Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ applies to the latest release of Hiawatha. If you have an older version, read the changelog first.

Hiawatha

1. All the hostnames within a domain should show the same website. Is that possible?

Yes, you can do this by using a wildcard. Before using the wildcard, a complete hostname must be specified. It is necessary for 301 (redirect) errors.

VirtualHost {
    Hostname = www.website.net, *.website.net
    ...
}

2. Can Hiawatha show the content of a directory?

Yes, use the following option for the VirtualHost section or in a .hiawatha configuration file inside that directory:

ShowIndex = yes

3. Can I specify multiple startfiles for a virtual host?

No. If you want to use a different startfile for a directory, use the StartFile option in a .hiawatha file in that directory.

4. Does Hiawatha support GZip content encoding.

No, because there is no need to. Most websites consists of static files like images and stylesheets and dynamic content generated by CGI. Images are hard to compress, so there is no need for GZip encoding there. Stylesheets are often small (a few kilobytes), so there isn't much to win by compressing them. Most Hiawatha users use PHP which has GZip output support, so that covers the important part of the dynamic content.

5. Is it possible to run Hiawatha as a service under Windows?

Yes, that is possible since version 6.9. The Windows package of Hiawatha contains a Cygwin tool to run Hiawatha as a Windows service. Read the included Installation.txt for more instructions.

If this FAQ doesn't answer your question, please try the forum.