Important Notices
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Users of versions 2.03 or earlier who are upgrading to 2.04 or later must make some changes to their configuration. Full documentation is displayed when running the "Install" program and selecting "Update". If you do not need to preserve your previous configuration changes, you can simply install the new server without any manual changes required.
Version 2.06 - 10 January 1996
Added an alternative table editing mode which bypasses the problem of some browsers not being able to show or edit tables correctly without crashing the client computer.
The default table view mode is set in the Config:/Console/TableType variable and can be set by pointing your browser at the /admin page, choosing "Global", and then choosing "Console".
If you wish to dynamically view a table in the other mode, all you have to do is choose "Toggle Table View" from the menu at the top of the page that is displaying the table.
Note: There is a bug in the current version of IBM's WebExplorer which affects you when you use the horizontal scroll bar to view more text to the right of the screen. The mouse coordinate position is read incorrectly which means hyperlinks don't work after you have scrolled to the right.
Configuration pages now have help as a separate topic on the menu bar at the top of the page, thereby making configuration pages load faster. It also enables you to have two Web browsers running simultaneously with one displaying help and the other for editing.
Added command line utilities to manage users in a PowerWeb user database. Both single user as well as batch user changes are supported. The utilities are named adduser, deluser, changepw, addusers and delusers and are found in the \powerweb\bin directory. Type the name of the command file on its own with no command line arguments to get help for each utility.
Two other useful utilities are "restart" and "rotate" which respectively restart the server and rotate the log files. Rotating the log files allows you to access log information for analysis or for backup.
Added the UIDL command to the POP3 server to allow mail clients to leave mail on the server instead of retrieving it and storing it locally.
Changed the error message displayed to the client when a Rexx script encounters a syntax or execution error. Version 2.05 always said the file was not found instead of correctly diagnosing problems with Rexx execution.
The FTP server now accepts "ftp" as an alternative valid anonymous login name.
The FTP server now recognises user aliases for login.
The Configuration Save and Restart page has now been split into two separate pages to avoid confusion between the two sections. A new page "Server Start and Stop" shows the previous top section which allows for dynamic stopping and starting of services.
The OS/2 version has been optimised for faster load times, as a result of which PowerWeb will not run on versions of OS/2 prior to Warp 3.0.
Version 2.05 - 20 December 1995
Revised the pages used to configure Resources to make them simpler to use and more understandable. This is the first phase of a set of changes to be made to ease the configuration process.
Extended the documentation on API Hooks and included further examples. Look at the URLs /admin/help/api.htm and /tour/source/tour.htm.
Added new fields to the "Statistics" and "Connections" pages for Server Activity monitoring to show the date and time from which the statistics apply.
Changed the FTP server's handling of empty directories - it now sends back an empty response instead of saying "No files found". This makes it more compatible with common automated FTP clients.
Changed the FTP server's handling of private directories - it now allows changing to that directory, and (optionally) displaying a README message file, but it will not allow directory listings. This makes it easier to set up multi-level private directories and sub-directories.
Changed the FTP server's file listing display format, because some automated FTP clients were mistakenly inserting a space in front of each filename.
Added two new resource template definitions to make it easier to configure FTP services: PublicFTP and IncomingFTP.
Fixed a problem on the "Save and Restart" administration page where dynamic starting, stopping and pausing of individual services caused a "Variable not found" message to be displayed.
Fixed a problem with POSTing HTML forms with an input field containing more than 32K of text which could cause the server to reject the form.
Improved the performance of PowerWeb Server++ when parsing the submitted data from large forms.
Changed the declaration of PowerAPI C interface functions to explicitly mention the linkage type, making usage of other vendor compilers easier.
Version 2.04 - 4 December 1995
A full-function FTP server is included in the standard package.
The FTP server takes full advantage of the multi-threaded multi-tasking PowerWeb Server++ engine to provide robust and very fast FTP services. It is easy to configure through the HTML browser pages, just like the HTTP and POP3 servers. The unified security model means that you need to set access control permissions in one place only to administer all your services, regardless of protocol such as FTP or HTTP.
The FTP server automatically uses the same directory aliases as the HTTP server so you can offer FTP users an alternative access path to your documents and files. This also means you can create a unified directory structure across all your drives, even across a network.
Facilities such as PowerWeb Macros and API extensions are also available with the FTP server, making it easy to customise and extend. An example use of PowerWeb Macros is given in the standard welcome message file "/powerweb/ftp/readme".
The default setup automatically creates public and incoming directories along with appropriate access control permissions.
The POP3 mail server now automatically creates a default mail directory and a default mail user database containing postmaster and webmaster aliases for the admin user id, letting you have one mailbox for all admin-related mail.
It is strongly suggested that you run the POP3 mail server on a drive that supports long filenames because user names are often longer than 8 characters. Change the mail directory by selecting "Global", then "Mail" from the admin page.
The existing POP3 server is for re-distributing mail to client mail packages only. It does not send mail. There is a primitive interim mail sorting program available until PowerMail, a fully integrated mail package is released.
A new facility for defining user aliases has been implemented. Its primary purpose is to allow pooling of users into a single POP3 mailbox. It is available across all services, including HTTP. Go to the "/admin" page and select "User Databases".
C and Rexx scripts can now be referenced directly by means of a URL without having to create customised Resources to manage them. The /rexx-bin/ directory includes an example of such a script, which is called through the URL "/rexx-bin/svrpush.cmd". Libraries coded in C can be accessed by a URL of the form "/bin/module!function".
HTML documents can now embed calls to C and Rexx scripts directly, using the "Exec" PowerWeb Macro. These scripts have full access to the PowerWeb Server++ APIs.
The automated forms processing facility can now call Rexx functions in addition to C functions, to extend upon the default functionality.
The CGI interface now preserves upper and lower case for path arguments.
Example: /cgi-bin/program/Argument?Parameter now preserves the capital A in Argument when calling the program.
A new option in the "Save Configuration and Restart" administration page allows you to reset your configuration to a default setup. This can be useful if you want to revert to the original setup or if you have upgraded to a new version and don't need to preserve your configuration changes.
Added an option to the server auditing page to allow forcing of displaying the remote client's host name in the audit log. If this option is enabled it will halve the performance of your server, because a reverse domain name server lookup is required. A better performing solution is to instruct your log analysing program to perform the host name lookup when it processes your log information.
Fixed a bug which prevented the loading of some user database files into the memory cache, causing the server not to load.
An icon for use on the OS/2 desktop is included in the "/powerweb/bin" directory, named "powerweb.ico". We welcome contributions for an improved icon. Please FTP them to www.compusource.co.za in the /incoming directory.
Version 2.03 - 15 November 1995
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.
User databases can now be managed on a batch (or bulk) process. This facility makes it easy to import a large existing user database file from another source without typing in each individual user. Similarly batches of users can be deleted or verified in one step.
There is now a much simpler to use facility to restore a previous configuration file. Select "Restore a Previous Configuration" on the main Admin page and pick a previous configuration file from the list presented. The server auto-restarts afterwards.
The API Extension for defining your own custom PowerWeb Macros has been improved to be easier to use.
Modified the default audit log format to include the timezone.
The POP3 server is now setup by default, but not autostarted. This makes it easier to configure.
Version 2.02 - 8 November 1995
Added new PowerWeb Macros: "Dir" and "Redirect".
Extended PowerWeb Macro "If" to include extra conditional attributes "file" and "virtual" for testing for the existing of documents on a site.
Included the missing file regpers.nxt in the distribution archive.
Added automated customisable dynamic trailers for HTML documents.
Improved CGI compatibility when POSTing a form with directly specified URL arguments.
Fixed automatic file name extensions for CGI scripts which reside in directories with an embedded dot "." character.
Extended "Exec" macro to look in the current directory of the current document as well as along the system PATH when scanning for command files.
Documented the POP3 server mail settings page.
Extended the FAQ.
Checks whether a server is already running when you install or upgrade.
Version 2.01 - 3 November 1995
A complete redesign and rewrite in C++ implemented with the latest design patterns philosophy.
Operating-system platform independent.
Incorporates our SCREAM performance object technology.
Version 1.0 to Version 1.9
An enhanced multi-threaded port to OS/2 of the UNIX NCSA server.
Regularly updated with new features and bug fixes.