Embedded Software: The Works
Providing the reader with detailed tips and techniques as well as rigorous explanations of technologies, this book offers expertise and insights on everything from exotic memories to USB software.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Embedded Software: The Works
8.2: Who Needs a Web Server?
8.2 Who Needs a Web Server?
It is becoming quite common for web servers or, more correctly, HTTP servers to be incorporated into routers, gateways, and other networking equipment. There is every reason to consider doing this for a multitude of other types of embedded systems. In a piece written for the "Nucleus Reactor" newsletter in 2000, Neil Henderson (CEO of Accelerated Technology) gave a very good outline of what was possible and how to get started. This provided the basis for this article. It may be interesting to compare the use of HTTP with SNMP because in this context, their objectives are quite similar. Take a look at the article "Introduction to SNMP" later in this chapter. (CW)
Introduction
You may view web servers in the same manner I did before I understood what they could do in an embedded system. In my mind, web servers were located on machines with huge disk drive capacity and served up pages to web browsers. Well, huge disk drives are not necessary, and web servers can do much more than just serve up web pages!
With an embedded web server you can, of course, serve up pages. But did you know you can use a web server to provide an interactive user interface for your embedded system? Did you realize that you could program that interface once and be able to use it independent of the type of machine your user has? Did you further know that you could monitor and control your embedded...
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