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used to be netscape application server before that

http://www.iplanet.com/

goes to Sun's software page where Sun Java System Application Server is one of the products listed.

"Platform Edition 8.1" is the currently shipping release.

GP was talking out his ass when he said their app server was called Platform Edition 9 and no one uses it because it is new and immature.

iPlanet has been around long time, used to be available for free and was included in the Solaris media kit.

googled up a thread on a 2001 giga report that has them at 3% market share:

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?threa d_id=3362

"In August 1999, Giga published Comparison of Three EJB Application Server Solutions: IBM, BEA Systems and iPlanet (Sun/Netscape) We chose to include the iPlanet application server in that comparison because, at the time, we expected it to be a clear third in market share compared to IBM and BEA. So far, that has almost, but not quite, happened, due to iPlanet's entry into the market a year or more later than BEA and IBM, and we are projecting that iPlanet will take a 9 percent share of the 2000 market, considerably smaller than IBM and BEA. Still, among the vendors capable of moving closer to the IBM or BEA level of market share in 2001, iPlanet is one of the leaders, along with Sybase ....." -- The GIGA Group

TUX is the main performance competitor to IIS.

Uh, no. That would be iPlanet, thttpd and Zeus.. Especially Zeus.

TUX is a cute proof-of-concept, and if RH can get some leverage over MS by patenting it, I'm all for it. But let's not kid ourselves about who IIS' competitors are.

Not anymore!

Sun and AOL will officially conclude their original Alliance agreement on 17 March 2002. iPlanet is now a division of Sun and remains a core component of Sun[tm] Open Net Environment (Sun ONE).

So, I'm unclear if they were trying to use the iPlanet Messaging Server (which seems like a good idea?), but which wouldn't require everyone to be using the crappy NS6.2 Mail Client (recent builds of Mozilla are very much improved, although since the iMS supports standard IMAP/POP3/LDAP, there shouldn't be problems with using other clients except by company policy) or if they were trying to use the older Netscape Messenging Server or a custom AOLmail solution?

We're doing a rollout of iMS now, and the only problems we're running across are primary policy related (the stupid desire to phase out 20yo email addresses in 6 months when they can be kept indefinitely as aliases in the LDAP system), although I must say that losing procmail (and all server-side execution on mail) really smarts.

I'm not sure how Sun would treat JBoss and Tomcat since they have their own app server that they'd like people to use (iPlanet AppServer). The iPlanet product is not particularly good when compared/contrasted with WebLogic, Websphere, Orion, etc. I could see Sun giving up their iPlanet partnership and bundling Apache, Tomcat, and JBoss with Solaris... it could happen, I suppose.

Softerra's LDAP Administrator is pretty good, and they have a freeware version called LDAP Browser. The LDAP Browser/Editor is nice also.

If you are using LDAP as your addressbook, ldap-abook is a nice interface to add/delete/modify entries. Most email clients are LDAP-aware these days and it's convenient to be able to share an address book between my personal and work email accounts.

I've had to roll my own to do system accounts, however. Make ldapmodify your new best friend, or write an interface of your own - there is a lot of support for Perl or PHP LDAP functions out there. Server-side, I've used OpenLDAP and iPlanet's Directory Server, and I prefer iPlanet. iPlanet has a free non-commercial license option, is significantly faster than OpenLDAP, and has hooks to synchronize with an NT or Active Directory domain so you could do all the user administration in Windows and they would propagate over to your LDAP server.

Other fun things you can do with LDAP are:

Handle Unix authentication through pam_ldap
Hook into NIS with the NIS/LDAP gateway
Authenticate through apache with mod_auth_ldap or auth_ldap or Netegrity
Centralize your smtp routing data in LDAP for sendmail

Good luck.

I'm wondering how much of this is in relation to AOL/Netscape's partnership with sun IPlanet which will close in a few months. From what I understand, at the end of their contract IPlanet will become part of Sun. This includes the Netscape servers (web, ldap, etc). Unfortunately I can not find a press release related to this, only the customer update email.

So is this then Netscape's second death? First they make browsers, then they're a portal (as announced circa 1998), then they're bought by AOL, which brilliantly gave SUN all of the company's real products. And now they're a portal again? Weren't they a portal before? Back when they announced the deployment of MyNetscape...

But wait a minute, now they want to start developing media agrogation products (maybe)? Weren't they o their way to doing that before all their server products were sold off to sun as the iPlanet 'partnertswhip'?

Sounds like yet another major direction change... Bad management? or maybe I'm just confused...

Oh, and for anyone who needs a recap of the earlier merger speculation around Netscape, before AOL bought them, here's a pretty good article from 1998 that evaluates each potential suitor as to what they would have added to the company.

--CTH

even employees who acknowledge that their previous e-mail system "isn't very good" are not convinced that America Online is the best choice for a corporate e-mail program. "AOL got popular because it's really simple and easy to use," said a writer at a Time Inc. magazine. "But when you're in a workplace, it's just not very full featured."

Another issue is the added level of security that will be required for employees to retrieve their e-mail. Rather than logging on to the network by typing in a name and password, employees will also need to type in a number that appears on a digital card. Because the number changes every few seconds, the device adds a level of security to the e-mail system, but it also creates headaches for employees.

Can be organized into a hierarchy

Is small in size

Is read much more than it is written consider using a LDAP data store. There are excellent open source and commercial options available for Linux.

Get started by reading this nice series of tutorials from LinuxWorld.
After that, help yourself to some of the free schemas here.

Why is it that so many de facto Internet standards are based upon software or algorithm patents? MP3, GIF, RSA (until recently)...
Is it because software companies are happier licensing something from another company than adopting an open standard?

As for GIF and RSA, they both stem from the same reason, as far as I can tell; Netscape. I wonder if we can pin this on Marc?

Here's my reasoning. Netscape was the first wildly popular web browser. Sure, Mosaic was first, but Netscape really brought it to the masses when they spruced up HTML into something that normal people (IE, non-geeks) want to look at. Netscape had the power to do something other than use GIF, but didn't.

Why use GIF in the first place? Compu$erve was the most popular ISP at the time, not that it was really an ISP. Still, it was the way most people connected to the greater networked world, unless they were at a uni. Compuserve used GIFs... Oh my.

Anyway, with a whole bunch of GIFs running around the world, it becomes a reasonable format to work with. Plus, it's compressed, which can be pretty handy. You can also flag a color as transparent (anyone know if that's what that was originally used for? Or if it's part of the original spec?) so that's extra handy. Later, the animation supported by GIF (which some other programs like the DOS .MOD music player "modplay" used) was added.

RSA seems to have come about due to Netscape though, directly. There is a fascinating document which serves as an Introduction to SSL which explains the basics. It doesn't tell you the story of Netscape inventing it (probably because it would be boring) but it does mention in passing that they're responsible for SSL.

Anyway, NCSA Mosaic used GIF, Netscape didn't decide to use something else, and Netscape decided to use RSA for key exchange inside of HTTPS. To be fair to NCSA, the web in that form was never really intended to be the final web. We should have never taken the web past a toy, and developed something better, and used that instead. Everyone, including those who are responsible for its success, tends to agree on this. Too late now, though.

Of course, I'm one of those people, since I lived in a scruz geek house and had a web page. I should have known better and preached against it. Then I could do interviews and talk about how "I know it would be the world wide wait" or something.

You should also check the build notes to see if the nightly is stable or not.

SSL (the Netscape PSM): http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/psm/psm-mozil la/index.html
Java (Netscape 6 Java plugin) http://home.netscape.com/plugins/jvm.html?mimetype =application/x-java-vm
Have fun!

I don't agree with the Motif thing. As a toolkit, Motif sucked, and it was ugly. Unstable, bloated and a bitch to program in. New UI features (like Microsquishie combo-boxes) that added functionality were slow in coming.

I do 100% agree with the pretty-GUI syndrome that's taken over what's called GUI design these days. If it's themable, it's cool. You can spend 20 minutes trying to find a theme that you can read through. Blue text on dark woodgrain may sound like a good idea at first, but just try using it first. Mozilla chrome even goes past this by allowing you to change the UI. Put the buttons anywhere. Terrible for usability.

there's a programmers editor that allows you to have a pixmap as a background for your text window. One of the big features of the product in fast. Do I really want to try reading through this when I can easily waste a couple hours on a bad semi-colon placement? Nedit has no such feature, but has (most) of what I need in an editor, and is one of the first things I install on a new box.

Believe it or no, part of the Hotmail login process involves HTTPS.. The Mozilla build you are getting most likely does not have HTTPS support compiled in..

There /is/ a solution, however.. Start Mozilla, then go to iplanet's PSM site with Mozilla and scroll down to near the bottom, and select which OS you are using.. (Linux, or Windows)

If you're not using one of those two OS's, follow the build instructions and roll your own. PSM is a drop-in SSL library for Mozilla, and will provide HTTPS support.

Good luck!

To install https support just point your Mozilla browser to this URL and select "Install Netscape PSM for <OS>" on the bottom of the page.

try installing this. i use m18 on my windows machine, but i'm pretty sure it works for any mozilla browser.

I want working SSL.

Hey Dude. Netscape has released the PSM for Mozilla, as mentioned in the Crypto-FAQ.

If you compiled Mozilla, you have to change a couple things, but then you just use its update features by hitting the large-ish button on that web page that says "Install Netscape PSM for Linux".

If you like, I can spare you any advice about reading documentation. Cheers.

Yeah, they're porting it to XUL.
----

XPI is mozilla's cross (X) Platform Installer. It uses a combination of zip files with javascript and RDF to keep track of what you have installed so you can easily add and remove pieces of the browser.

What uses XPI? Well, the win32 and linux installers use it to install the application. This means that if you don't want to install ChatZilla (which rocks by the way, full IRC client in a 400k install, IIRC) you don't have to. Same with mail/news. Even the PSM comes as an XPI. And skins? Skins are wrappable in XPI.

Want more information about XPI? There's a tutorial written by kerz at MozillaZine

Oh, and by the way, I use Moz full time, and so does most everybody else on #mozillazine (irc.mozilla.org)

--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess

I'm so fed up with Slashdot mob mentality. Slashdot used to be a place where people put forth intelligent discussion, facts, or opinions. Now it just seems like everyone is just waiting to sound off and beat on *someone* (usually Katz )

All of you whining about how Mozilla isn't solid enough--have you actually used it? No, not just a download at M15, but as of last week? I've been using Mozilla for 4 months now. As a browser, it IS solid. Sure, it dies every once and a while, but that's not all that different from Netscape 4.x's stability, is it?

Download a nightly and try it out. Mozilla works great. Go download the PSM module and you have SSL. I use Mozilla for all my browsing (because I can't get 4.x to run--don't ask). It is a good browser, and it is nice to go to IE only sites and actually see the page render (try that in 4.x).

Whine and complain all you want. Be an idiot. But why don't you try and inform yourself a little and download and actually USE mozilla before you go running off at the mouth.

• Mozilla Nightlies
• PSM module (works in latest nightlies)
• mozillazine (stay informed)

Quit your whining. Use the latest builds. Report bugs. Geez, it's your community. Do something constructive.

<laugh>While they claim to have invented XML</laugh> .. their white paper seems to be a description of their future bastardization plans. "..The loosely coupled XML-based Microsoft .NET programming model introduces the concept of creating XML-based Web Services.." - methinks i've seen too many other loosely coupled M$ standard "interpretations" (Unicode, Dynamic DNS, Java)

Seems more to me that M$ will do for the internet what NetBios did for networking .. create bad substandards that generate a lot of noise, confusion, and traffic - and then hopefully everybody forgets about them .. (if we all ignore them long enough will they ever go away?)

.je
"microsoft.net .. now I can watch my machine helplessly die from anywhere in the world .."

Fundamentally, the problem you describe is this:

How do I trust a user is who they say they are?

If you can count on that, then you have any number of access/content control mechanisms. This is exactly what PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) addresses.

Fundamentally, you don't want to validate the machine, you're interested in the user. So forget network id, et al.

As others have pointed out, the obvious solution is Kerberos, from MIT. It was specifically designed to solve the problem you have. However, you have to build kerberos into your application, so it's not simple, and neither is the setup.

The second most popular solution are Personal Digital Certificates (NOT SSL Certificates). These are tied into Web Server authentication (for the most part), but can be used as a generic authentication mechanism. Depending on what you want, they can be relatively cheap and uncomplicated, or it can get pretty hairy. Look at Thawte for a decent example - also, check out the iPlanet Certificate Server for some relevant info. Honestly, this is probably the easiest way to do what you want, IF you can do a web-based service. It won't be free, but if you scrape around, you can probably get it in place for a modest amount.

You can also look at things such as TIS or SecureID: these are more hard-core, since they're hardware token-based authentication schemes, and generally require custom software (though SSH supports TIS/SecureKey).

As a last resort, you might investigate VPN solutions, since, while they're not PKI in a true sense, they can provide network validation. S/WAN for Linux is a good, free thing here, and you might look at an IPSec implimentation, too.

Best of Luck.

-Erik

1. A cursory glance at the Mozilla home page would tell you that SSL support is being implemented in Mozilla with something called PSM 1.1 for Mozilla.
2. Well, Shockwave... I guess you've got me there, no use browsing the web without it. =)
3. Java's a good point, too. I will definitely miss the animated banners and scrolling marquees that proliferate throughout the web. Granted, there are a few sites that use Java and JavaScript well. I don't know, guess I'll play it by ear. If I encounter a site that absolutely must use Java, then I'll switch back to Navigator.

My point (aside from being a sarcastic bastard) is that the vast majority of my web browsing is stuff that Mozilla supports. I use IMAP for mail and Mozilla's mailer is finally beginning to look presentable.

Why not try it out now? Report bugs and make it better? Because I can't see yet another bad picture album?

--

Well, I'm by no means an expert, but I'll try: M14 was a Mozilla milestone like other milestones, and there will be other milestone releases in the future: M15, M16, etc. After release of M14 and a few days of additional bug fixing, Netscape went onto a Mozilla branch in order to prepare for release of beta 1 of Netscape 6; Netscape will do more bug fixing on that branch, and will then combine the Mozilla code with Netscape-proprietary code (from what is known as the Netscape "commercial tree") to create the Netscape 6 beta 1 release.

Mozilla development and bug fixing continues on the trunk, with contributions from both Netscape developers and others, and is planned to result in an M15 milestone release sometime in April and an M16 milestone release sometime in May. As I understand it, Mozilla bug fixes made by Netscape on their beta 1 branch are being rolled back onto the trunk, and Netscape will use future Mozilla milestones as the basis for future Netscape 6 beta releases and then Netscape 6 production release. (Presumably they will work on branches as necessary to create those releases, just as they are doing now with beta 1.)

In a side issue, once M14 was released the security/crypto developers at iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions (the Sun-Netscape Alliance) used an M14-based branch to add and test changes to Mozilla needed to invoke SSL functionality provided by the separate Netscape Personal Security Manager binaries. As I understand it, those changes have now been rolled back onto the Mozilla trunk and will be in M15. (I think Netscape 6 beta 1 should have those SSL-related changes as well, since they were originally taken from the Netscape commercial tree.)

For more on Netscape's Mozilla-related development plans see the netscape.public.mozilla.s eamonkey newsgroup, in particular the recent posts "Netscape Feature Complete proposal: use 5/2 checkpoint target date" and "M15 will be the next checkpoint build from mozilla" by Jim Roskind of the Netscape client development group.

To summerize, if you can start the servlet engine's VM in debug mode you can then connect to it with a remote debugger like jdb. You have to get the password from wherever the VM's standard out goes. The page I listed up above gives directions on how to do this with the JSDK's Java Web Server.

As far as other developement. I've been using iPlanet's iWS 4.1 beta. It works pretty good. I haven't tried setting Tomcat up yet, but on the Tomcat mailing list they are getting together a beta for version 3.1 which is VERY close to meeting the Servlet 2.2 specs and will be the reference implementation once it is done. The beta release canidate 1 should be up today.

As somebody else mentioned standard out and the servlet response are also good places to send information especially if you don't want to run your VM in debug mode or can't. One thing about iWS 4.1, I don't think the standard out and standard error are directed to a file by default. I had to open my own servlet logging files and redirect System.out and System.err to them myself from within a servlet.

For developement I use JBuilder on NT, and vim occasionally under linux. I have had no platform problems with moving my Java class files from NT to linux. On linux I am using the latest blackdown release of the JDK. In fact for one application I have the web server (iWS 4.1 beta) running under linux and it loads pre-compiled servlets that exist on an SMB mounted directory that exists on an NT machine. It hasn't acted any different from the web server running on NT with JRun as the servlet engine. (well I had some JSP problems, but that was a difference in implementation of the JSP specs between iWS and JRun)

--

Greetings!

We evaluated Tarantella a while back as an interesting way to make a single, cohesive environment out of a variety of application environments (shell apps, X apps, Windows apps). Then we woke up and realized that it was overhead and that user training was the most critical function necessary - not hiding the applications behind a web browser.

If you're interested in having business users that don't understand X use a Linux app in a browser, then you'll also be interested in products like GraphOn, Exceed Web, and the X11R6.3 X browser plugin (also known as Broadway or LBX). Sun/Netscape/iPlanet/AOL/Time Warner/Great Satan also has a competitive product they acquired from a startup that if I recall properly gave them the "iPlanet" name. This can be found at http://www.iplanet.com/products/infrastructure/rem ote_access/s_web_entprs/index.html .

We developed and tested the iPlanet Web Server, Enterprise Edition 4.1, formerly known as Netscape Enterprise Server, with Blackdown's JDK for servlet/JSP support. The product supports pluggable JVM so you can try using IBM's JDK for Linux (when they release 1.2 for Linux, that is), or the new Sun/Inprise JDK 1.2.2 . But we don't know how well they will work. Blackdown is the way to go for now.