7. Accessing the Discussionweb

7.1  Default URL

Provided all the steps thus far have been followed, the Discussionweb can now be accessed via the following default URL:
 
http://server_name/pls/DAD_name/discussionweb.home
 
Where server_name is the machine name of the web server that the Discussionweb is configured on and DAD_name is the name of the DAD that was created in section 5. 
 
discussionweb and home are the names of the Discussionweb’s PL/SQL code package and one of its procedures respectively.  If these names were changed in the code, then the changed names should be used here instead.
 

7.2  URL Redirection

In order to create a URL for accessing the Discussionweb that is more user-friendly and easy to remember than the default URL outlined in the previous sub-section, an Apache web server redirect can be employed.
 
Redirects are created within the Apache web server’s plsql.conf file, which is located in c:\Oracle\ora81\Apache\modplsql\cfg, where c:\Oracle\ora81 is the path of the Oracle database home, or the Oracle Application Server home, should this have been installed in conjunction with the database (replacing the database’s Apache web server).
 
To create a redirect, open up the plsql.conf file in any text editor tool and, anywhere in the file, code in the redirect using the following three-part syntax:

1. Redirect

2. /redirect_name

3. redirect_url

Where redirect_name is the name of the redirect, for example /discuss, and redirect_url is the complete URL that the redirect will forward the user’s web browser to, i.e. in this case the Discussionweb’s default URL (specified in the previous sub-section).
 
Concatenate the three parts together with a space separating each part to form one line within the file – this represents one redirect.
 
Multiple redirects can be created within the plsql.conf file that point to the same or different URLs, such that many redirects could be created that all point to one URL, to cover any variations of the redirect_name that users might input.  In the case of the Discussionweb for example, three redirects - called /discuss, /discussion and /discussionweb could be created that all point to the Discussionweb’s default URL.
 
Once created, redirects can be attached to the end of the web server’s machine name in the URL, redirecting the user’s web browser to the specified redirect_url:
 
http://server_name/redirect_name