AOLserver Answers -- 10/10/2000
Getting AOLserver
Building AOLserver
Obtaining the 128-bit SSL Module (nsssl)
Installing AOLserver
Database Access
Getting Help
Contributing Software
Contributing Patches
Getting AOLserver
AOLserver binary builds for many platforms are at http://aolserver.com/
AOLserver is open-source. The source code is hosted at Source Forge and can
be found at the following locations:
Building AOLserver
AOLserver builds very easily and the Installationdocument
describes the process. We recommend that you use the defaults in include/Makefile.global
when building your module. This file contains rules and knows how to build
modules properly for all platforms AOLserver has been ported to. To link
a shared object, we recommend the default which is:
gcc -shared -nostartfiles
On some Solaris installations the Cygnus compiler is unable to build working
shared objects. We're told that if you put the -Wl,-E option in the nsd/Makefile
when linking the executable, Cygnus works, but we have not verified this
successfully. GCC from just about anywhere else willwork. You can
get a pre-built copy of GCC 2.95.2 from http://www.sunfreeware.com/or
build your own from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/. Just install
it and put a link to the new gcc in /usr/local/bin (keep the broken Cygnus
in /usr/cygnus/bin in case you need it).
HINT: The magic option to GCC for the compiling step is "-fPIC", so if you're
using a third-party library, make sure "-fPIC" appears in the CFLAGS. And,
to eliminate the possibility of strange behavior, it's helpful but not necessary
to build everything with the same compiler and using the same options.
If you're using a third-party library for which no source code is available,
you may run into problems if the vendor did not build it with the equivalent
of "-fPIC" on their compiler. Shared objects must be position-independent.
Obtaining the 128-bit SSL Module
AOLserver supports two levels of SSL for "https" connections -- the export
version, which has a 40-bit secret key and a 512-bit public keypair, and
the domestic version, which has a 128-bit secret key and a 1024-bit public
key.
The 128-bit/1024-bit domestic version can be requested by sending mail to
nsssl-request@aolserver.com. We are not allowed to give this software to
anyone but citizens or naturalized citizens of the United States. You are
not allowed to give it to people outside the USA or who are nationals of
countries embargoed by the United States Government.
The 40-bit/512-bit version can be found at http://aolserver.com/as
part of the regular AOLserver source and binary distributions.
Installing AOLserver
Installing AOLserver is very straightforward and is covered in the Installationdocument.
Database Access
AOLserver works with a great many databases including all the popular enterprise
systems.
Sybase Proxy Daemon (nssybpd)
The nssybpd connects AOLserver to a Sybase database. America Online does
not have a license to distribute the binary builds of this code externally
(and neither does anyone else). The source code is located in the "nssybpd/"
directory of the AOLserver source tree at Source Forge and requires the
Sybase Client Libraries to build.
Getting Help
AOLserver has an active developer community as well as a very active user
community. Links to these areas are at http://aolserver.com/help/.
Contributing Software
AOLserver is extremely extensible and we host a great many community-contributed
modules at http://aolserver.com/modules/. You
can contribute your software by following the guidelines on that page.
Contributing Patches
We accept any form of patches at bugs@aolserver.com. We request that your
patch include a test case and, if possible, a context diff against a tagged
version of the AOLserver source code. In lieu of a test case we can also
accept a narrative describing the problem in detail.