Jeremy Lee wrote:

> > From: Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com>
> >
> >> On Sun, 14 Mar 2010, Jeremy Lee wrote:
> >>
> >> > Has anyone out there managed to get any of the various
> >> > compilers/assemblers working on 'hosted website' servers such as
> >> > Dreamhost?
> >
> > We briefly toyed with the idea of having on line compilers at Byte Craft
> > a couple years ago either as a demo or online service. We did do
> > the work necessary to set it up. Even with a dedicated computer
> > to host the compilers this eventually proved to be the bottleneck a
> > single computer servicing all the compiles.
>
> Excellent! I knew I wasn't the only one haunted by this idea. (Don't
> suppose you've got any code you'd like to donate?)

The implementation turned out to be more complex than I first understood.
The complexities were tied to website security and making sure it and the
dedicated computer were secure.

> One issue I wonder how you dealt with: I've concluded that I can't use
> Makefiles, or even Ant scripts because of the obvious security problems
> with running random uploaded shell scripts within the webservers' user
> space. I'm going to have to construct my own build system, or perhaps
> steal something out of another tool like Piklab.

We solved that problem by creating a single execution script. Our tools
can either compile to object and then link or do absolute compiles that generate
listings and hex code. We chose to do the later which makes it easy
for source to be submitted and the results returned.  This makes it
easier to deal with security issues

> Did you have any thoughts on the range of tools and compilers that
> can/should be available as well as the C30 toolchain?

In our case we tested the system for promotion of our tools. We have
simulation tools that could have been setup to work with the compiler
with little more than script changes.


Regards,


Walter..
--
Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limited
http://www.bytecraft.com






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