How to Host ASP on Linux

ASP pages are part of Microsoft's ASP.NET technology. You can host ASP pages on a Linux server using Apache and Mono. Apache is the standard Linux web server available on most distributions. Apache installs as the default option on Linux web servers. Novell's Mono is an open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET technology. It is available for installation from source and in RPM and APT packages. You should test your ASP pages offline before publishing them, since Mono's implementation of .NET is not perfect.

Instructions

1. Install Mono using your package manager.

2. Download and install the Mono Migration Analyzer, or MoMA (see Resources).

3. Run MoMA to analyze the ASP pages. MoMA will display and attempt to correct any compatibility problems.

4. Install the following Mono libraries:

   sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-mono mono-apache-server2 mono-gmcs mono-utils mono-xsp2

5. Open your Mono configuration file:

   sudo vi /etc/apache2/mods-available/mod_mono.conf

6. Edit the file to the following parameters:

   AddType application/x-asp-net .aspx .ashx .asmx .ascx .asax .config .ascx

   DirectoryIndex index.asp

   MonoAutoApplication enabled

   MonoServerPath "/path/to/mono"

   Edit "index.asp" to point to your index page and "/path/to/mono" to point to Mono on your system.

7. Move your ASP pages into the web server directory. Apache stores these pages in "/var/www/html" by default.

References

• Mono: Running ASP.NET Applications

Resources

• Mono: Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA)
• Colorado State University: Basic vi Commands