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Freeware Web Servers

One factor undoubtedly on your mind as you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various Web server software is cost. You might be surprised to find that many Web server software packages are free. That's right, free; all you have to do is download. You're probably asking, "What's the catch?" In many cases, there is no catch. The reason that many server software packages are free is because the whole business of developing and distributing them is a very new one. The companies that are developing server software are still establishing a competition with each other. Therefore, many of them have decided (especially the ones who already are making lots of money from other products) that it's best not to charge right now. However, things won't be free forever. Server software developers intend to charge for their products in the future, and about 30 percent of the developers already do.

You'll usually find that there's very little technical support available for freeware packages and that some are not very user-friendly. Free packages are frequently written by development teams or university departments (another reason why they're free), who assume that the packages' users will be technically savvy. If you trust your intuition, or that of whoever administers your intranet's Web server, you might find a freeware package adequate for your needs, not to mention cost-effective. If you're hesitant about the quality of a freeware server, testing it first always is an option.

If you plan to take advantage of the free-for-all server software packages, here are two to consider.

HTTPd

HTTPd, offered by NCSA, is a popular freeware package designed by the software development group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is fast and offers the basics. HTTPd, shown in Figure 8.3, is available only for UNIX-based operating systems. It can serve multiple sites from one server using one machine with very little footprint on your system. Of course, it uses the NCSA common log format and can generate referrer and browser logs.

Figure 8.3: The HTTPd configuration file.

You can authenticate by user ID and password, and users can be grouped. Specific domain names and IP addresses can be barred from the site. The server is not SSL or S-HTTP com-pliant.

One of the best features of this Web server is that the source code comes with it. You can make customizations or modifications as you deem necessary and if you possess the skills.

An HTTPd home page is at http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu.

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