Embedded HTTP server

Wandora has a built-in simple http server that can be used to browse a topic map with any web browser or share a topic map.

Note that this server is not designed for large scale web applications, you should use Wandora Piccolo framework and a real servlet container such as Apache Tomcat for that. See Setting up Wandora Piccolo server for more information.

You can configure several different services on the built-in server. These provide different methods of access to the open topic map. These include browsing the topic map through HTML pages, a SOAP based web service access, an RSS feed, a special service for Wandora Drupal extras and a service for the Wandora Firefox plugin. These are explained in more detail below.

Configuring the HTTP server

To configure the server, select the Server menu and choose Server settings. The server should work in port 8898 with default settings and allow anonymous but local only connections.

Option	Description
Auto start	Check this option to have the HTTP server start automatically whenever you start Wandora.
Port	The port used by the server.
Local only	Check this to only allow local connections. If this is checked, you will most likely need to use the loopback address (127.0.0.1 or localhost) to be able to connect. It is recommended that you either keep this checked or otherwise limit access to the server for example with a firewall. The service specific settings have a similar option. If the global local only option is set then all services are only available through local connection regardless of their settings. If the global option is not set, then the service specific settings are used.
Use SSL	If this is checked, the server will use SSL encryption. This option does not work out of the box. You will need to setup the certificate and encryption keys first. This is done using the keytool utility that should be in bin directory of your Java Development Kit. For example: keytool -genkey -keystore storefile -keyalg RSA After you have generated the certificate you need to run java with the following parameters: -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=storefile -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=password
Server path	The path that contains the service configuration files. You will need to completely restart Wandora after changing this.

In addition to the global server settings, each service has their own settings. Some of these options are common to all services.

Option	Description
Enabled	Use this to enable or disable this service.
Local only	Check this to only allow local connections. See the server wide similar option for more details.
User	You can provide a user name and password required to login to the service. Note that these are stored in plain text in the options file. Also, unless you use the SSL option, they are also sent in plain text through the net.
Password	See User above.
Handler	The Java class that handles this service. Leave blank for the default handler.

Depending on the chosen handler, there may be other service specific options too. These are explained below.

Starting the server

After you have configured the server you can start it by selecting Server menu and choosing Start server. You can also click the icon in lower right corner. This icon will also indicate server status. Red circle means that server is disabled, green means that the server is running, bright green means that the server handled a request less than one second ago.

If you checked the Auto start option, the server will start automatically whenever you start Wandora.

Services

The URL used to access the services should be of the form http://host:port/servicename. For example for the HTML browser access (service name is topic) at localhost and the default port use http://localhost:8898/topic. After this add any service specific path or parameters.

HTML browser access (topic)

This service provides a HTML access to the current topic map. You can use it to browse the entire topic map. On default settings open http://localhost:8898/topic to access the service. This will open the same topic that is currently open in the application itself. You can also

To see other than currently open topic, use get parameter topic with the subject identifier of the topic you would like to see. For example http://localhost:8898/topic?topic=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wandora.org%2Fcore%2Fschema-type . The default templates will produce links to all other related topics using this link format allowing very easy browsing of the topic map. Image below shows Schema type topic served by the this service.

This service uses Apache velocity to serve the pages. This means that it can also be used to server pages in other formats than HTML. The template used to build the pages can be changed in the service specific options. This template should be in the templates directory under the service specific directory. You can also place any static content needed for the pages in the static directory. You do not need to add the static in the path, just add the file name after the service name. For example http://localhost:8898/topic/wandora_logo.gif for the Wandora logo at the lower part of the page.

This is also the default handler for services unless something else is specified in the service specific options.

SOAP Web service access (axis)

This service provides a SOAP based web service for the topic map. You can get the WSDL file from http://localhost:8898/axis/services/TopicMapService?wsdl .

You can also use the web service with just HTTP GET method without sending the SOAP content in POST. For example http://localhost:8898/axis/services/TopicMapService/getTopic?si=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wandora.org%2Fcore%2Fschema-type&full=true . Just add the method name after TopicMapService/ and the parameters needed for the method as GET parameters.

You can also get the response in JSON format by if you use the outputType parameter and pass "application/json/badgerfish". For example http://localhost:8898/axis/services/TopicMapService/getTopic?si=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wandora.org%2Fcore%2Fschema-type&full=true&outputType=application/json/badgerfish .

Drupal access (drupal_atom)

This service provides an Atom feed for the Wandora Drupal extras module. See the module page for details on how to set up this. This service uses the default service handler, see notes at #HTML browser access (Topic) for more details.

Wandora Firefox plugin access (plugin)

This service provides access for Wandora Firefox plugin. See the plugin page for more details.

RSS feed (rss)

This service provides an RSS feed of the instances of the currently open or specified topic. It uses the same default handler as the HTML service but with a different template. See notes at #HTML browser access (Topic) for more details.