Version History
 

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Version 4.04 release 6 - 10 February 1998

Modified the FTP service so that it no longer logs user id and password dialogs to the system audit logs.

Fixed some problems with the SMTP service regarding undeliverable mail and old mail files not always deleted properly.

Fixed a problem with #include inside a WebScript which output the result too early.

Improved the interface to DNS for SMTP, reducing the number of lookup failures and retries.

Fixed some problems with restarting PowerWeb on a very fast machine (Pentium II 266 or dual Pentium).

Added C-style escape sequences within strings for WebMacros (a backslash followed by a special character or an 'x' and a 2-digit hex number). To enable this support, you must enquote the string and prefix the enquoted string with a percent (%) character. This extra character is required to avoid breaking existing WebMacro code.

Perl is now deprecated and will not be supported in future because of the inherent security flaws within the Perl language.

PowerWeb works with DB/2 UDB, but it is very important that you install the latest UDB fixpacks (BOTH client AND server), because the early UDB releases were not compatible with PowerWeb and also had problems with multiple simultaneous connections. You must also run the same version of DB/2 (client and server) for ALL your DB/2 databases and PowerWeb servers, because DB/2 has reliability problems when running a mixed version environment.

DB/2 error diagnostics support has been improved with more complete information being sent to the PowerWeb "warnings" log.

PowerWeb now automatically recovers from a DBMS that shuts down while PowerWeb is actively using it.

PowerWeb now recovers from a certain type of failed database login that used to prevent further database connections from being established. This happened rarely and typically only when the database server loses comms in the middle of a login.

Fixed a problem with some ODBC drivers that truncate data after 255 bytes of a column are retrieved.

If you see messages in your "warnings" log saying "Cipher block length exceeded", then go to the Global settings page of your server and reset the "Password" field to empty.

Version 4.02 release 9 - 22 April 1997

Allowed users to change their own passwords, instead of requiring an administrator to perform the change. Look at the page "/powerweb/changepw.htm" on your site. This page can be moved to any resource location that allows WebMacros, with the user realm automatically being adjusted appropriately. If you need to hard-code a specific user realm, you can do this by modifying the HTML code, at the place indicated in the code.

The FTP service now accepts "cd ~username" to change to user directories without requiring the leading slash, as in "cd /~username".

Strengthened the protection of POP3 against password guessing attacks. You set the LogonAttempts field within your POP3 service audit settings. Each failed password attempt causes an increasing delay before another attempt is allowed. This protection is the same as that previously available only for FTP.

Modified the command-line utilities that perform batch user administration and log management so that they first attempt a secure SSL HTTPS connection and only if that fails do they fall back to HTTP to connect.

The SUBMIT program now provides an operating system return code which is the same as the HTTP status return code, extended to use 1 to indicate help requested, 2 to indicate a bad command line and 3 to indicate a communications failure.

Allowed suppression of all PowerWeb software banners to help high security sites thwart determined attacks. Change the "Anonymous" setting within Global Settings. It also has the side-effect of disabling the SMTP VRFY command.

Enhanced the FTP service to allow uploads to occur even if the file is busy (perhaps from a previous upload which is still busy timing out).

Enhanced the $form WebCommand to allow specification of a remote URL for the form_ok and form_fail attributes.

Version 4.02 release 5 - 5 February 1997

Enabled automatic execution of CGI Perl ".pl" files, without any wrappers, to enable easier migration from other servers. Store your ".pl" files in a CGI-BIN directory and they will be automatically executed with Perl (for example: /example/cgi-bin/timezone.pl ). The WebPerl API remains the preferred Perl solution, with its much higher performance and better capability.

Enforced security on the "Config:/" WebObject tree so that only admin users can access it.

Fixed a problem with 4.02r4 where database connections were sometimes failing with a "Logon to database failed" message.

Increased the default user-stack size to 128K for NEW installations. This helps some applications such as DB2 which consume large amounts of stack space. To change your current size, edit your global settings.

Version 4.02 release 4 - 29 January 1997

Windows NT and Windows 95 versions of PowerWeb are now able to be ripple-updated, not just OS/2 versions. If you are running version 4.02 prior to release 4, you will need to obtain your update directly from one of the PowerWeb distribution sites, all other versions are capable of being automatically ripple-updated.

Fixed a problem with API hooks written using WebMacros where they were not always being called correctly.

Fixed a problem with batch editing of the user database when adding already-existing users to a group.

Version 4.02 release 3 - 14 January 1997

Added an option to allow administrators to choose their default table display type. Go to the Console Settings page (found under Global Settings) and set the TableType. You can still toggle your table display type anytime by using the "Table View" hyperlink within the PowerPad.

Fixed the #DirectoryMap WebMacro which showed the wrong URL when used under a secure connection.

Loading and saving PowerWeb configuration files is now substantially faster.

Version 4.02 release 2 - 8 January 1997

Improved the PowerWeb administration and configuration user interface. Many pages now use tables extensively. If you need to see any pages in the old view, click on the "Table View" hyperlink at the right of the PowerPad at the top of each such page.

PowerWeb is now also available under Microsoft Windows 95.

Added multiple user mail realms, so each virtual host can have its own set of users, each with its own set of mailboxes. The old method of specifying sub-directories for each SMTP and POP3 host has now been streamlined into a single page accessed from the global mail settings page. The new host mapping page is extended to allow specifying a realm for each virtual host.

Added the ability to specify a home directory for each user individually. Setting the directory to "none" disables home directory facilities for that user. These home directories are applicable to both HTTP and FTP.

Added the ability to specify directory size limits for FTP uploads for each user individually.

Added directory size limits for FTP uploads for any specified resource or template, regardless of whether the file is being uploaded into a user directory. Set the limit by choosing the "Document Settings" for the resource or template.

A new #comment WebMacro allows you to include private comments into your HTML which are not sent to the client.

Fixed a problem with the PowerWeb NT installation where the install server did not always quit and launch the real PowerWeb server after installation was complete.

Fixed a problem with the PowerWeb NT version which did not always use the fully qualified host name of the server.

Version 4.02 release 1 - 9 December 1996

PowerWeb is now also available under Microsoft Windows NT.
It is totally compatible with PowerWeb for OS/2, including all the same services (HTTP, FTP, SMTP and POP3), SSL v3 security and all the same integrated language support (C, SQL, Rexx and Perl).

Extended SMTP to allow mail addressed to a local user to be automatically redirected to another user at another host. To make use of this, you add a new user to your mail realm whose name is the full e-mail address of the new recipient, and whose alias is the original user name at your host. You do not have to define a password, as this user will never have a mailbox, the user name is simply there to provide mail redirection.

For example, to redirect mail addressed to "help" to "[email protected]", you would create a new user named "[email protected]" with an alias of "help".

Extended SMTP to handle mail recipient addresses which don't specify a host name. This previously only worked if the name wasn't enclosed in angle brackets "<>".

Version 4.01 release 9 - 13 November 1996

Included compatibility with Perl version 5.003. Previous versions of Perl will no longer function with PowerWeb, except through CGI. The WebPerl interface is significantly faster than CGI and provides much better functionality. Version 4.01 release 7 - 8 November 1996

Authentication with Client Certificates has been improved to allow each Resource to have its own specification of which Certificate Authority to allow to sign certificates to access that Resource.

Each Resource or Template is independent in terms of SSL version number, whether Client Certificate Authentication is required, which Certificate Authorities to allow, and whether to use the Common Name within the Certificate as the user name for access control purposes.

This high level of customisability allows for heterogeneous sites, such as those hosting multiple virtual domains.

It also means that you can use SSL security throughout your site, while only requiring Client Certificates for certain high-security or subscription Resources.

Database passwords are now encrypted in the configuration file and are never transmitted in the clear to your browser, even if you are not running a secure browser.

We suggest that you perform all remote administration using a secure browser if you have any security concerns regarding your server setup parameters. This method also ensures that your admin user name and password are never transmitted in the clear.

The #fetch WebMacro has been improved to include the ability to POST form data to another server and fetch its response.

Version 4.01 release 6 - 18 October 1996

The client sendmail program has been enhanced to accept a wider range of e-mail address formats.

Also: earlier releases of sendmail which were not part of the official distribution will now work with the new PowerWeb version (just in case you have an old sendmail on your path, in which case you should remove that old copy anyhow!).

Version 4.01 release 5 - 16 October 1996

Fixed a problem with HTTPS connections where a browser that connected but never transmitted the first handshake message and never closed the connection, could cause the server to wait indefinitely on that connection, while serving HTTP as per normal.

Improved the SENDMAIL client program to handle multiple "To:", "Cc:" and "BCc:" specifications within mail notes. The program is now included as part of the standard PowerWeb package and is stored in the system/bin directory.

Version 4.01 release 4 - 9 October 1996

Added the capability to call WebMacros as WebHooks, making it easier to use PowerWeb's built-in database connectivity for custom user-authentication and access-control.

Improved handling of inherited files for long-lived CGI processes, which could cause some system log files to be temporarily inaccessable.

Ensured that Authentication WebHooks were being called even if the browser did not supply a user name. This was the behaviour prior to 4.01r1 and the old policy has now been re-instated.

Improved compatibility with MR2ICE mail reader for POP3 progress reporting.

Version 4.01 release 3 - 2 October 1996

Fixed a HTTP proxy problem with Netscape browsers when a form POST occurs.

Fixed a FTP access control problem when a directory Alias points to a directory which has no associated Resource, in which case the server was simply returning no data instead of replying with an error response.

Version 4.01 release 2 - 30 September 1996

Fixed a problem with DB2 and SQL Anywhere when reading BLOBs. Sybase and MicroSoft SQL Server operated correctly.

Modified the behaviour of the #if WebMacro within an embedded script so that it complies with the '@variable_name' shorthand notation.

Fixed a problem with client-side JavaScript embedded in Web pages.

Version 4.01 release 1 - 25 September 1996

PowerWeb now supports SSL, both version 2 and version 3 transparently. The server is NOT limited to US export level cryptography. It supports full 128-bit RC4 encryption and has no limit on RSA key sizes (handling more than 2560 bits if necessary).

The default setup options will work "out of the box", providing excellent throughput with session caching and keep-alive connections. Once a connection has been established, there is no noticeable performance degradation perceived by the client, compared to an unencrypted non-secure HTTP link.

Load the Admin page and check out the Security Administration links.

The SUBMIT client program has been enhanced to handle HTTPS client connections to secure SSL 3.0 servers.

The User Editor now supports adding users to a group with the batch file mechanism. To add all the users specified in a file to a group, simply fill in the realm and group names and the filename, and click on the "Add" button.

Two new batch files have been added which perform similar functions: addug.cmd and addugs.cmd which add a single user or a batch of users to a group respectively.

There is a new WebMacro named #split which splits a WebObject variable into components using a regular expression. This is useful for form validity checks within HTML without having to use an external language.

Removed spurious extra client authentication requests that sometimes occurred when moving between protected and non-protected regions of the server's document space.

Audit, referer and user-agent logs now have harmonised timestamps.



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