Help understanding how a Xojo Cloud deployment works

Xojo Cloud
#1

In a different thread under Web I asked for help with site rejections using standalone Xojo web apps. I am not 100% sure but I am pretty confident that this is the result of tightly locked down firewalls rejecting the outgoing requests to non standard ports. I think now that my best option at this point is to use Xojo Cloud for deployment as I don’t see any way that a cgi deployment is going to work for us.

Before I go down this road could someome confirm that what I am planning to do is on track.

With the standalone setup I have 2, soon to be 3, Xojo Web Apps. The only requirement is that the initial log in must come through our home web site which is being served by a 4Th Dimension Database Web Server (Apache is disabled). The requests flow looks something like this…

2 Xojo web apps deployed as standalone web apps named:
         JudgesRegistration (listening on port 8080)
        DistrictRegistration (listening on port 8008)

User Browser:   http://myrequiredsiteurl.com/sef_judgesregistration
           or   http://myrequiredsiteurl.com/sef_districtregistration

4D Web Server: Case URL = sef_judgesregistration then HTTPRedirect(http://myrequiredsiteurl.com:8080)
               Case URl = sef_jdistrictregistration then HTTPRedirect(http://myrequiredsiteurl.com:8008)

Xojo Web App: request for data sent to 4D Database:  
              data =  socket1.Get("http://myrequiredsiteurl.com/getData?regID=5555", 30)    (or a post)

Currently, this all works really well except for a small percenage of our users inside of tightly locked down firewalls.

Ok, if I change deplyment to use Xojo Cloud, is this what I can expect the flow to then look like…

I deploy 2 Xojo final web apps to the xojo cloud named:
         JudgesRegistration
        DistrictRegistration

User Browser:   http://myrequiredsiteurl.com/sef_judgesregistration
           or   http://myrequiredsiteurl.com/sef_districtregistration 

4D Web Server: Case URL = sef_judgesregistration then HTTPRedirect(http://myAssignedxojoCloudIP.xojo.com/JudgesRegistration)
               Case URl = sef_jdistrictregistration then HTTPRedirect(http://myAssignedxojoCloudIP.xojo.com/DistrictRegistration)

Xojo Web App: request for data sent to 4D Database:  
    Dim fwp As New XojoCloud.FirewallPort(587, XojoCloud.FirewallPort.Direction.Outgoing)
    fwp.Open() ' This call is synchronous
    If fwp.isOpen() Then
         data = socket1.Get("http://myrequiredsiteurl.com/getData?regID=5555", 30)    (or a post)
         fwp.Close() ' Close port when done
    End If

Am I going down the right road here? Any reason to believe that after deploying to the cloud, I might continue to have issues similar to the rejections we are experiencing at the moment with the standalone web apps?

Thanks,

John

#2

I believe they will be running in CGI mode on Xojo Cloud. CGI does solve your port issues. You could also use a load balancer in front of the standalone apps and achieve the same effect.

#3

I am not familiar with a “load balancer”. I did a google search and, correct me if I am wrong, but at this point it looks like it might be much easier to use Xojo cloud. I see a greater learning curve for me with trying to implement a load balancer.

#4

Ok. I came to the realization that because of the way I am uploading and downloading PDF files between the database and teh web apps, the database web server and the web apps have to be on the same machine. If I go the cloud route, I am pretty sure I would have to rethink and rewrite this process. I realy do not want to fix what is not broken.

Load Balancing?? Where do I go to find out what I need and how to implement it on an OS X server? Google searches are not helping much in this reagard.

Maybe I should ask this question elsewhere in the forum?

#5

http://john-joyce.com/xojo-and-load-balancing-with-haproxy/
I followed that guide to get HA-Proxy running in front of 5 instances of my standalone app on Linux, works great!

Edit: I see you’re on OSX. Should be able to follow that guide anyway to configure HAProxy for OSX.

#6

Based on what you’ve written, I don’t think you’re going to have trouble on Xojo Cloud. Also, remember, you can try it out for a month.

Looking at your code, your firewall code is a little “off”. You are opening port 587 (which is for sending email) to do an http request (which is on port 80). You don’t need to open a firewall port for port 80 or 443 on Xojo Cloud. I’d also suggest using https for that request if it contains user identifying data.

That said, I don’t see anything from what you have described that wouldn’t work on Xojo Cloud.

#7

@Greg O’Lone

Thanks Greg. Maybe I am seeing a problem that is not there. The web app provides the end user a way to download and up load forms in pdf format that require signatrues. I am using the local file system to facilitate this process, which if I deploy using Xojo Cloud I think I am going to have to completely rethink and rewrite the process…

Download…

  1. Xojo Web App sends request to 4D Database for the form
  2. 4D creates a pdf file of the form and returns the full file path to the pdf file
  3. Xojo Web App opens the file in an HTMLViewer

Upload…

  1. Xojo Web App has user upload a pdf file using a FileUploader Control
  2. The FileUploader saves the pdf to a file in an “upload folder” on the hard disk.
  3. The FileUploader then sends a request to 4D to handle the uploaded file
  4. 4D does it’s thing with the file, logging the event, and in some cases moving the file to a different folder
  5. The FileUploader on reciept of “success” from 4D downloads the just uploaded pdf using the download process above to provide feedback to the end user of a successful upload.

I am sure there are other ways I could or should have done this, but that is the way I did it and it works well. The probem I am perceiving is that if I deploy the web app to Xojo Cloud, I will have to rewrite this process as the web app and 4D will no longer be on the same machine.

At the present time I am not sure that I want to go down the path of fixing something that is not broken. I have too many other things to work on. The problem firewalls are at school district offices and I am hoping to get their IT staffs to open up port 8080 so that I can put this issue off until I have more time to tackle it.

If you see an easy route for me to take here, please let me know.

John

#8

@Greg O’Lone You are opening port 587 (which is for sending email) to do an http request (which is on port 80). You don’t need to open a firewall port for port 80 or 443 on Xojo Cloud.

Yes I see that now. I copied that from the overview of Xojo Cloud deployment and did not pay attention to the port number. That being said, the overview says…

Is this not the case? I am communicating outside the server with my 4D database using socket classes.

#9

Not if you’re communicating on port 80 or 443.

#10

Ok. Thanks Greg.

#11