Sheets
   • HTML Reference
   • CSS 1 Reference
   • CSS 2 Reference

2. Introduction to Perl - Perl Chapters 2, 3, 5, 11 (4 lectures)

   • Scalar Data
   • Arrays and List Data
   • Control Structures
   • Hashes
   • Basic I/O
   • Filehandles
   • PERL Reference
3. Introduction to CGI - CGI Chapters 1-3 (3 lectures)
   • HTTP Overview
   • Invoking CGI scripts - configured by extension
   • HTTP - Requests and Responses
   • Content Negotiation
   • CGI Environment
   • CGI Output

4. Configuring a web server (2-3 lectures)

   • TCP/IP, IP addresses, Domain Names, MIME, Daemons
   • Creating a Web site on mongoose
   • Configuring and starting a server
   • Access controls, Log files
   • Aliases, Scripting, Log Files, Connection Types, Negotiation, Indexes
   • Apache Reference

5. Advanced scripting and CGI - PERL Chapters 4, 7-9, 14; CGI Chapters 4-6, 8-11 (8-9 lectures)

   • Regular Expressions
   • Functions
   • Process Management
   • Forms and CGI
   • Maintaining State
   • CGI.pm
   • SSI
   • Data Persistance
   • Perl Database Manipulation
   • Security
   • Sending Email

In a nutshell, you will learn about both sides of the web - the browser side and the server side. The browser side is partially covered in the Intro to the Internet prerequisite: HTML. You will learn more HTML and CSS. On the server side, you will learn how to configure a web server. You will run your own copy of a web server and investigate the how to restrict access to your server. You will also learn a programming language that is similar to C++ that runs on the server. Through the use of a programming language that runs from the server, you will be able to have your web pages interact with the user and save data on the server.