Adapters

Answer currently includes multiple adapters. These allow for a combination of features and target Webserver hosts to be selected.

As development is still underway, some adapters may be lacking feature parity with others, the most complete is usually the Axis2C adapter

Axis2C

The axis2C adapter uses the axis2C stack to provide SOAP and XML/RPC services. Answer includes a build step to automatically generate the required service.xml file.

FastCGI

The FastCGI adapter allows interoperability with multiple application hosts (Webservers) such as Apache HTTPd, Nginx, Lighttpd, among others. It supports */RPC and REST Webservices.

Configuration

To configure answer using the apache module, add the following your apache conf. :

LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.so
<IfModule fastcgi_module>
        FastCgiServer "${ANSWER_PATH}/answer.fcgi" -processes 1 -initial-env servicesDir=${ANSWER_PATH}/examples
        ScriptAlias /fcgiAnswer /usr/lib/answer/answer.fcgi
  <Directory "${ANSWER_PATH}/answer">
    AllowOverride None
    Options +ExecCGI
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</IfModule>

ApacheModule

Since managing multiple FastCGI instances can introduce some performance penalties, Answer also provides a native ApacheModule adapter. This adapter supports */RPC style and REST Webservices.

Configuration

To configure answer using the apache module, add the following your apache conf. :

LoadModule apreq_module modules/mod_apreq2.so
LoadModule answer_module modules/mod_answer.so
<IfModule answer_module>
  # Services path
  AnswerServicesDir ${ANSWER_PATH}/examples
  <Location "/apacheAnswer">
    SetHandler answer_module
  </Location>
</IfModule>

Mongoose

This (experimental) adapter uses the Mongoose library to provide a self hosted binary with which to run the services.

Configuration

To start a self hosted version of answer use the following command

$>answer_mongoose -p 8000 --services ./answer/examples

Use --help to list other options

$>answer_mongoose --help
Allowed options:
  -h [ --help ]                  Display help
  -p [ --port ] arg (=8080)      Http port
  -r [ --root ] [=arg(=.)]       Path to document root
  -s [ --services ] arg          Services library directories
  -b [ --base ] arg (=/services) Services base directory

#Summary

Adapter	RPC	SOAP	Host
FastCGI	YES	NO	Multiple (FastCGI support)
ApacheModule	YES	NO	Apache
Axis2/C	XML only	YES	Apache
Mongoose	YES	NO	Self Hosted