Apache and ASP.net

February 23rd, 2007

Microsoft’s ASP.net server side web technology is great for development, but until recently being able to utilize it required very specific conditions. Your server had to be running Windows Operating system, and for the most part had to be running SQL Server if you wanted to utilize a database connection.Servers running Apache technology were just out of luck regarding hosting ASP.net, until now.

The Mono Project is an open-source, Novell sponsored, project which aims to “provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix.”

Today I will focus on one aspect of the Mono project, known as Mod_Mono which is an Apache module adding ASP.net support. Straight from the project page:

Mod_Mono is an Apache 1.3/2.0/2.2 module that provides ASP.NET support for the web’s favorite server, Apache.The module passes off requests for ASP.NET pages to an external program, mod-mono-server, which actually handles the requests. The communication between the Apache module and mod-mono-server is established using a Unix socket or a TCP socket.

A very cool module allowing great possibilities. Give it a shot