Deployment Listeners

Restriction: This topic applies only when the Enterprise Server feature is enabled.

The configuration information for a deployment listener consists of the section name "[virtual paths]" followed by a list of URL top-level directories and the paths they will be converted to. For example, the Web listener used by ESDEMO's Deployer service looks like this:

[virtual paths]
 cgi=<ES>/bin
 uploads=<ES>/deploy
 <default>=/dev/null

The "cgi" virtual path is used to specify the location of the mfdeploy.exe program that receives the COBOL archive file being deployed, and the "uploads" virtual path tells mfdeploy.exe where to create the directory for the uploaded COBOL archive file.

mfdeploy.exe is located in %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL\bin and \bin64 (Windows) or $COBDIR/bin (UNIX).

On Windows platforms, the special token "<ES>" is translated into the installation directory. For example, if Enterprise Server is installed as part of Visual COBOL in the default installation directory, then "<ES>/deploy" becomes %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL\deploy.

On UNIX platforms, the special token "<ES>" is translated into the directory named by the COBDIR environment variable, which should be the COBOL Server installation directory. For example, if $COBDIR is /opt/microfocus/VisualCOBOL, then "<ES>/deploy" becomes /opt/microfocus/VisualCOBOL/deploy, the default deployment directory.
Note: On UNIX platforms, the value of $COBDIR used by Enterprise Server is the one set for the Directory Server process, which normally runs as a system daemon.

Only the first directory in the URL specified by the client performing the deployment is checked against the list, and the entries in the list have to be just a single directory name.

The "<default>" directory is used if the first directory in the URL specified by the client doesn't match any of the entries in the list. The default directory must be one that does not exist, so that when the communications process translates the URL into a full path, the request will fail. This stops any attempt by a client to browse arbitrary directories on the machine. You don't need to specify a default directory, since the communications process uses a safe default anyway.

Here is another example:

For Windows platforms:

[virtual paths]
 <default>=c:/web
 docs=c:/web/documents
 images=d:/media/images

With this configuration, the URL http://host:port/docs/a.html will return the file c:\web\documents\a.html, and the URL http://host:port/images/gif/b.gif will return the file d:\media\images\gif\b.gif.

For UNIX platforms:

[virtual paths]
 <default>=/usr/web
 docs=/usr/web/documents
 images=/home/media/images

With this configuration, the URL http://host:port/docs/a.html will return the file /usr/web/documents/a.html, and the URL http://host:port/images/gif/b.gif will return the file /home/media/images/gif/b.gif.