by We've been using our (NCSA HTTPD) web server for serving nothing but
information pages up to press, but a couple of days ago I decided to
put up a page of links to downloadable freeware utilities for our PC
users.
Well all the .ZIP files were, of course, easy - they get served up
with a MIME type of application/zip, which causes the browser
(Netscape 2.02 for W95 in my case) to do the right thing and open a
file/save dialog.
But the few .EXE files (self-extractor archives) caused me real pain.
The default behaviour of HTTPD is to serve them up as text/plain
which, of course, causes the browser to try to *display* them - stupid
! And then I went round and round in circles as I edited first
"srm.conf" (AddType directive) and then "mime.types" in a desperate
effort to get the .EXE extension associated with MIME type
application/octet-stream. I edited files and "kill -HUP"'ed the httpd
daemon till I was blue in the face but all to no effect - my stupid
browser still thought the download was text/plain. And then I tried
flushing the browser's disk cache - this did the trick. So it seems
the browser "remembered" the MIME type from the first failed download,
and completely ignored the fact that the .EXE file was now being
served up as application/octet-stream !!!
Aaarrrgghh !
Am I the only one to ever fall over this ? I can't believe it ...
Why isn't .EXE defined as application/octet-stream (like .BIN is) in
the as-issued HTTPD mime.types file ?
"This has been a cautionary tale, broadcast as a public service"
================================================================
Nick Boyce,
Bristol, UK
--
If the Government wants us to respect the law | PGP key available
it should set a better example. | by request.