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The Apache module for gSOAP
updated Fri Nov 16 2018 by Robert van Engelen
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By Christian Aberger, Mick Wall, Robert van Engelen, David Viner, Ryan Troll, and La Cam Chung.
SOAP/XML and REST Web services can be easily created and deployed as gSOAP standalone services or installed as (Fast)CGI applications. In addition, the mod_gsoap
Apache module offers the ability to run gSOAP services directly inside the Apache HTTP server. The mod_gsoap
Apache module supports the deployment of multiple gSOAP services that can run together with the usual services on Apache. This approach offers a production-quality Web services deployment scenario.
The mod_gsoap
Apache module is designed to keep things simple so that existing gSOAP services can be recompiled for Apache HTTP server deployment without modification of the source code. The Apache apxs
command compiles your gSOAP service code and installs it with mod_gsoap
. Add your new service to Apache httpd.conf
and presto!
The original Apache module for gSOAP home page is at http://mod-gsoap.sourceforge.net. Newer versions are included in the gSOAP distribution package in the gsoap/mod_gsoap/mod_gsoap-0.9
directory.
Apache modules for gSOAP are provided for both Apache 1.3 and 2.x. In the following we will discuss the Apache module for Apache 2.x.
First download the Apache httpd source code and install the httpd server in a new directory, say apachegsoap
:
mkdir apachegsoap cd apachegsoap tar -xjf httpd-2.4.35.tar.bz2 cd httpd-2.4.35 ./configure --prefix=`pwd`/.. --with-mpm=worker --enable-mods-shared=most make -j4 make install
If configure fails with "error: APR not found" or "error: APR-util not found", download and install the Apache Portable Runtime (APR).
To use the Apache extension mechanism, your platform has to support the DSO feature and your Apache httpd
binary has to be built with the mod_so
module. The apxs
tool automatically complains if this is not the case. You can check this yourself by manually running the httpd -l
command (installed locally in apachegsoap/bin
with the instructions above):
cd apachegsoap bin/httpd -l
The module mod_so.c
should be on the displayed list of modules.
Next, we will build and install mod_gsoap
for Apache 2.x and up. The source code files are located under gsoap/mod_gsoap/mod_gsoap-0.9/apache_20
and include apache_gsoap.h
, mod_gsoap.c
, and a Visual Studio project file mod_gsoap.vcproj
.
To compile mod_gsoap
, execute:
cd /path/to/gsoap/installation/gsoap/mod_gsoap/mod_gsoap-0.9/apache_20 ln -s ../../../stdsoap2.h . sudo $HOME/apachegsoap/bin/apxs -a -i -c mod_gsoap.c
Root permissions are required, so we used sudo apxs
here.
The apxs
command should be on your path or located in apachegsoap/bin
where we installed httpd. Make sure to use $HOME/apachegsoap/bin/apxs
if multiple httpd versions are installed.
If a specific C compiler is required, say cc
, then try apxs -S CC=cc ...
.
After building mod_gsoap
we are ready to deploy gSOAP services written in C with the Apache module.
The gSOAP package contains a calculator example. We will use this example to walk you through the creation and deployment of an Apache module gSOAP service.
First, copy the calculator example:
cd apachegsoap cp /path/to/gsoap/installation/gsoap/samples/calc/* . cp /path/to/gsoap/installation/gsoap/stdsoap2.* . cp /path/to/gsoap/installation/gsoap/mod_gsoap/mod_gsoap-0.9/apache_20/apache_gsoap.h .
Next, edit calcserver.c
by removing main()
and replace it with IMPLEMENT_GSOAP_SERVER()
as follows:
To initialize the engine context with flags and/or plugins, see Initialization and plugins .
Then compile and build the service:
soapcpp2 -c -SL -wx calc.h sudo $HOME/apachegsoap/bin/apxs -a -c calcserver.c soapC.c soapServer.c stdsoap2.c chmod 755 .libs/calcserver.so
Again, the apxs
command should be on your path or located in apachegsoap/bin
where we installed httpd. Make sure to use $HOME/apachegsoap/bin/apxs
as shown above if multiple httpd versions are installed.
This creates .libs/calcserver.so
service module that is universally readable. Also make sure that .libs/calcserver.so
is readable through the entire path, that is through /home/username/apachegsoap/.libs
where username
is your user account name.
If you have installed source files in other directories, then you will need to add appropriate -I
and -L
options with the apxs
command shown above.
To deploy the service, we will need to add our module with its properties to httpd.conf
(for example we can add it at the end):
<IfModule mod_gsoap.c> <Location /soap> SetHandler gsoap_handler SOAPLibrary /home/username/apachegsoap/.libs/calcserver.so Order allow,deny Allow from all </Location> </IfModule>
The httpd.conf
file is usually found under /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
. However, since we use a locally installed Apache httpd
server that searches the /home/username/apachegsoap
path, you will find httpd.conf
in /home/username/apachegsoap/conf
.
The Location
property sets part of the URL of the service, which in this case will be http://localhost/soap
or if you set a port that is different than the standard HTTP port 80, say 9080, the full URL is http://localhost:9080/soap
. To change the port from 80 to 9080, edit httpd.conf
and change Listen
:
Listen 9080
To start the service:
cd apachegsoap bin/apachectl start
Point your browser to http://localhost:9080
and the page should show the message "It works!".
To stop the server:
bin/apachectl stop
To use the service by client applications, direct the endpoint URL of clients to "http://localhost:9080/soap", for example in the calcclient.c
code that came with the gSOAP example:
Then we build the client:
soapcpp2 -c -CL -wx calc.h cc -o calcclient calcclient.c soapC.c soapClient.c stdsoap2.c
and run it:
./calcclient add 2 3 result = 5
To let clients access the WSDL of a service, you can use the query ?wsdl
as part of the URL such as http://localhost:9080/soap?wsdl
to pull the file calc.wsdl
from the current location of the service. To do so, copy the calc.wsdl
file there to make it available to the Apache server.
Deployment of multiple modules is possible since gSOAP 2.8.71, by specifying multiple <Location>
entries in <IfModule mod_gsoap.c>
in httpd.conf
, one for each service. The change in gSOAP 2.8.71 modified function SoapSharedLibrary_load
in mod_gsoap.c
as follows to resolve linking symbols locally:
Alternatively, if one module links against equally-named symbols coming from another module, then it is recommended to pass a version info file to the linker, instructing it to make all symbols local, except for the Apache module table instance. The version file (e.g. myapachegsoap.ver
) looks something like this:
VERS_1.0 { global: myapachegsoap_module; local: *; };
This file is then passed to the linker with option -Wl,myapachegsoapv.ver
.
By replacing main()
with IMPLEMENT_GSOAP_SERVER()
, several functions are implemented that are used by the Apache module for gSOAP. These functions include apache_default_soap_init()
to initialize a newly constructed context.
With gSOAP 2.8.54 and greater we can add our own initialization function to initialize the context. By doing so we can set context flags and register plugins. To define our own initialization function we use IMPLEMENT_GSOAP_SERVER_INIT(init_func)
instead of IMPLEMENT_GSOAP_SERVER()
:
This enables XML indentation, MTOM attachments, and saves the audit logs of inbound and outbound messages (note that messages are not frequently flushed to the log files by the logging plugin, meaning the logs may appear incomplete until you stop httpd to close these files). The gsoap/plugin/logging.h and logging.c files are located in the gSOAP source code tree. Add logging.c to the apxs command to compile the source code files.
Your can include multiple registrations of plugins as needed.
SOAP_IO
flags to initialize or set the context, such as SOAP_IO_KEEPALIVE
and SOAP_IO_CHUNK
.If you are using dynamic libraries to deploy services with mod_gsoap
, then those should be closed properly to avoid memory leaks. To do so add the following line:
at the end of the gsoap_handler()
function in mod_gsoap.c
.
The Apache server is written in C. Building Apache modules in C++ is tricky and cannot be fully guaranteed due to compiler differences. Several online resources exist that can help to implement C++ modules for Apache 2.0. If this fails, the best alternative is to use FastCGI (see gSOAP user guide on "FastCGI Support").
When using C++ gSOAP service classes generated by soapcpp2
options -i
or -j
we need to implement the C function soap_serve()
that dispatches the services.
We will walk through the implementation of a service using the same calculator example demonstrated above.
First, run soapcpp2
with option -j
to generate a service class:
soapcpp2 -j -SL -wx calc.h
Create a new calcerver.cpp
file with the following code:
Here, calcService
is the service class defined in the generated soapcalcService.h
and soapcalcService.cpp
files.
The apxs
command is used to compile as follows, with the -S CC=c++
option:
bin/apxs -a -c -S CC=c++ calcserver.cpp soapC.cpp soapcalcService.cpp stdsoap2.cpp chmod 755 .lib/calcserver.so
This creates .libs/calcserver.so
service module that is universally readable. Also make sure that .libs/calcserver.so
is readable through the entire path, that is through /home/username/apachegsoap/.libs
.
After compilation, the new module should be added to httpd.conf
as was explained above.
When multiple service classes are defined, when soapcpp2 -j
is applied to multiple .h
files, then you have two options:
.so
library for each service with the apxs
command and add each module to httpd.conf
with a new Location
property..so
library with the services combined, all listening to the same service URL. Only one module is added to httpd.conf
since the Location
property is the same. Note that the ?wsdl
query is not as useful in this case, since we cannot publicize the service WSDLs combined.The second option requires C++ namespaces as explained in section "How to Chain C++ Server Classes to Accept Messages on the Same Port" in the gSOAP user guide. Basically, you should chain the services as follows:
It is recommended to test the service first as a stand-alone server over a port using soap_bind()
and soap_accept()
. Debugging is much easier this way.
After testing as a stand-alone server, to debug the service with the Apache module, compile your service application with compiler option -g
(apxs option -Wc,-g
to control debug information output. For example:
bin/apxs -Wc,-g -a -c calcserver.c soapC.c soapServer.c stdsoap2.c
Debug the service as it is deployed while httpd
is running. To do so, we first stop the service and start it up in single threaded mode so we can attach to it to a debugger such as gdb
or lldb
:
cd apachegsoap bin/apachectl stop bin/httpd -X -f /home/username/apachegsoap/conf/httpd.conf &
You will get a process ID, say 12345, which we will attach to a debugger:
gdb -p 12345
You will see a load of symbols loading, including mod_gsoap.so
.
Next, we set a breakpoint on the soap_serve
call (the main entry point), let gdb
know that we accept the pending breakpoint, and then continue the process:
(gdb) b soap_serve Function "soap_serve" not defined. Make breakpoint pending on future shared library load? (y or [n]) y Breakpoint 1 (soap_serve) pending. (gdb) c Continuing.
We execute our calcclient
from another window, which triggers the breakpoint.
[Switching to Thread 0x7f3fbd209950 (LWP 25493)] Breakpoint 1, 0x00007f3fb059e398 in soap_serve () from /home/username/apachegsoap/gsoap-2.8/gsoap/samples/calc/.libs/calcserver.so Current language: auto; currently asm (gdb) n Single stepping until exit from function soap_serve, which has no line number information. 0x00007f3fb05a5eec in apache_default_soap_serve () from /home/username/apachegsoap/gsoap-2.8/gsoap/samples/calc/.libs/calcserver.so (gdb)
Note that when Apache httpd
runs as user wwwrun
(or another user) then you will have to run the debugger as that same user. To do so, execute:
sudo -u wwwrun gdb /usr/sbin/httpd2-worker 25487
When failures occur, see also the error logs that are saved by httpd to /home/username/apachegsoap/logs/error_log
.
Thanks to Jon Scobie for suggestions to improve this section.
The gSOAP Apache module does not support receiving DIME protocol messages with attachments. MIME and MTOM attachments are supported.
The Apache modules for gSOAP are released under the gSOAP open source public license (compatible with commercial licensing) and GPLv2.
All things mod_gsoap
by Jon Scobie