Download WebSite 1.1 - From O'Reilly. Gibbs is a consultant and writer based in Ventura, Calif. He can be reached at (800) 622-1108, Ext. 504, or at mgibbs@ gibbs.com.

By Mark Gibbs
10/21/96

''If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, tho' he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.''

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Web server marketplace has exploded over the last year. We've gone from having only a half a dozen freeware systems to more than 100 freeware and commercial products to choose among. And each one, of course, bills itself as the better mousetrap.

So it's now pretty difficult to chose a Web server. The actual ''engine,'' meaning the HTTP server, isn't tremendously complex or different product to product. What differentiates one Web server from another is the stuff that vendors add-on: the management tools, diagnostic capabilities and documentation, which is a crucial and often lacking element.

In the computer marketplace, it's unusual to find good documentation, even in top-end products. It's extremely rare to find excellent documentation and a sophisticated product. O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.'s WebSite Professional stands out on both counts.

O'Reilly, a Sebastapol, Calif., publisher well known for its high-quality technical books, entered the Web server market about a year ago with WebSite, a Windows NT- and Windows 95-based HTTP server.

While WebSite is an excellent server with good documentation, its market potential diminished when Microsoft Corp. entered the Internet product arena last December. O'Reilly realized that in the face of Microsoft's free Internet Information Server, WebSite wasn't going to provide the revenue stream it hoped. In response, it made WebSite available through what is effectively a free commercial release.

But O'Reilly didn't stop there. It upped the ante, so to speak, by launching a much more sophisticated package, WebSite Professional. The move speaks volumes for the company's competitive instincts; taking on Microsoft and Netscape Communications Corp. is not for the faint-hearted.

A professional job

I tested WebSite Pro running as a service under Windows NT Server Version 4.0 on a 100-MHz Pentium processor with 16M bytes of RAM in a Chatcom, Inc. NT10 server. Generally, you would want to run with 32M bytes of RAM to ensure adequate memory for back-end applications, but WebSite Pro ran on the smaller platform without any problems. (It's interesting to note that many of the Web servers I've tested to date won't even run properly in 16M bytes of RAM.)

WebSite Pro takes no more than half an hour to install from CD-ROM under Windows NT or Win95. Under Windows NT, the Web server can be configured as either a service or an application. Basic configuration parameters, such as server name and directory locations, are done at installation.

WebSite comes with Getting Started, WebSite Pro Basics and WebSite Pro Advanced Topics manuals.

This has got to be some of the best documentation I've ever seen. It's well-written, clear and extensive. In particular, the manuals effectively walk you through complex topics such as Web server access controls, obtaining and installing server authentication certificates and writing back-end scripts.

Many Web servers are deficient in their management interfaces, but not WebSite Pro. WebSite actually has two such interfaces: one for the management of the server proper and the other, called WebView, for managing the server's data.

Server management is done through a Windows-style tabbed properties box accessed from the start-up bar. Management functions are grouped into logical sections with excellent context-sensitive help. O'Reilly also has incorporated a number of Wizards (automated configuration dialogs) into the management system so setting up virtual servers (multiple domain names and TCP/IP addresses) is easy.

Support for virtual servers is particularly useful in intranet environments. The ability to define unique Web server identities for different departments and workgroups makes it easy to move those groups to new servers when bandwidth or security requirements change.

A Web with a view

You can view your Web documents in several ways: by file name, partial or full URL; the link label (from the HREF or ALT attributes in HTML documents); or document title. This makes it easy to understand the relationship among documents.

Icons show each document's type - such as HTML, image and video - and status. The status icons show at a glance which pages are virtual documents created by back-end scripts and which are external references. You also can tell from the status icons if external and internal links are broken.

WebView has a useful Find feature that lets you filter which documents are displayed. Many Web administrators will find it worthwhile to use the filter to show broken links.

For the modification of existing documents, WebView supports opening documents with any editor you wish to use. However, if there's a previous association setup with HTML documents, then that association will be the default.

In addition, WebSite Pro supports an HTTP extension (the Put command) that allows documents to be uploaded to the server. This makes WebSite Pro compatible with editors such as Netscape's Navigator Gold.

To complete the editing facilities, WebSite Pro comes bundled with the HotDog HTML editor from Sausage Software and the Mosaic browser from Spyglass, Inc.

WebView also provides four Wizards for creating pages: a search page for finding documents using the bundled WebFind search engine, a home page, an Under Construction page and a What's New page. These generic page layouts are inserted into your Web with your specific data embedded. You then need to edit the pages to fine-tune their content and appearance. This is a weak component of the product, as there are only four Wizards and they really don't add much to your Web management.

When it comes to security, WebSite Pro is particularly well featured. It supports the usual Web access controls such as user, group and realm (collections of users and groups), as well as IP address and host name (domain name) filtering.

In addition, WebSite Pro supports Secure Sockets Layer Version 2.0 and Secure-HTPP, both of which allow encrypted communications between servers and clients. Optionally, it supports authentication through digital certificates.

As if all of the above weren't enough, O'Reilly has gone flat out to add features that round out the product.

The extensive documentation for building back-end applications covers the WebSite API, O'Reilly's equivalent to Microsoft's Internet Server API and Netscape's Netscape Server API. These APIs provide an environment under which applications can run as re-entrant shared Dynamic Link Libraries to improve performance and add value to Web server programming.

WebSite Pro also comes with an imagemap editor for creating images that link to multiple URLs depending on where in the image you click; Allaire Corp.'s Cold Fusion Standard Edition, which lets you link Open Database Connectivity-compliant databases to your Web system; WebIndex, which builds search indexes for your server; and WebFind, which provides the user interface through the WebSite Pro server to the indexes built by WebIndex.

Problem areas

In addition, WebSite Pro does not provide integration with the users and groups configured in the Windows system. This means that you'll have to re-enter the details of already defined local and network users if you wish to control their access to the Web services.

Setting your sites high

O'Reilly has one the best mousetraps, er, Web servers, in the market, and it is indeed well-packaged and promoted. It's a good product with which to catch your intranet mice.