Webserver on my iPaq...

I happen to be the happy owner of a HP iPaq hx2410 which is using Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. It has build-in bluetooth and WiFi functionality and I've expanded it with a 1 GB SD card and a 2 GB CF card. So I have about 3 GB and a bit more of memory on this system.

But what I would like is to have some webserver software running on this PDA so it would be a webserver. (Yes, a PDA as webserver!) That way, I can manipulate this PDA from my desktop by just simply using a webbrowser. And yes, I could use many other tricks for it too, but I want to use some custom webforms to manipulate data on this PDA. This data would also be accessible from the PDA itself but then through some personally-written tools. (Using Visual Studio.NET, it's quite easy to write Compact Framework applications.)

Of course, I realise that a webserver running on my PDA will eat up a bit of it's memory. Not a real problem, except for the amount of main RAM that it has available. I could write a simple webserver myself, of course. It's just that I don't have the proper tools to do this so I was wondering... Are there any PDA-specific webservers available? For example, is there a PDA version of Apache?

Is it weird to use a PDA as webserver? In my case, not really. I want to view data on my PDA and I want to do this over the network through a webbrowser. That's not a bad idea, is it? :D

Even if it can only handle static pages, this is not a real problem. My data is stored in XML files and I can generate stylesheets that the browser can use to render the XML to HTML.

Of course, I could also just write my own application with my own TCP/IP protocol on whatever port I like, but the PDA-webserver solution seems such a real nice solution to me, since basically it means ANY computer with a webbrowser will be able to access these pages.

It is a very interesting idea, although kind of pointless really. You're kind of contradicting the PDA's purpose, and that is to go with you and carry your info with you and make on-the-fly documents, etc, so that you don't need to do... what you want to do...

Hi Katja,

Is this what you are looking for ?

http://www.wifizard.com/tutorialsXP/WebServer/index.htm

It is a short tutorial that links to some freeware for setting up webservers on PDA's.

Ah! Pice Webserver! Yep, that's one of the few options. Unfortunately the site www.newmad.se seems to be down and only the tutorial seems to exist.
Am also wondering about what it can do. It it only serves static webpages then it's not too interesting in my opinion. It it can run PHP or ASP then I'd be a bit more comfortable about it. I don't plan to create pages that require heavy calculations but would prefer it if whatever I put on my PDA doesn't need to generate static webpages too, to display on the server.

You could wonder about the practical use of it, though. Then again, if WiFi networks start to become more common then you could e.g. use your PDA to visit a customer and enter data there, allowing the customer to view his personal data through the network as you enter it. No need for the user to have any further access to it and no need for you to use the customer's network to send data back "home".

My personal interest is related to my studies, though. My school supports a WiFi network and I have permission to connect to it with my PDA. This would allow my friends to view my comments that I store on it without needing full access to my device.

A little more digging shows it not what you are after.

Quote:

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PicoWebServer is a very light web server available for the Pocket PC platform. No functions for managing dynamic pages linked to a database, for example, but a simple program for publishing a simple, static web site. In the options, it is possible to make use of the notion of “alias” to store web pages in several directories, thereby setting up a genuine directory hierarchy. On the other hand, only one TCP port can be configured for page publication.

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http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=945


The site works fine for me, but there are lots of mirrors if you can't get through and want to have a look anyway. Just Google.

Quote:

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My personal interest is related to my studies, though. My school supports a WiFi network and I have permission to connect to it with my PDA. This would allow my friends to view my comments that I store on it without needing full access to my device.

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Ok that makes a little more sense lol :D.

Oh, well... It would just turn my PDA in a portable webserver that I can take with me wherever people have WiFi available. :D
And it's not really about it being usable. Just an interesting way to provide temporary access. Of course, you could also use it in a commercial environment. For example, you take your PDA to some company that has WiFi. Your PDA would use their network to call home, and while you are there, the people at that company would have temporary access to this data through the webserver on your PDA. That way, you don't need a highly secured webserver since it's this PDA that will be the only one who can access the data.
Of course, a simple logon page would be required for this customer but hey... It is a way to provide them temporary access to sensitive data! Not to easy to hack into either...

I think I'll wait for PicoWebServer version 2.0, if they ever make it. :D Then again, only static pages? Well, I have two HTML-based E-books on my PDA. One is from O'Reilly and contains information about XML, XSD, XSLT and more XML-related stuff. The other one is the CIA Worldbook from http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html which is just interesting. This pico webserver could be used to serve these two e-books. :D

The interesting concept behind it is that I can normally use the browser on my PDA to view these pages, although it doesn't look very well. But when there's a WiFi connection, I can use a normal computer and browse to my PDA to see the information. I'll take a look at it, see if it works.