Table of Contents

PowerWeb Server++ supports customised trailers for any HTML document, which allows for advertising at the bottom of each page.

To display the standard PowerWeb advertising reference, simply define a trailer with the text "#PowerWeb".

To define a trailer:

Load the Admin Root page.
Select "Template Editor".
Select "Document Settings" for the "Default" template.
Modify the setting named "Trailer".
SUBMIT the page.
Choose "Goto Save & Restart" from the menu at the top of the page.
SUBMIT to save your configuration and restart the server.

A good example is our PowerWeb referral trailer (#PowerWeb) which refers users to our home page, or the Test Drive trailer (#PlugNPay) which displays the home page reference as well as the Test Drive expiry date.

If you wish to include the PowerWeb reference within your page, and not just as a trailer, use the following HTML:

Test Drive users cannot change this setting.

The PowerWeb Server++ Test Drive is exactly the same software as provided to registered users. The only limitation is that the HTML document trailers cannot be customised, so the PowerWeb advert will always be displayed.

This restriction is removed as soon as you enter a valid registered license number.

The most common casue for this behaviour is:

You have edited the file in which you originally put the counter code, from within the editor that your browser loads.

Because the browser loads the current count for that page, if you save that page, you are saving the current count. The way to correct it is to re-insert your counter code.

It is always advisable to edit the original HTML file directly, as the copy the browser sees is one in which all the Web Macros have been interpreted and therefore stripped out.

Yes! We are committed to improving PowerWeb and fixing bugs. Our intent is to make PowerWeb the best price-performance server available.

PowerWeb is the first of an entire family of server products that will be released for multiple platforms with full cross-compatibility.

You can expect updates at least once a month, and probably every two weeks.

When your test drive copy of PowerWeb Server++ expires after 30 days from time of download, you will have the opportunity to register with CompuSource for a permanent license.

Load the page /powerweb/register.htm on your server for registration details.

Click here for a full description.

Yes!

Use the Ip Wizard available on the /admin page

For example, www.sports.com and www.science.com could both refer to the same server, being www.multi.com (or IP 196.12.34.56 for example), but references to www.sports.com would be equivalent to www.multi.com/sports and references to www.science.com would be equivalent to www.multi.com/science.

You can configure PowerWeb to do this by:

1. Point your browser at the /admin page
2. Choose the IP Wizard and follow its instructions

Netscape can sometimes hang while loading pages, especially if there are many graphics. This is related to the KeepAlive feature and is caused by the browser not recognising when a connection has timed out.

If you are running Netscape under WinOS2, there is a fix, which can be found at our site in this directory:

ftp://ftp.compusource.co.za/pub/tcpipfix

The new files are vdostcp.vdd and winsock.dll which should replace your ones in your \tcpip\bin and \tcpip\dos\bin directories. You will need to reboot after installing these files.

These files should only be added if you have already replaced your tcpip files with the other .ZIP files from ftp://ftp.compusource.co.za/pub/tcpipfix into their respective directories. These other files are the Merlin TCP/IP stack for OS/2.

IBM's Web Explorer 1.x has a number of bugs that cause it to either crash your entire system, use lots of swap space (often 30 megabytes for a 2K text document), and take a very long time to display any document with a background image.

These problems are not specific to viewing PowerWeb Server++ pages - they are a general problem with IBM's browser.

If the problem still persists, currently your best alternative is Netscape Navigator 2.0 or Microsoft's Internet Explorer 2.0.

The licensing method relies upon the default IP address and host name of your machine as reported by the operating system. This can be specified when you enrol and does not have to be the same as automatically filled in for you when you enrolled - we take a best guess and expect you to modify it if necessary. If a mistake is made, you can re-enrol.

If you are test driving PowerWeb Server++ on a stand-alone machine, then you can run it with "Powerweb -local" regardless of whether you have an incorrect or dynamically assigned IP address.

Yes - it is fully CGI 1.1 compliant. CGI 1.2 compatibility is only required for Windows based servers.

You will probably want to use Web Macros or API scripts instead of CGI, because these methods are much faster and more flexible. Web Macros are an easy way to create dynamic documents and process forms while working within HTML. API scripts can be written in Rexx or any compiled language. The REXX API Interface provides power while keeping development easy.

Some examples of both form processing and CGI scripts are included in the Guided Tour.

Yes. Long filenames are much preferred - document names can be more descriptive and the filename extension can be ".html" instead of ".htm", thus being more compatible with UNIX.

This is even allowed with FAT partitions - long file names are automatically mapped through to the old "8.3" format.

If you are running on a FAT partition, then your user names are limited to 8 characters.

PowerWeb Server++ offers unparallelled performance, measured by comparing multiple servers on the same machine and submitting a test suite of document queries. The more the number of simultaneous connections, the better PowerWeb Server++ performs.

You can expect PowerWeb Server++ to serve 1700 documents per minute on a 50MHz 486 machine when there are 10 simultaneous connections. The exact performance you experience will depend upon your TCP/IP implementation, the size of your documents, whether any scripts are called, the performance of your hard disk, and (probably most critically) the bandwidth of the network connection to your server.

Sites with a heavy user load or those which are running other services will most appreciate the low runtime overhead of PowerWeb Server++.

Support for test drive and unregistered copies of PowerWeb Server++ is on a best-endeavour basis as time permits. If you register you will receive a formal level of support.

Yes! PowerWeb Server++ excels at running multiple servers and multiple protocols. It comes standard with HTTP, HTTP proxy, FTP, SMTP and POP3 services.

Multiple servers can be run on multiple ports, or on multiple virtual IP addresses on the same port. The second approach is called a multi-homed server. PowerWeb Server++ can serve from different directories according to the IP address, thereby allowing vanity domain names to be used.

SSL and SHTTP are revised, more secure, versions of the HTTP protocol that current WWW servers and browsers implement. The security will allow for tamper-proof banking transactions and other communications of a sensitive nature to be performed across the World Wide Web.

We strongly recommend using SSL Version 3.0 instead of 2.0 because of its much better security protection.

This is a bug in OS/2, caused by an interaction with the multimedia extensions to OS/2. PowerWeb Server++ will continue to function, but will be able to accept fewer simultaneous connections, thereby reducing its performance.

The fix: Users who have upgraded to OS/2 Warp Connect version 3.00 CSD level XR03003 no longer have this problem.

The patch: remove "\MMOS2\DLL" from your LIBPATH in your "config.sys" file.

For the technically minded: PowerWeb Server++ is attempting to increase the number of file handles available to it, but OS/2 is refusing the request. WordPerfect has the same problem when running their OS/2 software.

The primary cause of these messages is a misconfiguration of the server, such as specifying access control on a document, but forgetting to define a user database.

Another common reason is that you are running a CGI script that the operating system cannot load (caused for example by a missing library). Try running your executable file directly from the command line. If that fails, you have found the underlying problem.

PowerWeb Server++ provides two methods of supporting imagemaps. The old method uses a "imagemap.cnf" file contained within the "CONF" sub-directory which in turn lists all the maps. This method should be used for compatibility with old documents only.

The new method allows for direct specification within the HTML document of the map to use for each graphic. This system was first introduced in NCSA's 1.3 release of their UNIX server.

The new method places no limitations on the number or location of imagemaps. It is also faster than the old method because it is more direct.

Example of new method:
<A HREF="/$imagemap/maps/fish.map"> <IMG SRC="fish33.gif" ISMAP></A>

This will execute the internal imagemap processor built into PowerWeb, passing it a parameter of "/maps/fish.map" which is a file stored under the DocumentRoot subdirectory (typically "e:\PowerWeb\docs") of your server. Additional parameters tell "$imagemap" where the user clicked.

Documents with references to "/cgi-bin/imagemap" are automatically aliased to "/$imagemap" to provide backward compatibility while obtaining superior performance.

An imagemap is a graphic containing hypertext "hot" regions within it, so that various documents or CGI programs can be served according to where the user clicked on the graphic.

PowerWeb Server++ Rexx Extensions offer increased functionality and far better speed than CGI for writing customised web serving applications. The Rexx interface is direct, not through CGI, so full access to the server's internal data structures is provided, and the overhead of a fork to the command interpreter is avoided.

The Rexx Extensions Interface has the same power as the PowerWeb C Language Interface but offers easier development without the need for compiling, and mastering the intricacies of DLL development.

Servers that use REXX filters for processing HTTP requests cannot offer the same level of customisability without having to modify the main server code itself, causing a maintenance and reliability problem, as well as making upgrades to new versions of the server very time consuming.

PowerWeb Server++ has a clean separation between the main server logic which is implemented in C++ for speed, and extensions which may SELECTIVELY override portions of that operation, and which may be written in any compiled language, as well as in Rexx.

Java is a proprietary language invented by Sun which is similar to C++. It is used for developing dynamic extensions to the client's browser. As such, Java is fully supported by PowerWeb Server++.

PowerWeb Server++ automatically adds .EXE, .CMD, and .BAT file extensions as appropriate. This is enabled by default upon installation for the cgi-bin directory.

If you wish to use this feature for other directories, go to the Admin page and select Aliases. Ensure that your directory name is mentioned under "Original Path" and has an "Object Type" of "CGI Script".

The "New Path" should NOT have a leading slash (/) if the directory is underneath the server root directory, instead of the document root directory.

The Guided Tour shows an example of a Comma-Separated-Variable (CSV) file viewer. You can create your own custom viewers and have them used automatically for files with given extensions.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the Admin page and select "Resources"
2. Add a new resource (such as ".dbf") using the "Default" template.
3. Go to ">>> Advanced Settings" and select "Hooks".
4. Fill in the "CommandProcessing" line, specifying your function name and DLL module name.
5. Write your custom viewer (look at the \powerweb\tour\source directory for the entire source code of the CSV example).
6. Copy your new DLL into the \powerweb\bin directory.
7. Try it out.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the Admin page and select "Global Settings"
2. Change the "ServerRoot" setting
3. Submit the page
4. Go to the Admin page and select "Resources"
5. Change any resources which are affected by the new server root.
6. Submit the page
7. Go to "Save and Restart"
8. Save the configuration and restart.
9. The server will restart with your new server root.

1. Quit the server, by typing Q at the console.
2. Rename the directory.
3. Start the server.

This is how directories are determined upon FTP login:

• If the login is anonymous, the user is placed in the ftp document root directory.
• If the login is a specific user id, eg admin, then the user is put into directory /~admin, which under default settings maps to \powerweb\usr\admin

This is how to set up HTML directories for each user, allowing admin unrestricted access to the normal document root hierarchy, both with FTP and HTTP, but allowing only the owning user to FTP write into his/her own user directory:

1. Put all users' specific documents into their user directories, such as \powerweb\usr\JoeGerstner\* and \powerweb\usr\BillGates\*
   
2. Put all other documents into your document root hierarchy, such as \powerweb\docs\*
   
3. You will notice that there is a new resource auto-created for you the first time you ran 2.07rel2 or later which grants everyone READ access with HTTP to every user's directory.
   
4. That's it! There is no configuration needed!

You can use WebMacros to implement session data, that is data that is remembered from page to page without requiring the user to POST a form by clicking on a SUBMIT button.

Here are some example hyperlinks that you can include within an HTML page to preserve session data:

<a href=page1.htm?<!--#echo notfound var=Request:/ArgumentText-->> Link using the same session data </a><p>

<a href=page2.htm?<!--#echo notfound var=Request:/ArgumentText-->&newvar1=value1&newvar2=value2> Link using the same session data, but with extra fields </a><p>

<a href=page3.htm?session1=<!--#echo notfound var=session1-->&session2=<!--#echo notfound var=session2-->> Link with selective session data exported to the next page </a><p>

[email protected]