Run a java app on a shared account?

[beatgroover]

Hi y'all,

We have a little java app that reads an XML file and creates a .jpg image in the same directory.

Don't suppose there's a way to get permissions to run the java app on a shared account. (ie. do I need to get myself a dedicated deal).

Thanks in advance!

[Vin DSL]

I'm not in authority here, obviously, but the only apps that I know of, that they don't allow in the AUP, are ones that run continually in the background, i.e. chat programs, IRC, anything that passes traffic THROUGH JagPC servers, yada, yada, yada...

Everyone is running "little" java apps these days - clock/calendars, pre-loaders, scrollers, et cetera - so I don't know why they would care if you run them, as long they aren't large-scale, stand-alone programs, that 'steal' processes from the (shared) server, e.g. slow things down for others.

[jason]

Vin, you are describing Java applets, which are downloaded by the browser and run by the java environment on the remote computer. Therefore applets take up no server resources (beyond those required for opening the file and sending it through Apache). It sounds like beatgrover is talking about a server-side program written in Java.

Beatgrover, as long as your app doesn't require too many server resources, I don't think it would be a problem. It really isn't much different than the hit counters that were so prevelant in the 90's--they generally read a number out of a text file and created an image-representation of that number. The only thing that you'll probably need to do is get Java installed on the server. I was playing with a small Java app a few weeks ago. I wanted to try it out on my server, but I couldn't find the java runtime. I thought about asking support to install it, but I haven't had time to do any more experimenting, so I haven't yet. In my past experience, they are usually pretty good about installing things that their clients want. If for some reason they won't install it server-wide, you may be able to get it running in your account, but I'd ask support for their help first.

--Jason

[jason]

I should aslo note that if this app happens to be a "Java Server Page" then your request probably won't be granted. People have asked for JSP support in the past and it has been turned down.

--Jason