HELP! My server doesn't know about RSS?!

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$var
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HELP! My server doesn't know about RSS?!

Post by $var »

My work was initially hosted with a company that was basically dropping every week and became rude to the point they threatened to remove our data. So we needed to find a host the supported asp. net and php ASAP.

The one we found just told me that they have no experience in supporting RSS. Which to me sounds like they don't support XML of any level, which means they are idiots for hosting business without knowing what business standards are. That aside... I need to provide them with how to support these basic RSS 2.0 feeds!

Can anyone inform me of some documentation on how a Linux Server would go about supporting RSS?

Thanks so much!
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pickle
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Post by pickle »

You can generate RSS feeds with PHP without need for any extra libraries - it's really just a matter of sending the right headers.

As for 3rd party RSS feed generators - I have no idea :?
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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$var
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Post by $var »

well... let me tell you what i've got and maybe you could dumb it down for me.

i have a podcast. it used to work before the DNS change, and you can see it on my personal server working fine. http://www.londonindie.com/podcast.rss

I will have to rejig so much to run it through PHP, yes?
choppsta
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Post by choppsta »

If you're using Apache as your webserver you should only need to add something like the following to your httpd.conf or in an .htaccess file:

Code: Select all

AddType application/xml .rss
or whatever mime type you want.
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$var
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Post by $var »

thanks choppsta... i was told that it is simple client side problems, but it didn't make sense why it would work on one server and not another... this makes sense to me... i'll hope that it fixes the error.
ewelling
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Post by ewelling »

Did choppsta's reply fix the problem? I'm have an Rss Reader which consumes my own RSS feeds on an .aspx page, written in XML. At the top of the page I have ContentType="text/xml", but the remote server won't send any data back, as if it is just ignoring it.

All this works fine on my local IIS server.

As far as Choppsta's response, is this something I tell my host technical support person?

"AddType application/xml .rss to your httpd.conf or in an .htaccess file".

Thanks :D
timvw
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Re: HELP! My server doesn't know about RSS?!

Post by timvw »

$var wrote: The one we found just told me that they have no experience in supporting RSS.
Atleast they're honest.
$var wrote: Which to me sounds like they don't support XML of any level, which means they are idiots for hosting business without knowing what business standards are.
Imho, knowing html, xhtml, rss is not the core business of a webhoster.. All they have to do is make sure their webservers keep running... (and make sure they have a decent backup plan etc...)

<rant>
I don't want to pay for a webhost that wastes (money) trying to support idiots that don't know how http works...
</rant>
ewelling
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Post by ewelling »

I was not satisfied with my customer service at my web host, so I switched to DiscountASP, and coincidentally, all my Rss problems are gone. I can now read my own Rss feeds with my own RssReader written in ASP.NET 2005. :D
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Cameri
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Post by Cameri »

What the... why do you need the web host to support RSS? what does that have to do with them anyways? If you can make a script that generates the RSS feeds in XML yourself, using one of several scripting languages usually available (PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, etc).

RSS is waaay outside the stuff that web hosts provide... I mean...
It's like saying some car dealer sucks because they don't sell tires!

RSS has to do with presentation, and web hosts don't care about presentation, it's up to the client who bought the hosting plan to decide whether or not to show RSS feeds to the internet users, like I said, generated by any of the scripting languages above.

Or, Am I wrong O_O?
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volka
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Post by volka »

Cameri wrote:Or, Am I wrong O_O?
Nope, I see it this way too.


btw:
choppsta wrote:

Code: Select all

AddType application/xml .rss
or whatever mime type you want.
Response Headers - http://www.londonindie.com/podcast.rss

Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 12:00:00 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.37 (Unix) mod_throttle/3.1.2 DAV/1.0.3 mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a PHP/4.4.4 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7e
Last-Modified: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 21:10:22 GMT
Etag: "2a7a8e2-9e92-452eaf3e"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 40594
Content-Type: text/plain

200 OK
;)
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