WebSTAR 4 Manual & Technical Reference

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Administering WebSTAR

About the WebSTAR Admin Application

The WebSTAR Admin application allows you to monitor and configure your WebSTAR Server. You can use this application on any PowerPC Mac with access to the Internet. The data communications between the WebSTAR Admin and the WebSTAR server are encrypted, so access is secure.

For more information, see Web Server Administration .

You can also administer some of the server functions, and all the Plug-Ins, from a browser on any machine connected to the Internet. For more information, see Accessing the Browser Admin Pages .

Connecting with WebSTAR Admin

1 Launch the WebSTAR Admin application.
You'll see the New Connection dialog:
 
2 Type in your host name or IP address, leave the port number at 80, and enter the password. This is the password that you set in the WebSTAR Server: if you didn't set it before, see Admin Password .
3 You'll see the Web, FTP, Mail and Proxy Monitor windows. They will display log information about what's happening on your server, with an entry for each client request.
See also: Admin Monitor Windows .
 
4 Choose Server Settings from the Edit menu to see the WebSTAR Admin Settings Window.
 
5 Type your server's host name into the Server Name field. This is used to resolve certain URLs and is checked by the FTP server.
6 Click Save to send the information back to the server.

There are a lot of options here for tuning your web server, setting up Virtual Hosts , defining Security Realms , and configuring Log Formats . For detailed instructions, see Web Server Administration . You can also configure the WebSTAR FTP Server , the WebSTAR Mail Settings and the WebSTAR Proxy Server

Accessing the Browser Admin Pages

The browser admin pages allow you to use any web browser, on any system on the Internet, to administer many of the functions and Plug-ins on your server. The browser admin pages are protected by a WebSTAR security realm , so that no one else can change your settings. You'll need to create a password to access these pages.

See also: Security Realms .

Setting the Browser Admin Password

When you install WebSTAR for the first time, the default administration security realm, ADMINISTRATION is already set up. This limits access to the Browser Admin pages, so no one else can change your server settings. You must add a user name and password, so that you can use the Browser Admin.

1 Launch the WebSTAR Admin application and connect to your server, as described Connecting with WebSTAR Admin .
2 Bring up the settings window by choosing Server Settings from the Edit menu.
3 Select the Users option from the list at the left, to see the User Name and Password list.
4 Click on the New button to make a new entry.
5 Enter a User Name and Password for browser administration. Make sure to keep the name shorter than 16 letters. For security information, see Safe Passwords .
See also: Web Users and Passwords .
6 The realm on the popup Realms menu on the lower left should be ADMINISTRATION . If it's not, click on the menu and select that Realm.
 
7 Click the Save button to send the new entry back to the server.

Using the Browser Admin Pages

From your web browser, enter the browser admin URL, which is your server's name followed by " pi_admin.admin ", for example:

http://www. domain.com /pi_admin.admin

Now enter the Administration User Name and Password for access. You'll be able to administer many of the server features, as well as many Plug-Ins using this interface. You may want to bookmark the page for future reference.

If you use a specific machine or group of machines to do your administration, you can set up an "Allow" entry for this realm to avoid the password. Follow the instructions in the section Allow/Deny .


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