Virtual Host support on the embedded HTTP server

[David M. Lloyd]

If you want to.  I also have another variation where there's a 
HttpVirtualHost subclass of HttpHost, which includes a "close()" method 
which removes the virtual host.  That might make things a little more clear.

Just specifying the host name is OK for some cases, but not for cases where 
you want to respond to "*.foo.com" with one "host", and "*.bar.com" with 
another, for example (which I think may be common even in simple 
installations - think pastebins, etc.).  Also it doesn't help with IP-based 
virtual hosts, with which you'd have to run multiple instances, including 
one bound to 0.0.0.0 to catch the "default" case.

Either way I don't see it affecting HttpsServer in any way, since virtual 
hosts have long been known not to work with HTTPS.  I suppose the exception 
would be supporting IP-based virtual hosts.

Well, either way I'd be happy taking your simple host-based idea and 
expanding it to support some kind of patterns - that would meet my use cases.

- DML

On 12/14/2009 07:28 AM, Christopher Hegarty - Sun Microsystems Ireland wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> I looked at the proposal and it looks pretty good, I just have a few
> concerns.
>
> HttpHost can be a virtual or real host, and HttpServer is an instance of
> a HTTP server running a virtual host. I think this concept is used in
> webservers like apache and Sun webserver. I always found it a little
> confusing, and I'm a little concerned that it will just confuse users of
> this simple http server API. Considering I wouldn't expect may users to
> use this advanced feature.
>
> I wonder if we could rework a simpler approach, maybe just simple name
> based virtual server? Possibly:
> HttpContext createContext(String host, String path, HttpHandler handler)
>
> Also, we need to think of the implications on HttpsServer.
>
> Michael (cc'ed) is the author of this API. Maybe he has an opinion.
>
> -Chris.
>
> On 07/12/2009 11:23, Christopher Hegarty - Sun Microsystems Ireland wrote:
>> This is certainly interesting. Let me take a look and I'll get back to
>> you later.
>>
>> -Chris.
>>
>> On 04/12/2009 20:17, David M. Lloyd wrote:
>>> I've crafted a simple patch which extends the API of the embedded
>>> HTTP server to support virtual hosts. The patch is designed to add
>>> the new functionality without breaking existing implementations which
>>> do not support virtual hosts, or code which uses the HttpServer API
>>> today. It does not include an implementation; however, the default
>>> implementation should be easy to extend, from a brief look over the
>>> code.
>>>
>>> The patch is attached. Please let me know what you think.
>>>
>>> - DML
>>>