Long before the advent of Apple ’s raw operating system , Tenon Intersystems made a business of render Unix diligence to the Macintosh . Their flagship ware , WebTen , wrapped the popular Apache vane server within a “ Unix virtual automobile , ” providing extraordinary performance and tractability . While edition 3.0 , provides additional feature such as vane - ring armor , indexed searching , and depicted object management , the product has suffer much of its edge . Improvements in free-enterprise product , problems with stableness under heavy dealings ( or heavyload ) , and the raw option of running Apache natively on OS X all serve to undermine WebTen ’s position as the Mac ’s Web - serving ball of fire .
Up and Running
After an initial glitch , set up was relatively straightforward . On machine using OS 9.1 WebTen freeze at launch . A pocket-sized patch from the TenonWeb sitefixed the problem . Further configuration for WebTen ’s advanced functionality is through a Web - based administrative interface . Overall , apparatus is easy enough , but an synergistic apparatus wizard would streamline the summons .
The administration port is quite useable and compares favorably with other host ’ entanglement - management features . Administrators will have little problem wangle virtually all of WebTen ’s services within their Web web web browser . The computer program provides hypertext links to the thorough online documentation . Nonetheless , the interface lack the elegance and efficiency of a true GUI - direction program , and some advanced management requires hand editing of Unix text files .
Features Galore
As in previous versions , WebTen 3.0 provides vane help with Server - Side - Includes , procurator services , byte - range serving , SSL , and IP and Host Header virtual hosting . WebTen ’s FTP , DNS , and Cron scheduling services are also bear forward . Modern features admit PHP4 scripting , full - text edition searching , the ability to mount and deal files from NFS volumes , a capacity - management arrangement , and a new Web - mail system that go both as a mail server and as a entanglement gateway to POP post account . And of form , WebTen ’s flexible architecture allows comfortable expansion via CGIs , WebStar W*API plug - in , Apache modules , and Unix casing book . All of these features are fair loose to install and use , but they do n’t inevitably make WebTen stand out .
First , there are frustrating limitations : the Web - mail interface displays banner ads and can not be customized unless you yield an additional fee ; the DNS server supply no mechanism for configure dynamic update or SRV records ; the HTML / OS content - direction system offers modified functionality . Second , WebTen ’s main competitor in the Mac server arena , 4D ’s WebStar Server Suite 4.0 (; November 1999 ) , match much of WebTen ’s feature of speech list by including SSL , virtual innkeeper , SSI , FTP , Web - postal service , and indexing capabilities along with unique features such as database print links for FileMaker and 4D. WebTen can no longer claim unmatched functionality out of the loge .
And then there ’s execution ; previous variant of WebTen claimed the claim of fastest Macintosh vane waiter , but once again , it appears that version 3.0 has lost some of its shininess . accent - examination with Microsoft ’s WWW software Stress Tool evince that WebTen remains well quicker than WebStar when serving static pages from the stash but is much slower when loading pages from record . Furthermore , the built - in Apache host under OS X was two to three times faster on the same computer hardware . More troublesome , though , were the stableness problem we encountered during testing . We were unable to use Ziff Davis’sWebBenchtool because of scummy performance and high error rates with WebTen . ( Other entanglement host did not present these problems . ) WebTen also barge in periodically at extremely high warhead , both under OS 9.04 and OS 9.1 . While WebTen capably serves plenty of pages to fill even a 10 Mb Internet connection , it did n’t provide the blaze speed and stability we expect .
Macworld’s Buying Advice
Overall , while WebTen 3.0 has added features , it has become a less compelling product . Administrators wanting comparable functionality and a more Mac - alike feel should moot WebStar ; those willing to brave the Unix can look to Mac OS hug drug running either the built - in Apache waiter or Tenon ’s iTools suite of Internet server . For those somewhere in - between , WebTen 3.0 is serviceable , though not compelling .
