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WebSentinel 2.1 Specifications
Intuitive Interface
WebSentinel allows Webmasters to easily manage their user and security settings with an
intuitive and familiar Macintosh interface. Granting user access to an area of your web
site with WebSentinel is as simple as drag and drop. Finder-style labels and sorting
allows you to organize your users for maximum administrative efficiency. For large sets
of users, there is even a helpful Find command that will enable you to easily locate
any user. The WebSentinel Admin application can remotely administer your security settings
from anywhere on your AppleTalk network, and an extensive web-based administration
interface allows you to administer from any web browser.
More Options
With WebSentinel 2.1, the ease-of-use and simple administration capabilities pioneered
in WebSentinel 1.0 have been taken to the next level, allowing you to work faster and
more effectively. Users accounts can automatically expire on a given day, after a
number of days, or ven after a number of requests for a given realm. And with
customizable templates, users can change their password via an HTML form without any
interaction from the administrator. Plus there's more flexibility in defining who has
access to a secure area. You can automatically allow specific machineaddresses into
your site without needing to login, and you can add users to special Admin Groups that
have access to all restricted pages, even when realms are added or removed.
Powerful Security
WebSentinel realms may contain either simple WebSTAR-style match strings or complex GREP
expressions for the ultimate flexibility in defining security for your site. Each realm
can also have its own set of users, stored in a variety of available database
architectures, and a custom "No Access" HTML page to be served when access is denied.
The authentication realms can use either standard HTTP dialogs prompts, or you can setup
a custom HTML login form. In addition to the standard authentication realms, any realm
may also be defined to automatically deny or grant a user access to a protected area of
the site, or even redirect to a specific URL. Using the powerful capabilities of realms
defined with a GREP expression, ISPs can also limit CGI or plug-in usage to specific
hosted sites being served by a single machine.
Manage Users Anywhere
Web administrators who need to support larger user sets have the ability to define
different database targets in which to store user information. Aside from the built-in
database, you may store users in Purity Software's own Verona database engine which is
included with WebSentinel. A FileMaker Pro Data Target is also available as an add-on.
Extensible Architecture
WebSentinel utilizes a plug-in interface for database targets, so third-party developers
may add targets for their own applications. The API necessary to create target plug-ins
is provided free of charge to any interested parties -- just contact
websentinel-support@purity.com for
further information.
Major New Features in WebSentinel 2.1
- Denied Workstations
- Denied workstations allow a specific workstation or range of workstations,
specified by IP address or hostname, to be denied access to the site, without
the ability to log-in. Each workstation can be set to one or more realms, or
the entire web site.
- New Web-based Administration
- The web-based administration for WebSentinel has been completely rewritten,
allowing administration of all WebSentinel features. This interface uses a
new script architecture that allows anyone familiar with AppleScript to
extend or replace the standard web-based administration pages.
- Updated Scripting Interface
- The scripting interface to WebSentinel has been updated to support the new
features of WebSentinel. Through this interface you can exchange information
with WebSentinel from AppleScript, Userland Frontier, Purity's own WebSiphon,
Pervasive Software's Tango, Blueworld's Lasso, and other Apple Event savvy
environments.
- Persistent Login Cookies
- When using web login forms for authentication, WebSentinel now supports the
ability to specify how long the username and password will be saved on the
browser's computer, instead of expiring after the browser quits. This allows
users to not have to keep typing their username and password when entering
the site, if they choose to. A simple optional checkbox on the login form
allows the user to choose whether they want this feature enabled.
- Automatic Installer and Self-repair
- WebSentinel no longer requires you to install any additional libraries or
files other than the WebSentinel Plug-in itself. When the web server starts
up, WebSentinel will automatically create any default files and Data Target
Plug-ins necessary for WebSentinel to function. Just drop the WebSentinel
Plug-in in your web server Plug-ins folder and you're ready to go!
- Improved Import of Users with Realms
- The simple tab-delimited import file format that WebSentinel supports has
been improved to support an optional realm match string as the last item.
When importing any users with realm permissions, providing a realm match
string will allow functional realms to be automatically created as the users
are imported.
- User Sign-up Script Example
- Included with the package are new example scripts that you can use to
simplify administration on your subscription-based web site. A form allows
users to pick username and password, and WebSentinel will automatically
create their account.
- Logout Link Feature
- When using web-based HTML login forms, the site administrator now has
the ability to add a "Logout" link to their web site. On a shared
computer, the user of the web site can click the "Logout" link so that
subsequent users of the computer will not be able to use the previous
user's account. An optional URL can also be specified to redirect the
user to, once the logout is complete.
Pricing
WebSentinel has a retail price of US $199 and includes a special version of Verona for
user storage needs. A fully-functional demonstration version of WebSentinel is available
from the Purity Software download area. Educational institutions qualify for a 15% discount
on all Purity Software products.
System Requirements
WebSentinel requires a Power Macintosh running Mac OS 9.1 or later, 1MB of RAM for the
administration application, and 1MB of additional RAM on the web server. WebSentinel
will work with web servers supporting the W*API 1.2 standard.
WebSentinel is a registered trademark of Purity Software, Inc and is
©1997-2021.
All rights reserved worldwide. All other tradenames are registered trademarks of their
respective owners. Keep an open mind and spirit, write pure code, and don't abuse the
funk.
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