Server Specs and Information
The Powerbook 540c
 A grand machine currently running system 8.1, booting of a 512mb PCMCIA memory card for slient operation when working as a web server but also boots to system 7.5 when i need to do other stuff. Why the duel boot? well with 12mb of ram Os8 can be a bit demanding, but it has bits i like. If stability becomes an issue due to the ram i may change it about. The pages are a botch job based on the files that come with personal web sharing in Os8 particularly the personal files for
Ellen Kaiser.
I am using MacHTTP 2.6 to serve the pages but to start i was using os8's personal web sharing, so it did kinda look like this for a bit.
Anyway as said 12mb ram, 500mb hard disk and a 33 MHz 68LC040 CPU. It was important that i do this with a 68k Mac, i could have easily bought a Powerbook 1400 or a 5300 to do the work, but the smaller the specs the more fun it is. So an underpowered Apple laptop from 1994 is my web server. Oh yes, i forgot, it is serving this from a cupboard using WiFi, connecting to my router which is under my bed. Which for that matter is also where the FTP server is should you be inclined to sample its goods.
Performance (or, my 15mins of fame)
Well it all started with a link from The Mothership, an old Mac site that posts interesting stuff from around the web with an Apple flavour. In the 3 months that this site was up i had served around 300 odd pages. Not too bad considering what this is and the fact there had been no linking anywhere. Then i started to get visitors, dozens off them. My odd hit or two every couple of days was transforming into hundreds. The first day of this i served over 150 pages the next over 230 and then the visitor slide began. A short fame, but a kinda fame none-the-less.
I decided to see what i could do. I sent my link to Wired's Cult of Mac Web Blog. Much to my surprise it was posted front page 10mins later. Day one of this i served over 1000 pages, day two, over 2500 pages. It took a few days for it to get back to normal. In the 2weeks during these spikes i served over 5000 pages and nearly 2 full GiG of data. All from this wee beastie.
Shucks! - Sniff, it makes you quite proud.
The best of all this, was also finding out that my site was linked on DIGG. I don't know when this happened, but i think it was the night that i recorded 700 pages served in 30 mins. Yup, it could have been then! Here is a link of the thread where some DIGG folk are mean!, but as some of those folk said, the wee powerbook stayed up and survived. I even got some email from a couple of folk who read the Wired post.
So where is it now? Well still serving around 5 to 10 people a day, with the odd spike, and i am sure that it will dip eventually to the odd passer by. But just now as i write this, if you search for 'Powerbook 540c' on Google, this site appears on the first page.
Yup! 15 minutes of fame.
So was it hard to do? Well no not really, there has been much help from the various online resources, however it was bits and bobs so i will at least detail everything here should you want a similar set up.
To see this server in action click Here!
HardWare
Well a Mac of some description, for our purposes a Powerbook 5xx, a Powerbook 190 would also work and you have the added advantage that it has PCMCIA as standard. If you just want to serve using standard cable ethernet then pretty much anything will do that you can stick an ethernet cable into.
However, we shall stick to what we have here, specifically a powerbook 540c. And a 540c with a PCMCIA module. There are 3types which all look the same from the outside. Marked on the label on the unit is this:
This is a picture of a revision B module. This is the one that i originally got with the 540c when i bought it and started me on this mess about that has resulted in this page and this website in total. Its a fine PCMCIA module, but will not do wifi, it does memory cards, ethernet cards and modems, but not wifi. It is also only a 16bit PCMCIA slot, so no cardbus cards will work, with this or any other module for the 540c.
Using it for wired ethernet makes little sense, as a AUI adapter is far easier to come by and works out the box, but getting one to increase storage space makes a lot of sense, upgrading the 5xx hard drives takes a bit of digging and a PCMCIA memory card is a whole lot simpler. And since you are unlikly to have two working batteries to stick into your bays, might as well stick somthing useful in the slot, eh?
As it happens i actually have two working batteries, but that is another story.
WiFi.
Well you need a 16bit card. I have the orinoco card, which is the one most people talk about, but the key thing is that it is a 16bit card. So orinoco or roamabout cards will work and can share drivers. There are a few cards out there that share the same chipset, and by extension the same drivers.
 There are also cards from farallon which i have used and they work without a problem, but i think sys8 may be needed for them.
The orinocos come in 'bronze', 'silver' and 'gold'. You dont tend to find gold cards and to be honest i dont know what gold is. Silver are more common and support 128bit encryption, the bronze 64bit. For most this will not be a problem, but some routers dont have the lower encryption modes so you will not be able to connect. Something to check.
So! A Powerbook 5xx and a Revision C PCMCIA module is what you need and a 16bit WiFi card, in this case the orinoco.
Software
MacOs version?
Well, anything from system 7.5 to 8.1 has worked for me so far. Sys7.5 you can get on floppy of mount the 19 disk images in a lower OS version. OS8 needs a CD-Rom, well not really. Load it up on to your PCMCIA card from another machine and stick it in. Easy. I admit, i only thought of this as an after thought. i spent 2hours transfering the files over FTP instead. Sigh!
You also need Open Transport for networking, MacTCP won't cut it, and frankly, unless your messing around in system 6 and have very tight memory needs, then why would you want to run MacTCP anyway; good as it is for what it does.
You also need the PC Card Software 2.0 to get your module up and running the way it should. The module works as a 'module' without it if your running system 8, but heck install it all the same; at least have it handy should it not work. You will need it if running sys7.5 tho'.
What else?
Oh, the WiFi drivers, there are various ones out there for the orinoco card and they all work, i am using Version6 but versions below this will work, as well as the RoamAbout drivers that are out there. If one doesn't work, you may as well try an other one. But if you have the RevC module and the PC Card software then the drivers here will work with the orinoco card, if not then your problem will be elsewhere.
So we have the software to get everything running, if running Os8 you could use personal web sharing, which is very easy to set up. If using below this system then you will need something else; you may also want something else if using Os8 as personal web sharing does not give you a running web log which you may want if you want to see who is visiting. I am using MacHTTP which is a web server that can run on a 68000 based machine. I used it to run a web server on my Mac SE FDHD and it is very simple to use.
Sorting it Out
So you have all the hardware and software, how do you now put it all together?
Well, you instal the software as you imagine you would, i would suggest open transport first if its not already on your machine. Choose the 'easy option' with the wifi card divers, nothing fancy is needed. It should instal fine as long as you have the RevC module, if you don't it will tell you the Mac is unsuitable.
After all the instals go to the TCP control panel and set either 'Manual' with the various IP and server details or 'DCHP' which is the more likely option.
Then check that apple talk is set to use the card, there may not be an obvious option here, it may say ethernet slot 0 or 13, or Alternative Ethernet or if your lucky the name of the card your using, if your not sure just try each one in turn and be sure to save and close apple talk after each selection. How will you know that it is working?, well the wee lights on the card will go on when it is correctly selected in apple talk.
Next, go to your wifi cards software setup control panel and input any SID and passwords. After this, go on and reboot, it never hurts.
And it now should work.
You have the hardware and the software and it is all installed and your pb5xx knows to use it.
Be sure to check your router is set to allow wifi adapters to join though. As a security measure you may have turned this option off when you first bought the router. Its a mistake i do each time i introduce a new wifi card to the system, i forget to turn the access list off so i spend 20mins trying to get the new card to work until i then remember i have not told the router to accept unknown cards.
So if it is not working, be sure to check that too, don't just focus on the Mac side.
As far as getting the web server up and running?
Well, open up the MacHTTP folder and start the app.
Now here's a thing, when you start it up and if the machine has not yet 'used' the net connection it has, you may find the MacHTTP crashes. It seems to be a bug, if you have used the net connection before starting MacHTTP it does not seem to happen. Regardless though just force-quite and restart the app' and all will be fine.
Final Bit
At this point you will be able to surf the web pages served by the pb5xx from within your home network, which is only half way there. You then have to revisit your router again, to let HTTP through on Port 80 to the pb5xx IP address. Each brand of router will have different ways to do this, but it usually involves no more than selecting from a drop down box and typing in the IP address.
You now have an old machine serving your mini site to the whole wide web, however one final thing you need to do. For people to find your site they need to know the address, and you need to make sure that it doesn't keep changeing. So back to the router and fix your new web server with its own IP address from within your network. That way if every thing goes down, on the restart everything will be as before with the same internal network ip being assigned to your pb540c web server. So you can hand your IP address out to folk and know that they will always get through to the machine you have just set up and so on to your splendifferous website.
End!
You now have and old Apple Powerbook 5xx running as a webserver over WiFi, and you are now so happy about it, you go out and buy a domain to go with it. You also start serving large files to friends and strangers, because, well you can! And no stinkin' free web host is going to get in your way.
HOOPLA!
Oh, it is unlikely that you will be running a site that actually uses a huge amount of bandwidth, but if you do somehow manage this, then best check with your ISP.
There is not much more to it than that, but if you are inclined to contact me for other info, then feel free to use the email on the front page and i will help if i can.
Have Fun
If inclined to read more about the 540c go here... MacOpinion - Charles Moore
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