[Zope] Newbie: Publishing directories

[Jay, Dylan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Larry Luther [mailto:l.luther@acm.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 16:39
> To: zope@zope.org
> Subject: [Zope] Newbie: Publishing directories
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
>     I am trying to understand how I could have a dhtml page
> offer a link to a file on another machine via a network path.
> 
>     Given:
>       * Window NT 4.0 workstation environment.
>       * Zope 1.10.3 tied to IIS server via "cgi-bin".
> 
>     I've read:
>       * Zope only publishes data uploaded to it.
>       * That work is being done on products that
>         would allow external html directories to be
>         linked into Zope's html object hierarchy.
>         This future solution might solve my problem
>         if they allowed network path names.
>       * That an external Python method could be written that
>         would read the network file and offer it as
>         a local object.
> 
>     I've tried:
>       * "file:\\othermachine\foobar.html" (in a link)
>         This works for anyone on the local network but not
>         for anyone on the outside.  (I knew it wouldn't
>         but offer it as an indicator of what I'm trying to do.
> 
>     Questions:
>       * Is my understanding of the state of affairs correct?
>       * Does IIS offer a solution?

If you want to serve up a file you need 2 things:
1) A server of some kind that will make the file available
2) A client that has the ability to connect to the server

A web server is one kind of server. The microsoft network is another kind of
server. MS stuff only works on a local lan. Web servers work over TCP/IP. So
basically if you have clients with web browsers that are not on the local
lan just put a web browser on each of the machines you want to server from.
An alternative is to have a cgi script on your central web server that reads
the file off the network and outputs it out. This has sequrity risks and is
a bit dodgy but it will probably work.