Using the FrontPage Services File in a Shared Environment

In a shared Web hosting environment, you can enable developers to define new ASP applications by using FrontPage. You can use FrontPage to create new global.asa files and ASP applications. FrontPage stores the definitions of these new applications in the FrontPage services.cnf file in the /_vti_pvt subdirectory.

Sun Chili!Soft ASP automatically looks for the services.cnf file in the /_vti_pvt subdirectory, and treats the entries it finds in this file as ASP applications. Any applications defined in the services.cnf file are dynamically recognized by Sun Chili!Soft ASP, and do not require the ASP Server to be restarted. Sun Chili!Soft ASP looks for this filename in the document root directory of the Web server (and each virtual host).

Entries in the services.cnf file use the following format:

/[appname] = "/path/to/app/home/directory"

If the services.cnf file and the /_vti_pvt subdirectory appear in the document root directory of a virtual host, then the ASP applications are applied only to that virtual host, and not to others.

There are two limitations on applications defined in the services.cnf file. First, the files in the application must be located within the document root directory of the Web server (or virtual host). Second, the directory containing the global.asa file cannot be below the top-level directory of the Web server (or virtual host) document root. For more information about ASP applications and the global.asa file, see "Configuring ASP Applications" in this chapter.