-----Original Message-----
Ok, what is the deal. Is UNIX an operating system or is
it a application, or is it a database.
It's an operating system.
Is there something about this UNIX stuff that Bill Gates
doesn't know?
UNIX is a rich and powerful operating system that
benefits from lots of open source code and over 25 years
of development. No one can know *everything* about UNIX.
Why is it that a security database cannot be set up in
Windows but can be in another product.
FrontPage wasn't originally a Microsoft project. A
company named Vermier Technologies Incorporated developed
FrontPage with UNIX servers in mind, and in that vein
they also developed the Self-Registration component.
For reasons of backward compatibility, Microsoft has
never removed the self-registration component, but
neither have they enhanced it.
I have never heard of UNIX until recently. What is it
and why can't Bill Gates do anything to include it so
we can use it.
Most UNIX-based Web servers can limit access to
designated folders by means of text files that contain
usernames and password. The FrontPage Self-Registration
component essentially provides a way to configure
maintain those files.
Microsoft Web servers limit access to designated folders
by means of Windows login accounts. This is pretty cool
on an intranet, because people can use the same
username/password for system login and for Web access. In
fact, IE can auto-enter your Windows account information
automatically.
Unfortunately, using Windows login accounts to control
Web access isn't practical on the Internet. It would be a
major security breach if just anyone could browse your
site, self-register, and thereby get an account they
could use for file sharing, print sharing, terminal
services, and the like. That's why the FrontPage Self-
Registration component doesn't work on Microsoft Web
servers.
On the Internet, people generally use "forms-based"
security. This means that visitors login using forms that
are part of your application. This has the advantage of
storing the visitor information in the same database as
the rest of your application, but the disadvantage that
you have to program it yourself.
If you need to password-protect some pages, but you can't
using Windows login accounts, and you don't feel up to
programming your own login system, you can choose from a
variety of third-party, packaged solutions.
And yes, all those _vti folders that FrontPage creates
are also the legacy of Vermier Technologies Incorporated.
Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
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|\---------------------------------------------------
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition
|| Troubleshooting Microsoft FrontPage 2002
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming
|| (All from Microsoft Press)
|/---------------------------------------------------
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