Chapter 17

SuiteSpot and Orion Technology

CONTENTS

• The Netscape Server Family
• Understanding the NSAPI
• LiveWire Extensions
• Runtime Interpreter
• The Vision-What Makes Netscape Go?
• Directions in Server Technology
• Directions in Developer Tools
• In the SDK…

When Netscape developed its second generation of Web servers, it used that opportunity to release a series of integrated servers for other Internet and intranetservices as well. Many industry observers believe that the intranet market-the use of Internet technologyto meet companies' in-house needs-is as large if not larger than the Internet market. Although some commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have adopted the whole family of Netscape servers, the real market for these high-end products is the intranet.

This chapter describes Netscape's various server offerings, focusing on the common thread: the Java Virtual Machine that makes it possible for each ofthese servers to understand and respond to server-side JavaScript programs.

Netscape is leading a revolution. In 1995, many companies put simple sites on the Web. These sites were characterized by static HTML and perhaps a few CGI scripts. By the end of 1996, the new standard for the Web was LiveWire applications, integrated applications with much of the dynamic content coming from server-side JavaScript. Many pages have dynamic content, whether from server-side JavaScript, client-side JavaScript and Java, plug-ins, or a combination of techniques (including LiveConnect). Netscape's principal competitor, Microsoft, is pushing ActiveX as its integrated solution. As you have seen, Java and JavaScript were written specifically for the Internet and offer built-in capabilities that Visual Basic, Perl, and even C and C++ cannot match.

The Netscape Server Family

Although Netscape Communications is best known for its Web browser, the company moved in early 1996 to stake a claim to a broader range of Internet and intranet services. At the Netscape Developer Conference in March 1996, the company described a new set of server products-a catalog server, a proxy server, a mail server, and a news server-as well as second-generation releases of its existing Web servers. The new Web servers were FastTrack, an entry-level product, and Enterprise, a high-end Web server.

Netscape also used the occasion to announce a bundled product: all of the non-Web servers, the Enterprise Server, and LiveWire Pro, a version of Netcape's Web site development environment, specially enhanced to access relational database managers. Netscape calls this bundle SuiteSpot. Figure 17.1 shows the architecture of SuiteSpot.

Figure 17.1: SuiteSpot is a software bundle of servers and tools that work in an integrated fashion.

Perhaps the most important part of the announcement was the fact that each server understands Java and JavaScript. This fact means that a programmer can write code in Java, the object-oriented language designed by Sun Microsystems, or JavaScript, the scripting language developed by Netscape in cooperation with Sun, and have these programs execute on any of the Netscape servers. For example, a programmer can write a JavaScript program to provide filtering and run it on the proxy server.

Netscape's Web Servers: A Look Back

Netscape's initial entry into the server market was called the Netscape Communications Server. When Netscape introduced the Communications Server, the server market was dominated by free software. The National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana made a high-quality server available at no charge over the Internet. Another group, starting with the NCSA server, had implemented bug fixes, made small improvements, and was making its entry, Apache, available-also at no charge. (The members of this informal body call themselves "The Apache Group" after its software.)

Netscape understands that to compete with "free" products it needs to offer four things:

• Killer features not available on the "free" products
• Unparalleled ease of use to reach a broader market than the techies
• A "try-before-you-buy" system to keep risk low
• Broad-based technical support

Netscape, of course, learned these lessons in the browser market, and that experience paid off when it began to ship Web servers. For example, Netscape offered graphical administration when the free servers required the administrator to edit complex configuration files. Like the free servers, Netscape's products were made available for download over the Internet-and although undoubtedly many use unregistered copies of the software, Netscape was apparently selling enough copies to justify the practice. Soon Netscape was offering a version of the server that had a feature everyone wanted: secure transactions.

The Netscape Commerce Server was the first popular Web server to offer secure communications. Its Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) met a market demand for a method of safely passing credit card numbers over the Internet. Using the Commerce Server, Webmasters could offer "secure sites" through which visitors could buy products. Netscape's server business boomed.

The Second Generation of Web Servers

With the success of the Commerce Server in mind, Netscape decided to include SSL in both of its second-generation servers. SSL had been the primary discriminator between the Communications Server and the Commerce Server. With both FastTrack and Enterprise sporting SSL, Netscape needed a new feature to give users a reason to choose Enterprise over FastTrack.

Netscape came up with five. The Enterprise Server offers the following features:

• A built-in full-text search and retrieval capability, through a sophisticated product from Verity
• A versioning system, to make it easier for authors to check out a page, modify it, and check it back in
• It is an open system, meaning that anyone who knows JavaScript can extend a Netscape server's capability
• It comes bundled with Netscape Navigator Gold and supports Netscape Navigator Gold's "one-button publishing" protocol (based on the HTTP PUT method)
• Has a built-in network management and maintenance functionality through an Internet standard protocol called Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Of course, by now Netscape is not the only company offering a commercial server that competes against NCSA and Apache, so Netscape has included a number of features that distinguish both of its second-generation offerings from its competitors in general, and its chief competitor, Microsoft, in particular. The second-generation Netscape Web servers offer the following:

• Are platform independent; they can run on Windows 95 and Windows NT or on a variety of UNIX machines.
• Have native support for the relational database managers from Oracle, Sybase, and Informix, as well as support for other products through ODBC.
• Offer native support of the content database Illustra, through LiveWire Pro.
• Enable the administrator to keep backups of previous configurations so that if they change things and don't like the result, they can easily "fall back" to the last good version.
• Have built-in reporting so that the administrator can monitor the performance of the server in real time.
• Have basic log analysis capability so that the administrator does not have to use third-party products or off-the-Internet scripts.
• Has built-in security. The second-generation servers work with client-side digital IDs in Netscape Navigator 3.0 and later to help Webmasters control access to their documents. This is of particular importance to intranet Webmasters, who sometimes put large amounts of confidential data on a server.
• Has more built-in security. The second-generation servers offer an advanced version of SSL, version 3.0, to provide a secure channel between the user and the server.

SuiteSpot

An additional benefit of the Enterprise Server is that it integrates easily with Netscape's other servers and with LiveWire Pro, the database-enhanced version of Netscape's Web site development environment. All of these servers share a similar administrative interface; that interface is graphical and is based on Netscape Navigator. This fact means that the site administrator can be anywhere on the Internet, start Navigator, and get onto the site and make changes (assuming the permissions are set up appropriately).

On many intranet sites, the network administrator has two or three servers on one machine and the rest on another machine. With remote administration, the administrator can sit in the office and work on any machine in the system. This interface is consistent across servers and across platforms. There is very little difference between the Web server administrative interface on a Sun machine running Solaris and the same server running on a Windows NT computer.

This multiplatform aspect of Netscape servers has two effects. First, it gives Netscape access to the UNIX market, which is particularly important to ISPs, and to the Windows NT market, important to the intranet. Second, it makes hardware vendors a bit more responsive to their customers, knowing that if they don't satisfy their customer, the customer can move to another vendor and still stay with their same tools and servers.

Recall, too, that the Enterprise Server has SNMP agents that can connect to off-the-shelf software like HP's OpenView and Sun's NetManager. The server can be configured to report important SNMP events so that if the server goes down, the network administrator is notified.

Netscape is well known for its HTML extensions. What is not well known is its work in extending HTTP, the protocol of the Web. One of the limitations of HTTP version 1.0 was that each entity on a page required a separate TCP/IP connection. If a page has, say, five graphics, it requires six successive TCP/IP connections: the first to download the page, the rest for the graphics.

A TCP/IP connection may require many milliseconds to set up and tear down, so a typical page spends much of its download time in network overhead. Netscape has included the keepalive option in its servers. Using keepalive, a browser requests a document, and the server keeps the connection open for a few seconds in case the browser wants more files from the same server. This approach enables some performance gains, particularly with LiveWire, where the server plays a role in generating dynamic content.

Another HTTP extension included in the Netscape servers is byte-range support. In HTTP/1.0, a request for an entity was an all-or-nothing affair. Either you wanted the file or you didn't. Although that approach works well with HTML files and graphics, it is a poor choice for other formats, such as multimedia.

Progressive Networks, developers of the real-time format called RealAudio, found the limitations of HTTP/1.0 so severe that it developed its own (non-HTTP) server. Adobe, developer of the Portable Document Format (PDF) requires byte-range support on a server before its second-generation PDF readers will work. With such support in place, its Acrobat reader can retrieve a PDF file in the same way a user may read a book, giving the user those pages he or she wants to see as the user wants them without having to download the entire document.

The range of choices in servers has clearly become broader and more complex than it was just a few months ago. Netscape has developed an online form that makes simple recommendations based on just a few questions.

Figure 17.2: You can get Netscape's opinion on which servers are most useful to you by completing this online form.

Proxy Server  Many people think of proxy servers in connection with firewalls and intranet security, but they also have a use in lowering network workload by making local caches of frequently requested documents. A proxy server sits between the client and the actual server, as shown in Figure 17.3. When the client asks for a document, the proxy server checks first to see if it already has a copy. If it does, it returns that copy instead of spending the time necessary to fetch it from the Internet.

Figure 17.3: A proxy server is an important component of a firewall.

Proxy servers can be placed on a firewall and configured to prevent Internet users from retrieving anything they like from the intranet. They are also used by large ISPs to maintain local copies of popular pages. Thus, if an America Online subscriber retrieves a copy of Yahoo's top-level index, it is likely that the copy is fetched from the proxy server rather than the Yahoo site itself.

Netscape reports that some of its intranet customers have had their network traffic drop by 50% since they installed proxy servers. This load reduction enables companies to defer costly upgrades to its networks so that the proxy servers pay for themselves many times over.

An ongoing issue surrounding proxy servers is how to keep documents updated. If Yahoo makes a change to its home page today, how long should it take before users behind proxy servers get the updated version? The answer to that question depends on how Yahoo sets the expiration header field of its page and, of course, how the proxy server is configured.

Most proxy servers offer replication on demand, and this capability is certainly present in the Netscape Proxy Server. Replication on demand means that when a user asks for a document that is not in the cache (or has expired), the server fetches that document from its original server and stores it locally.

The Netscape Proxy Server also offers replication on command. This feature enables the site administrator to configure the server to retrieve popular documents in the middle of the night, when network bandwidth is free. During the workday, a larger percentage of documents can be fetched from the cache, further reducing network loads.

Netscape understands that a common use of a proxy server is to police the gateway between the Internet and the company intranet. Its Proxy Server enables the administrator to restrict access by hostname, URL, or IP address. It also supports a feature Netscape calls the socksdaemon, which enables the administrator to control telnet sessions coming into the site.

Like the Enterprise Server, the Proxy Server supports SNMP. The administrator can set up software agents to talk to the server, and the server can generate alerts if things go wrong.

Because the proxy server supports Java and JavaScript programming, an administrator can set up an application that interacts with visitors' copies of Netscape Navigator, filtering locations and performing other services on behalf of the administrator.

The second-generation Proxy Server supports cache sizes up to 128G-hopefully enough for even the most demanding intranet.

News Server  One of the most interesting additions to the Netscape family of servers is the News Server. Many Internet users are familiar with UseNet, the Internet service that distributes thousands of newsgroups to local servers around the world. Figure 17.4 shows a typical UseNet newsgroup, with Netscape Navigator as a newsreader. These servers communicate by using an open protocol called NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol).

Figure 17.4: Netscape Navigator can be used as a mail client, an FTP client, a newsreader, and a Web browser.

Like Web servers, many free NNTP server packages are available on the Internet. To compete against this free software, Netscape needed to add features not available in the off-the-Internet products. Netscape's contribution was secure news. Like the Web servers, the News Server has SSL. Now a company can set up a secure newsgroup for its customers or resellers and have confidence that the data is encrypted during transmission. End users using Netscape Navigator can read the news by using the secure newsreader built into Navigator.

The major commercial competitors with Netscape for the news server market are Microsoft (with BackOffice) and IBM (with Lotus Notes). Table 17.1 shows figures adapted from a Netscape presentation given March 5, 1996 at the Netscape Developers Conference. Prices reflect November 1996 retail prices.

Mail Server  Network users do more than just browse Web sites; they also collaborate, often by e-mail. In the days before the Internet was widespread, many intranets were built with proprietary mail protocols. These intranets suffer a performance penalty when its users exchange e-mail with the Internet because the messages must be reformatted from the proprietary format to the Internet standard. Figure 17.5 shows a typical setup for gatewaying a proprietary protocol onto the Internet.

Figure 17.5: When the intranet runs a proprietary e-mail protocol, time can be wasted and information lost converting between the Internet standard and the proprietary format.

Internet mail servers exchange messages by using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). End users, whose machines are usually not on the Internet full-time, retrieve their mail from the server by using either the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) or the Internet Message Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4). The Netscape Mail Server brings SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 onto the intranet.

Instead of running proprietary mail clients and servers (with gateways onto the Internet), intranet users can run POP3 and IMAP4 mail clients (like Netscape Navigator) and use POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP for all e-mail, whether it stays on the company intranet or goes out over the Internet.

An advantage to staying with the Internet standards is that nontext attachments, stored in a format called Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), survive their trip to the intranet. Many proprietary protocols restrict the kind of MIME attachments users can send or receive, so the clip art that was sent from the Seattle office may not be readable by the recipient in the New York office.

An active folklore exists in the UNIX community about the configuration of sendmail, the standard UNIX SMTP server. The configuration file for sendmail can run hundreds of lines long, and few people can claim to understand more than a small part of it. The Netscape Mail Server, by contrast, uses the same Netscape Navigator-based administration system as the other Netscape servers, so an administrator can set up the server without first getting an advanced degree in computer science.

Catalog Server  Although there are off-the-Internet versions of proxy servers, news servers, and mail servers, the Catalog Server is something completely new. Most Internet users are familiar with Yahoo, a Web server at http://www.yahoo.com/ that offers pages upon pages of indexes. Figure 17.6 shows Yahoo's top-level index page.

Figure 17.6: The wildly successful Yahoo site was the inspiration for the Catalog Server.

Netscape wanted to be able to offer to the intranet community the sort of catalog represented by Yahoo. In a typical installation, the Catalog Server sits behind the firewall on the intranet. It holds pages of references to company material, as well as related material from the Internet.

Unlike Yahoo, which relies on Webmasters to actively list their sites with the catalog, the Catalog Server can be configured to seek out sites with interesting information. Its record format is based on technology developed as part of the Harvest research project (http://harvest.transarc.com/) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Because the format is widely available over the Internet, developers can build plug-ins for the Catalog Server in Java or JavaScript. The Catalog Server uses the same text search engine, from Verity, as does the Enterprise Server.

Because the Catalog Server uses open technology, it can search other servers besides those developed by Netscape. For example, the Catalog Server can gather information from NCSA, Apache, and even the Microsoft Web server.

For an in-depth look at Harvest, see Chapter 16, "How to Index and Search the Information on Your Site," in Webmaster Expert Solutions (Que, 1996).

Directory Server  One of the recurring problems in intranets is the need to track down information about an individual, a group, or a resource. This information and its users take many forms: people need to know each others' telephone extensions, and a piece of software may need to know a user's setup preferences. Currently, this information is stored in proprietary directories, if it is kept online at all.

The emerging standard in directory services is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). (LDAP is more fully defined in RFC 1777, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.") You can search the online collection of RFCs, starting from http://ds.internic.net/ds/dspg0intdoc.html.

Here's an example of how directory lookup works under LDAP. Suppose Bob works at the Jones Company and Alice works at the Smith Company. Also suppose that both companies are using LDAP Directory servers to store information about their employees and have added a record to their Domain Name System (DNS) server that points LDAP URLs to their LDAP server (in much the same way as mail, news, and FTP URLs are routed at many companies).

Alice gets an e-mail from Bob and wants to find out more about him. Also, she knows that his e-mail address is bob@mail.jones.com. Her client asks DNS for information about an LDAP server at jones.com. DNS responds that LDAP requests are handled by ldap://ldap.jones.com. Now her client queries ldap://ldap.jones.com for records that match mail=bob@mail.jones.com. Information in the directory about Bob is returned to Alice.

Suppose that Bob wants to send e-mail to Charles Brown at brown.net but doesn't have Charles' e-mail address. Bob can start by asking his local LDAP server for any information it might have, with a query like:

ldap://ldap.jones.com/cn=Charles%20Brown,o=brown.net

The local LDAP doesn't know Mr. Brown or brown.net, so it issues a query to DNS asking for records matching brown.net. DNS returns ldap://ldap.brown.net. Bob's client can now query Brown's LDAP server for cn=Charles Brown.

In general, directories may be thought of as specialized databases-specialized in that the number of reads far exceeds the number of writes. Table 17.2 shows several typical uses for directories.

Clearly, some overlap exists in the missions of the Directory Server and the Catalog Server. Netscape makes the distinction that the Catalog Server focuses on free-text queries whereas the Directory Server uses structured queries.

On an intranet, the administrator usually connects all internal LDAP servers so that they replicate themselves. One server is the master for each division; the rest are slaves. This way, anyone in the company can find anyone else by looking on their local LDAP server. Version 1.0 of the Directory Server has enough capacity to serve 100,000 corporate users.

Some of the information on a Directory Server may be confidential. The Netscape product offers access control, just like the other servers. Channel-security-the ability to communicate securely from the client to the server-is provided by SSL 3.0. Channel-security can integrate with the Netscape Certificate Server (described in the following section) and Netscape Navigator to facilitate intranet-wide secure e-mail.

Certificate Server  The heart of Netscape's Certificate Server is the branch of mathematics called public-key cryptography. At one time, secret messages could be exchanged only over open lines by encrypting the message in a secret key. The recipient used that key to decrypt the message; anyone intercepting the message who did not have the key received gibberish. For this system to work, the secret key must be sent from the originator to the recipient by a separate, secure channel-typically a courier.

New research in cryptography led to the development of public-key systems. In these systems, each person in the system has two keys: a public key and a private one. The sender encrypts the message by using the recipient's public key. The recipient gets the encrypted message and decrypts it by using a private key. No separate, secure channel is required because each person can generate his or her own key pairs and can safely publish his or her public key (also known as a certificate).

The Netscape Certificate Server is one way of publishing public keys. Suppose Bob wants to send a personal message to Alice at The Smith Company. He might use the Directory Server in much the same way as was described in the previous section, but now he also requests Alice's public key. Alice has previously used the Certificate Server to generate a new key pair, and the Directory Server can fetch her public key from the Certificate Server.

One problem with this scheme is that Bob has no knowledge of what Alice's public key really is-he has to trust the Certificate Server. If someone can set up a server and trick Bob into thinking that he has the recipient's certificate, when he really has a fake one, the bad guy can intercept his mail to Alice and read the messages and then forward them on by using the real certificate. Figure 17.7 shows this sad state of affairs.

Figure 17.7: If the thief can trick Bob into using a fake certificate for Alice, the thief can intercept all of Bob's mail to Alice.

The solution to this problem is to use a Certification Hierarchy; the Certificate Server enables an organization to use the services of a Certification Authority (CA). A Certification Hierarchy is a system by which two people who do not know each other can exchange public keys. In its simplest form, they can trust each other's public keys by having one person or organization whom they already know and trust (the CA) vouch for each of them to the other party. In more complex hierarchies, a single CA may vouch for other CAs lower in the hierarchy, so one end user trusts another because he or she "knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody" who can vouch for the other user.

Suppose Alice and Bob do not know each other (and Alice certainly doesn't know Bob's public key). To check out Bob's key, Alice examines it to see who has certified his key. She finds that Donna at TrustMee, Inc. has signed Bob's key attesting that this key belongs to Bob. Alice knows TrustMee's security policies and is confident that if TrustMee says this key belongs to Bob, TrustMee checked before they signed it, and, therefore, it really does belong to Bob. On the basis of her trust in TrustMee, she accepts the key as belonging to Bob.

As Certification Hierarchies mature, they rely far less on personal knowledge and trust and more on corporate reputation and stated policy. Organizations are already taking a role in the Certification Hierarchy; you can pay people to check your ID and then attest electronically that you are you. The Certificate Server uses this Certification Hierarchy method today; Netscape envisions a time when all Navigator browser users will have their own certificate attested to by a respected Certification Authority.

Restricting Access to an Application

You may want to ensure that some applications are accessed only by authorized users. The methods for setting up restrictions are similar on all of the SuiteSpot servers. This section shows how to restrict access to LiveWire applications on the FastTrack Web server.

If you are the server administrator, open the server administrative page. (The URL is http://your.server.domain:administrativePort/httpd-ns/bin/index.) Go to the Administrative Configuration page, and choose the link to Access Control. From here, you can specify which applications (or other parts of your server's document tree) you want to restrict access to.

If you currently have no access restrictions in place, use the steps in the following sections.

Make a User Database  If you don't already have a user database, do the following:

1. Choose the Manage User Databases link to display the Manage User Databases form (see Figure 17.8).
2. Mark the New Database option button.
3. Enter a name for the new database or leave the setting at Default. You should type only the name because the server completes the path. (All user databases are stored in the /userdb directory.)
4. Click Create New Database to submit the form.

Figure 17.8: Use the Manage User Databases form to set up a new user database.

Add Users to the Database  From the Access Control page, choose Create User. The resulting form is shown in Figure 17.9.

Figure 17.9: The Create User form enables the administrator to specify an authorized user.

Once the Create User page appears, use the following steps:

1. Specify the database.
2. Enter the new user's logon name, up to 254 characters.
3. Enter the user's full name. This field is for your reference only. You may want to add a department code or phone extension, as well.
4. Enter a password for the user (twice, for accuracy).
5. If you have set up groups, place the user in a group; otherwise, select None.
6. Click OK to submit the form.

Continue in this way to add all of the users who are to be given access to the application.

Specify What to Restrict  From the Access Control page, go to Restrict Access, and use the following instructions:

1. Using the Resource Picker dialog box, browse to the application you want to restrict (see Figure 17.10).
2. Click the Turn on Access Control button.

Figure 17.10: The Browse capability of the Resource Picker dialog box enables you to pinpoint the parts of the server where you want to limit access.

Specify the Default Access  While still on the Restrict Access page, set a default by clicking one of the Action option buttons (typically Deny) for each type of access. Read access corresponds to the HTTP GET method; write access corresponds to the POST method. Figure 17.11 shows the form where you specify default access.

Figure 17.11: You usually want to deny access to all and then turn on access to authorized users as exceptions.

Specify Exceptions  Click the Permissions button to specify exceptions for either read or write access (or both). The Allow Access to a Resource page, which appears when you click the Permissions button for read access, is shown in Figure 17.12.

Figure 17.12: You can specify authorized users by database, group, or individual.

When a user attempts to access a restricted resource, the server checks to see whether the host is automatically allowed access (by hostname or IP address). If not, the server checks to see whether it should prompt the user for a username and password. If so, the user is asked to authenticate. If the username and password are valid, the first page of the application is served.

Finishing Up  When you submit the Allow Access to a Resource form, you are returned to the Restrict Access page. Because the Allow Access to a Resource form has a Done button, many users mistakenly think that the resource restriction has now been applied. The resource restrictions set up on the Restrict Access page are not applied to the server until you submit the Restrict Access page itself. To finish setting restrictions, take the following last two steps:

1. Specify the response you want users to see when they are denied access. For added security, specify the Not Found message. That way, a cracker (someone who attempts to penetrate system security) who is guessing application names does not know for sure that an application is there at all.
2. Click OK to submit the form.

Understanding the NSAPI

The free servers-NCSA, Apache, and others-are distributed with their source code. If a site administrator needs an extension to the server, he or she can find a C programmer to do the deed. Not so with commercial servers.

To make it possible for Netscape servers to be extended in the same way that free servers are, Netscape developed the Netscape Server Application Program Interface (NSAPI). The NSAPI is a series of function calls from an external code resource into the Netscape server. The external code resource is written by a non-Netscape programmer, potentially some of the people who write CGI scripts for Web servers. Although NSAPI was designed with Web servers in mind, Netscape supports the core of the API on each of the new generation of servers.

NSAPI applications are more difficult to write than CGI scripts. NSAPI code actually runs in the server's process. These two facts combine to spell trouble: It is more difficult to get NSAPI code running correctly, and if the NSAPI code fails, it can take the server down with it. The Windows NT versions of the second-generation server include an application version of the server, as well as the service version. This application version makes it easier to test NSAPI code when developing in a Windows NT environment.

The server-side Java API offers a number of advantages over traditional NSAPI. Netscape provides Java NSAPI classes that provide much of the glue between Java and NSAPI. By providing this code, Netscape frees the programmer to develop new application functions as well as new protocols and server action modules. The result is code that runs faster than CGI because it shares the server's process but is less likely to fail because much of the interface code is already written and debugged by Netscape.

Netscape has announced plans for a native Java interface to the second-generation servers, as part of the Orion technology described in the second half of this chapter. For more information on the Java server interface, watch http://home.netscape.com/.

LiveWire Extensions

Not only is Netscape supporting a common API on all its servers, it also supports JavaScript applications. Each server has a layer called the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), as shown in Figure 17.13, that can understand either Java or JavaScript. On Web servers, that layer supports the LiveWire Object Framework-four prebuilt objects that offer an interface with the server, the application, the client, and the request.

Figure 17.13: Each Netscape server-not just the Web servers-includes Java and JavaScript support.

Runtime Interpreter

The LiveWire compiler converts server-side JavaScript into a file of bytecodes that are read by the server's JVM at runtime. To understand the JVM, recall that conventional processors accept binary instructions in a machine language specific to each processor family. That is, the machine language for an Intel 80X86 processor in a PC is different from the machine language for an IBM/Motorola PowerPC processor in a Macintosh. The JVM is a software implementation of a "virtual processor." Java (and, consequently, JavaScript) is platform independent because compilers can write Java "machine language" that runs on the JVM. Netscape has built a version of the JVM for each major platform.

Sun's documentation on the JVM is available at http://java.sun.com:80/doc/language_vm_specification.html. The Java Virtual Machine is also described in detail in the book, Java Virtual Machine by Troy Downing and Jon Meyer (O'Reilly, 1996). For a shorter treatment in the context of Java, see Chapter 36, "Inside the Java Virtual Machine" of Special Edition Using Java, Second Edition (Que, 1996).

The Vision-What Makes Netscape Go?

Internet Service Providers constitute a community of (mostly) UNIX-loving, technically oriented people who enthusiastically help businesses and individuals get on the Internet. This community does not require much technical support, and they are often content with off-the-Internet tools that are available at no cost.

The intranet community consists of corporate Management Information Systems (MIS) staff who have been trained to keep the system up at all costs. They are a risk-averse crowd, which is generally a good thing for the corporate world. They expect a high degree of redundancy in their Web site and good service agreements with their hardware and software vendors. They also often need to be at or close to the technological cutting edge to stay competitive. Although Windows is stronger in the intranet world than it is on the Internet, the intranet is still a heterogeneous environment in which a mix of clients, servers, and legacy systems must work together in an integrated fashion.

Although the press and popular thinking tout the Internet as the wave of the future (and they're probably not mistaken), they may have overlooked the potential of the intranet. Netscape has not made this mistake; the intranet is a major source of revenue now and a major area of its technical focus.

Intranet

Although networking is a relatively new technology for many individuals, local area networks (LANs) have been a part of corporate life since the early 1980s. Indeed, the fact that many of these networks were deployed so long ago is something of a problem. When LANs and even wide area networks (WANs) were first deployed, little commercial interest was shown for the TCP/IP family of protocols. Proprietary protocols from Novell, Banyan, and others were used to connect computers. As these networks grew throughout the company, the responsibility usually fell to MIS to make sure that the Macintoshes in the art department could talk to the PCs in accounting. Often the corporate answer was to impose one-size-fits-all solutions, ensuring compatibility at some cost to functionality.

Many of these LANs were primarily used to give desktop computers access to file servers or to provide company-wide e-mail. When corporate users got a taste of CompuServe or America Online at home, these users began to expect more from their company LANs.

Netscape's vision is for what it calls "the full-service intranet." It involves three steps for most corporations:

1. Move from proprietary network protocols to the open TCP/IP standard.
2. Replace existing proprietary services such as Microsoft Mail or Lotus Notes with open standards such as POP3 mail clients and servers, SMTP-based mail exchange between servers, and NNTP-based UseNet newsgroups for in-house collaboration and communication.
3. Add new user and network services such as catalog servers, directory servers, and, of course, Web servers to add value to the intranet.

Netscape proposes four user services available over the full service intranet:

• Information sharing and management
• Navigation
• Communication and collaboration
• Application access

Information Sharing and Management  The Web is the basis for electronic publishing on the full-service intranet. In order to make information ubiquitous, Netscape needs to make the technical details disappear. A manager should be able to put up information about his or her corporate department or project by using much the same skills as they use for desktop publishing. Netscape Navigator Gold and LiveWire are part of Netscape's answer to the question, "How can we make everyone on the intranet an information provider?"

If Netscape is successful in making information ubiquitous, so much information will be available that you will have difficulty finding just what you are looking for.

Navigation  The Catalog Server is Netscape's solution to the navigation problem. With many documents going online or being modified daily, the prebuilt views in the Catalog Server like What's New and What's Popular are likely to be highly useful. Imagine being able to type a single query and get back all of the company's information-marketing, sales, research, and even logistics-in an organized fashion.

Communication and Collaboration  Web-based technology is largely a one-way affair. Certainly a document can include forms that can be routed back to the author as e-mail, but the immediacy of workgroup interaction is lacking. Several good proprietary groupware solutions are available. The open-standards counterpart is based on e-mail and newsgroups. Netscape has built a Mail client and a News client into Navigator and includes a Mail Server and News Server in SuiteSpot.

If a company chooses an all-Netscape solution, it can use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) built into Netscape's products to provide secure e-mail and secure news. As a company's security and personnel directory needs increase, it also becomes a candidate for the Directory and Certificate servers, which are described earlier in this chapter.

Application Access  Most companies have enormous investments in legacy code and databases. These applications will not go away for a very long time. Using Java and JavaScript, however, intranet solution providers can develop interfaces to give their users access to these applications over the company's intranet or to a wider audience through the Internet-often using Netscape Navigator as a universal client.

LiveWire Pro (also a component of Netscape ONE) is a first step in this direction. A programmer can write an application in server-side JavaScript that makes the Web server and browser into a front-end for a legacy database. In many cases, major parts of the application, such as SQL procedures and triggers, remain intact in the database or in passthrough SQL.

As the needs of the organization change, new content can be interwoven with the database by combining static HTML, client-side JavaScript, server-side JavaScript, and even Java and plug-ins.

All of Netscape's servers support a sophisticated access control mechanism, so access to sensitive information and applications can be restricted based on many different policies.

Internet

Netscape appears to be emphasizing the intranet, which demands commercial-grade products with formal technical support agreements. To the extent that Netscape is successful, the Internet is likely to be the beneficiary, as the high-end solutions developed for commercial accounts become available and affordable for the broader market.

Directions in Server Technology

Netscape's current package of servers is a collection known as SuiteSpot. These servers have many things in common, not the least of which is the JVM, which enables each server to be extended by programs written in Java or JavaScript by users and third parties.

Orion-SuiteSpot of the Future

In mid-1996, Netscape began disclosing its plans for the next generation of integrated servers, a product codenamed Orion. By early 1997 all of the Orion servers are expected to be available.

The Orion servers will all offer an integrated agent services engine accessible both to server administrators and end users. For example, a user can write an agent to watch for documents that match certain key words or concepts and report back when such documents are added or changed.

Netscape continues to build on the foundation of the JVM, which is part of every server. Programmers can write server-side applications for all servers by using Java, JavaScript, or C/C++. Netscape is also shipping Java classes with each new copy of Navigator, so a programmer can write a Java applet to work with server-side Java, providing a new user interface to one or more of the servers.

In the Orion release of the Enterprise Server,Netscape has included the following sets of new features:

• Smart Programmable Content Store  This technology enables the new Enterprise Server to handle format conversion transparently. Adobe PDF, Microsoft RTF, and Microsoft Word, for example, can be served without a need for the user to run conversion routines or set up special server processes. The new server can also index and catalog documents in non-HTML formats.
  The new content store also supports metadata tracking and searching. Metadata is data about the document, such as the title or last-modified date. The new server enables the user to form searches about the metadata of documents stored on the server.
  The new Enterprise Server affords custom views: A user can choose to see all documents meeting selected criteria, sorted by last-modified date.
• Support for LDAP Directory Services  This support is described in more detail later in this chapter in "Directory Services."
• Provision for Agent Services  Agents can be triggered by time. Alternatively, agents can be set to run based on events. For example, if a document is added or changed, that event could cause various agents to start up and examine the document.
• Replica Conflict Resolution  The new Enterprise content store offers replica conflict resolution. Initially, conflicting replicas are resolved at the file level; eventually Netscape plans to offer resolution at the field level. This technology has obvious consequences for development: A site owner can use one server as a development server and another as the production server, replicating the development server onto the production server on command.
• New Programming Interface Extensions  Netscape is introducing more sophisticated APIs and class libraries to make it even easier to write Java applets, JavaScript programs, and platform-specific plug-ins that can examine the content store. In general, a programmer is able to do in Java or JavaScript nearly anything a live user may do, but after the program is written, the software takes care of the task repeatedly.
• Enhanced User Access Control  The Orion Enterprise Server stores user, access control, and server configuration information in its LDAP directories. It can also respond to SNMP protocols from network management systems like CA/Unicenter, HP OpenView, IBM/Tivoli TME, and Sun Solstice.
• Finer-Grained Access Restrictions  Using the LDAP directory engine, the new Enterprise Server offers a more powerful access control list (ACL) model. All of the features in this list-document retrievals, full-text searches, metadata queries, and the rest-are subject to fine-grained access controls by host, IP address, user ID, and type of access.

In the Orion release of the Catalog Server, Netscape has included the following major new features:

• Replication Services to Allow Faster Access to Catalog Resources  The new release also supports personalized catalogs on the client. When the user logs on, the catalog's content is dynamically reconstructed from the server and stored for reuse.
• Agent Services on the Catalog Server  Like the other Orion servers, the Catalog Server allows users and administrators to build agents. For example, an account representative may want to be automatically notified when any document changes that contains the key words "Product Features."
• Provision for Multiple Search Engines  This feature enables the administrator to tailor the server to use the appropriate engine for different types of content.
• Expanded API  This features enables Java and JavaScript programmers to run custom queries and build custom views.
• Finer-Grained Access Control  The Catalog Server works with the Directory Server and the Certificate Server for precise control over document and search-engine access.
• Capability to Import Data from More Types of Legacy Systems  The new Catalog Server catalogs data types from a wide range of sources.

An Orion version of the Mail Server will also be available, with nearly a dozen new features:

• New End User Services  The new Mail Server offers features like return receipt notifications, to work with the new features in Netscape Navigator 4.0. Mail processing can start on the server with server-side JavaScript filters and rules. Using Netscape Navigator, users will be able to access their e-mail securely from anywhere on the Internet.
• Calendaring and Scheduling  Netscape is working with third-party developers to incorporate "calendaring" and scheduling into the Mail Server, making the Mail Server a key component of the Netscape groupware solution.
• Improved Performance and Scalability  These capabilities are important to intranet customers.
• Directory Access Through LDAP  Like all Orion servers, the new Mail Server has the LDAP directory engine built in. This directory interfaces with the Netscape Navigator 4.0 address book to give end users access to e-mail addresses and public-key certificates.
• Integration Between the Mail Server and the Catalog Server  Users of both the Orion Mail Server and the Orion Catalog Server can set up catalogs describing the contents of their mailboxes.
• Agent Technology  The use of agents is particularly appropriate on a mail server. Imagine setting up an agent to watch your inbox, looking for mail from, for example, new senders-people from whom you have not received mail previously.
• Replication Technology  This technology implements powerful anti-corruption features and integrates with system-wide backup and restore utilities. The new server may remove forever the excuse, "I never got your e-mail."
• Application Development Services  With the new server application development services, programmers are able to write sophisticated mail filters. Third parties are able to integrate e-mail, faxes, and voice-mail into a universal inbox.
• Improved System Management  System administrators will be able to use management tools to set limits on disk space usage, message size and volume, and infinite mail loops.
• Integrated Encryption  In addition to the same advanced access control lists available on other servers, the Mail Server will offer an encrypted content store and secure e-mail.
• Integration with Proprietary E-Mail Systems  To enhance its attractiveness in the intranet environment, the new server has built-in and third-party tools that facilitate exchange of mail with proprietary e-mail systems such as Microsoft Mail, Lotus cc:Mail, Novell Groupwise, and IBM PROFS.

The new Orion-class News Server is being positioned as groupware and offers the following major new features:

• Collabra Technology  Working with Netscape Navigator 4.0, the new News Server incorporates Collabra technology. Collabra was acquired by Netscape in late 1995 and offers a range of groupware products. This heritage is represented in the new News product.
  Users can collaborate through discussion groups that incorporate images and full-text search. They can also conduct real-time discussions with audio and video teleconferencing. E-mail and discussion groups are integrated, so a discussion can begin in e-mail and move to a discussion group or vice-versa. High-volume groups can be moderated.
• OffLine Message Review  Many people with low-speed network connections prefer to work offline. The Orion-class News and Mail Servers introduce new technology to make it easy to download messages and review and respond offline.
• Universal Access Through LDAP  Users can store their news profile in an LDAP directory on the News Server, so they can access their discussion groups from anywhere on the corporate intranet or the world-wide Internet.
• Persistent Queries  Agent technology on the News Server enables the user to set up server-side persistent queries, also known as newshounds. This technology will enable users to participate in "virtual discussion groups" in which messages are collected from among various discussions.
• Improved Administration  The open NNTP standard on which UseNet is built is the quintessential replication technology. Netscape uses its Orion replication technology to implement NNTP. This implementation gives the administrator more controls(and graphical tools) over the flow of messages around the Internet or intranet and even through firewalls (via e-mail replication).
• Integration with Software  With enhanced application services, messages to a discussion group become a valid program output. A developer could write an application that monitors some real-time process (or even another discussion group) and generates messages to a discussion group in response.
• Common Management System  Managers can use the server's common management system to control replication and set policies (such as backup, expiration, and archiving) on discussion groups.
• Integrated Security  Using SSL 3.0 and public-key certificates, the Orion News Server can offer access control to discussion groups. Content can also be encrypted while stored on disk and, of course, during transmission.
• Conversion Tools for Legacy Systems  The new server includes conversion tools to help wean users of proprietary systems such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange.

Directory Services  In the course of doing business, employees, contractors, and customers need to know things about various people. The Netscape Directory Server, based on the industry-standard LDAP, offers directory services such as electronic white pages based on an open standard. End users can look up e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and other public information. Applications can find setup preferences. Working with the Certificate Server, the Directory Server can also serve up a user's public-key encryption certificate so that users can send secure e-mail and verify electronic signatures.

Beginning with Orion, all Netscape servers will support a native LDAP engine. LDAP engines around the network will be able to replicate each other's entries so that any user connected to any server will be able to look up directory information.

The Orion-class Directory Server will include dynamic index configuration: An administrator can on-the-fly add or drop indexes to trade off performance with disk space. The directory client has an improved user interfaces, with menus that respond to a few typed characters by looking up names as they are typed.

Security  Although the World Wide Web is a very public place, much of the intranet has information that should be kept confidential. Whether it's personnel records or the plans for the latest product, intranet users need secure e-mail, secure discussion groups, and secure document publishing.

Netscape has built channel-security into its products, based on the SSL, as well as encryption and authentication based on public-key cryptography.

When Netscape adds X.509 public-key certificates into its servers-a part of Orion technology-the administrator will be able to set up machines to allow access by certificate authentication rather than by password. With this technology, users with the proper certificate will be able to log on to any machine on the intranet just by having their computer sent their digital passport. Of course, if two more users share the same machine, they will still be able to restrict access by password.

Using Orion technology, servers will be able to store content in encrypted form, adding an extra measure of security. The new Orion release offers customizable forms for certificate generation based on Java and JavaScript and can also support hardware devices that "sign" digital certificates on behalf of the CA.

Replication  Often the most expensive parts of an intranet are the physical wires and cables over which the data travel. Above the attractive ceiling tiles of corporate offices are so many cables that one wonders how they stay up. As networks are pushed to carry loads far beyond their original design specifications, MIS managers look for ways to stretch their network without having to replace all that cable with faster media such as fiber optics.

One solution is to keep duplicate copies of popular documents on local servers (disk space being much less expensive than bandwidth). Netscape's Proxy Server offers both the conventional replicate on demand, in which documents are retrieved when they are not found in the local cache, and replicate on command, in which documents are copied onto the local server during non-peak hours when the network is essentially unused.

With the new Orion servers, replication is on a service-specific basis. Directories, discussion groups, content, catalogs can all be replicated. The Orion release of the Proxy Server offers fine-grained filtering, including support for the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) protocol of content rating (for parental or managerial control). The server can be administered remotely by secure channel or through SNMP. Users can be managed through the LDAP on the Directory Server.

Management Services  As networks grow, so does the amount of work required just to keep everything working. In 1990, the rule of thumb among many network specialists was that a LAN needed one full-time administrator for every 40 users. In a worldwide company with tens of thousands of employees, this ratio represents an unacceptably high percentage of corporate resources.

To stretch the talents of the MIS and LAN administration staff, a full-service intranet needs to be nearly self-managing. The TCP/IP solution is to use the SNMP, an event-driven technology that enables administrators to set up "agents" to take care of common tasks. Netscape has ensured that all of its servers can be administered over the network so that a system administrator can reach any company server anywhere in the world.

LDAP technology is an important part of Orion's management services. The administrator can set up user, access control, and server configuration information in a directory and have that information replicated across every server in the company's intranet.

Directions in Developer Tools

Netscape's initial success with LiveWire and LiveWire Pro have led it to conclude that visual development and visual site management are an important technology. Netscape has announced that, in early 1997, new versions of LiveWire will be available that incorporate Orion technology.

What's Next for LiveWire?

Netscape has put a full visual JavaScript development environment into the Orion version of LiveWire. All aspects of the script, from multimedia to form elements, are drag-and-drop. This section highlights a few other features Netscape has announced.

Prebuilt Components  LiveWire 1.0 introduced the Site Guru, a set of templates for putting up sophisticated sites quickly. The Orion version of LiveWire will include more templates and wizards, as well as a library of scripts and objects, a visual Java applet builder, and a JavaScript library.

Multimedia  Netscape is bundling multimedia content editors into the Orion version of LiveWire. Look for tighter integration with tools from industry leaders such as Adobe, Corel, and Macromedia.

Richer Programming Environment  Today Java and JavaScript can communicate with each other on the client through LiveConnect. Netscape plans to extend this capability so that the two languages can integrate across the network. Netscape is also adding plug-in support to LiveWire itself: A programmer will be able to extend the various LiveWire components using LiveWire! The new release also promises to have an enhanced compiler and a visual debugger.

Java IDE Support  Many vendors have announced Integrated Development Environments (IDE) for Java. Netscape is making it easier for those tool vendors to integrate with LiveWire, making LiveWire the core of an intranet/Internet development environment that includes Java and JavaScript on a variety of servers.

Project Management  As the sophistication of the software development environment goes up, the complexity of project management increases. Netscape intends to integrate project management capabilities into LiveWire itself so that a manager can track the development of both static and dynamic content in all its forms.

What's Next for LiveWire Pro?

Netscape recognizes that SQL development is not yet on the same level as, say, HTML development in Netscape Navigator Gold. With the Orion version of LiveWire Pro, Netscape is adding visual database tools, a schema designer, and a report builder to make it even easier to integrate databases with Java and JavaScript.

In the SDK…

Web sites are moving from static HTML files punctuated by CGI scripts to dynamic applications where each page affords an opportunity for interaction between the site owner and the visitor. Netscape has led the revolution until now, and evidence indicates that Netscape will continue to lead for some time to come.

As you just read, Netscape has announced plans for future versions of its server products, and the HTML development environment, LiveWire. LiveWire offers an integrated solution to a series of development and maintenance problems with Site Manager, Application Manager, and server-side JavaScript. Furthermore, LiveWire will be a part of the next-generation SuiteSpot package, codenamed Orion.