Using HTTP-Client Protocol

[Kannan Varadharajan]

We are trying to interace the Cloverleaf (v5.3 Rel 3 on AIX 5.2) to WebServer (Win2003).  

We entered in the HTTP-Client properties as follows :

URL: Site Name

Method: POST

Method: Accept: */* USER-AGENT: CL 5.3

Driver Mode: Message Driven

QueryTPS: httpQuery {MSGUSE DATA}

We are not able to connect it to the Web Server successfully using HTTP-Client Protocol.

Has anyone successfully interfaced with Web Server (win2K or 2003) using HTTP-Client Protocol?  If anyone does,  please let us know what needs to be done.  

Appreciate your help.

Thanks

Kannan V

Topic

[Anonymous]

Kannan,

Try it without adding the header.  To see what the http package looks like you’ll have to connect to a local host hcitcptest listening on port 80.  Also, put the process EO up to ‘enable_all’ so that you can see more of the http exchange.

[Kannan Varadharajan]

Gregory,

Thanks for your inputs.  We tried all the combinations.  We still get the same below error:

(httpQuery/Run) Error fetching URL http://development.intranet/temp/cloverleaf/default.aspx: HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error

Do we need to change any server ini file or any other configuration?

Also could you please let me know what are the steps involved to have successful interface with Web Server (win2K/2003).

Thanks again for your help.

Kannan V

[Ed Mastascusa]

Kannan,

Have you eliminated the server-side script as the source of the problem? Can you post via some other method and get a valid reply?  I usually see error 500s when my server scripts have syntax or run-time issues that prevent them from returning a valid http reply.

Alternatively, if your script will work with a get method, does that URL work from a browser?

[Kannan Varadharajan]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Am not sure what is the server side script you are talking about.  Is it a WebServer Side Script?    Could you please explain about the script clearly?

How do we post via some other method and get a valid reply?

But still Web Team wants to have a HTTP Client Protocol.

Thanks

Kannan V

[Justin Byrd]

One recomendation is to use CURL, it is an open source package that allows you to send via http, https etc….  It allows you to do all kinds of posts etc…. You can catch {exec — curl…} via the TPS IB or OB Data stack.

[Ed Mastascusa]

To attempt to answer your questions:

>> Am not sure what is the server side script you are talking about.  

The one in the error message (marked below)

Error fetching URL http://development.intranet/temp/cloverleaf/default.aspx: <-- here HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error >> Is it a WebServer Side Script?    

I think so

>> Could you please explain about the script clearly?

If your URL has a suffix of .pl, .php, .asp or something other than .xml or .htm(l) then the web server is probably running a script on the server to create the response.

My experience (Apache on Linux using perl/tcl) is that you’ll see a “500” error returned to the client when the http request gets to the server and activiates the script but for some reason the script fails to produce valid output. I can recall achieving(?) 500 errors from a number of mistakes, the most common being that my scripts had syntax or logic problems that caused them to croak while making the response. Either the header (which someone mentioned earlier) was missing or made wrong or was missing altogether. Another cause could be that the script permissions weren’t set to allow the web server to launch the script.  Another common error would be a 404 – file not found – which could happen if the URL referenced a non-existent script. Since you see a 500 it says to me that the request got to the server and was acted upon, but that for some reason a properly http reply did not come back to the client.

>> How do we post via some other method and get a valid reply?

Your method can generally be “get” or “post”. more detail can be found here:  http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/methods.html

A browser is just an HTTP client to the web server, although most URLs are implicitly using a get in the browser and you had mentioned using post.  It probably can’t hurt to just surf to  “http://development.intranet/temp/cloverleaf/default.aspx” in your browser and observe what happens. If you see an error 500 in your browser then your problem is not likely in the client

[Author]

Replies