Getting Started with ASP

Setting Up an ASP Server

As I have just shown, the Web server that houses your Web site must be equipped with an ASP scripting engine to be able to process ASP pages. Most free Web servers (GeoCities, Xoom, etc.) do not provide this type of service, or charge for it if they do. If you’re not ready to shell out for a Web host that will provide you with ASP support, or if you simply want to follow along and learn ASP for the time being without publishing an actual Web site on the Internet, then there is another option.

By installing Web server software on your own computer, you can then request ASP pages in your browser and have your own server software interpret the ASP scripts. As illustrated in Figure 3, this set-up places the Web client and server on the same computer. While the Internet at large will not be able to access this server to request Web pages (unless you equip your computer with a permanent Internet connection and a fixed Web address), this will allow you to develop and test ASP scripts on your own computer without spending money for a Web host or maintaining an Internet connection to view your pages.

If you do have a Web host that provides ASP support, or if you’ve been able to set up an ASP-capable Web server on your own computer already, feel free to skip the remainder of this section.

When it comes to choosing Web server software, the choices available to you – even if you restrict your search to free programs – can be quite bewildering. Our requirement that the server contain an ASP engine does narrow the field considerably, however. The ideal Web server for ASP development is Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0. This server comes free with every copy of Windows 2000; thus, you’re set if you have access to a computer running Windows 2000. Otherwise, you’ll have to look into one of the alternatives I discuss below, or bite the bullet and sign up with a Web host that provides ASP support.

Installing IIS 5.0 on Windows 2000 is really quite easy. Just open Control Panel and run Add/Remove Programs. Click on Add/Remove Windows Components, and wait for the Windows Components Wizard to appear. In the list of components, you should see Internet Information Services (IIS). Make sure this is checked, and click on the Details… button if you wish to configure which individual components get installed (you’ll definitely want the Documentation, for example, but you’re unlikely to need the SMTP Service). When you’re done, follow the instructions to complete installation. You may need to have your Windows 2000 CD on hand.

If you don’t have Windows 2000 to work with, there are other options. For Windows 95/98/Me/NT computers, you can install the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack (yes, even if you’re running Windows 9x). The Option Pack is available here: Download the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack. Under Windows NT Server, the Option Pack will install Microsoft IIS 4.0, while under Windows 95/98/Me and NT Workstation it will install Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS) 4.0, a scaled-down version of IIS 4.0. Both of these servers feature built-in ASP engines, but those engines only support ASP 2.0, while IIS 5.0 supports the newer ASP 3.0. Most of the techniques I’ll be presenting in this series will work equally well in both versions of ASP; however, some of the more advanced features of the language are only available in the newer version, and ASP 3.0 provides more helpful error messages when things go awry. For these reasons, you should try to secure a server with ASP 3.0 capabilities if it is feasible to do so.

If you are unable or unwilling to run your Web server under a Windows-based operating system, all is not lost. There are several commercial options for adding ASP support to servers such as Apache (ChiliSoft ASP, for one); however, such set-ups are far from ideal for learning ASP, since many components of Microsoft’s original ASP framework rely heavily on features of Windows, those components will be altered or missing entirely from platform-independent versions of ASP.

With your ASP-equipped Web server software installed on your computer or provided by your Web host, your first step should be to write a simple ASP script to check that everything is working properly.