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webACE ServerWorld's Smallest Web Server |
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Small Servers webACE webACE II Spud |
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The webACE server implements a special-purpose TCP/IP stack, with a number of restrictions, but which suffices for serving small web pages. It connects to the Internet via a standard SLIP link.
That really is an ACE1101 in the photos -- the chip markings have too low contrast to show up.
| The server is down until further notice. Thanks for visiting. 29-June-01 |
The webACE server's home page is here. There is also one other page. The web pages aren't much to look at, but they are a good match for, say, the browser in your cell-phone. Note that the home page is dynamic. Imagine the hit counter replaced with the current temperature inside your fridge, or whatever.
The server also responds to pings. I get a ping round-trip time of around 50ms from my local LAN. Web service maxes out at about 3 hits/second.
The server has been up almost continuously since Oct 20, 1999. If the link is not responding, then either my MediaOne connection is down, you've encountered a bug, or you have a client TCP implementation which does not strictly obey the offered window size (I think some versions of WNT 5.0 have this property).
00:30 EDT 20-Oct-99: The webACE server is UP. 13:00 EST 4-Jan-00: My MediaOne connection has been flakey lately. 16:00 EST 7-Feb-00: webACE will be mostly down in the coming weeks 20:00 EST 21-Feb-00: webACE and webACE II are back up 17:00 EDT 10-Apr-00: Down. DNS/DHCP problems with MediaOne. 12:00 EDT 11-Apr-00: Back up. 12:00 EDT 7-Aug-01: AT&T Broadband instigates system-wide port 80 block 12:00 EDT 7-Sep-01: Block removed!
The actual running server hardware is not much larger than the chip,
and considerably smaller than the serial cable connected to it
(click on the photo for a better view)!
It consists of just the ACE1101 microcontroller, two status LEDs,
and a voltage regulator and a few discrete components for the RS232 interface.
The red LED flashes as packets arrive and the green LED is controlled from a link on the home page. A 57.6Kbps SLIP line connects the server to a Linux host, which serves as a bridge between SLIP and an ethernet LAN. The LAN then connects via a NAT firewall and cable modem to the Internet.
I purchased the ACE1101MT8 from Pioneer for $2.12 (quantity 1 price).
Here are the hardware schematics, as well as instructions for setting up a Linux SLIP server.
Note: The firewall passes only HTTP and ping packets. Although the server correctly sends an RST for packets on unknown TCP ports, you can't send it such a packet from the outside.
Startup 36 bytes Serial 179 SLIP 91 IP 144 ICMP 47 TCP 188 Checksum 132 Application 257 Total 1074 bytes Comprising: 454 instructions 912 instruction bytes 162 data bytes 2.01 bytes/instruction average
Join the new acex-users mailing list if you are interested in this microcontroller. Traffic is quite low right now.
NMAP thinks the server is a trivial joke!
webACE is unrelated to the webace, a web interface to A Caenorhabditis Elegans Database, other than being very small like a nematode.