From: ckasow@reed.edu (Clay Kasow)
Subject: Portable Perl HTTP web server w/fast Perl CGI now available
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 16:18:05 +0100

Hello!

I have written an HTTP web server entirely in Perl with the following features:

*  Fast.  Stable.  Secure.  Powerful.  I hope :-)
*  GPL'd source code.
*  Non-threaded so it is very easy to port from platform to platform.  Same
code runs on both UNIX and Macintosh.
*  Very fast non-threaded Perl CGI support.
*  Server side file caching.
*  HTTP/1.1 persistant connections.
*  Access controls.
*  Activity logging.
*  Very easy to install and configure.
*  Lots of neat configuration options to tweak (every major global variable
you might want to play with is listed and documented in a "config" file).
*  Super small - tar.Z download is under 50k.  Source code is documented
and optimized for maintainability.  It shouldn't be too hard to figure out
and modify the source to suit your particular needs - or just to convince
yourself nothing fishy is going on...

The server is called the MacPerl WebServer, as I wrote the original version
specifically to run under the Macintosh implementation of Perl, namely
MacPerl.

The server can be downloaded at http://www.reed.edu/~ckasow/.  Up-to-date
online documentation is also available at this site.

I have finally gotten the server to the point where enough bugs are worked
out so I'm not embarresed to advertise it on this list.  However, I am in
need of more feedback and bug reports.  I have not had much time to test
the server and am dependent on feedback from the outside world.  If I get
enough positive feedback, I will promote the current version from beta
1.0b2.7 to just 1.0.

Please send detailed bug reports, feedback, questions, and general rants
and raves to me at ckasow@reed.edu.  I am hoping I have created something
which someone out there can actually put to good use.

Even if you don't trust it to handle a large web-site with secure
credit-card-processing forms and lots of traffic (I probably wouldn't
myself at this stage of it's development!), it definately works great for
testing out Perl CGI intensive sites offline and is a handy tool for any
web developer to have around.

Good luck and let me know what you think!
Clay Kasow
ckasow@reed.edu
http://www.reed.edu/~ckasow/