[thelist] RE: Lightweight Mac Web Server?

[David McCreath]

> I'm not sure if I understand the comment about Mac servers not
> behaving like any other servers. I thought a web server was a web
> server was a web server.

Well, in that they serve web pages, yes. My only real world experience is
with WebSTAR (and MacHTTP, its freeware precursor), so I'll speak to that
directly.

> The main reason I was inquiring was that a lot of my work uses SSI,

So when you say SSI, do you mean *all* of the SSI commands or just the file
include commands (like <!--#include virtual/file="file.inc"-->)? If you're
talking primarily about the file includes, then WebSTAR does those quite
nicely. If you're talking about the whole gamut of SSI commands, then you
might run into some walls. WebSTAR's implementation of SSI isn't complete. I
can't remember off the top of my head all the commands that aren't
implemented (I'm at home right now), but I do know for example that in the
CONFIG_DATEFMT (I think that's the right syntax -- whatever it is that you
use to configure the display of the server date), you can't strip the
leading zero off the day using "-d%", which is part of the spec. There are a
few other gaps in the W* SSI -- I'll have the manual at hand when I get to
work in a couple of hours.

> The problem comes when I'm stuck on a train/coach/plane visiting
> clients. how can I test things like SSI and CGI locally on my
> Powerbook? Right now I have to wait until I get home and transfer all
> the work over to my PC, or if I'm working on site, upload it all to
> my own site and test over the net. Maybe I'm just being too
> impatient? *:)

Geez, Garrett! It IS okay not to work sometimes! ;)

I would take a look at the WebTen server; I think you can download a 30-day
demo. I don't have ANY experience with it, but I think unless you can wait
until OSX, like Martin suggested, that's your only hope for Apache-like
performance. OSX will have a full implementation of the Apache server and
there's one guy in the our school district that's playing with a tech
preview of it, but I think he's mostly using it as a network server for his
school, so he hasn't played with the Apache at all.