NSAPI (Netscape Server API) Introduction

NSAPI, Netscape's webserver API, provides a programmer's interface to the core operations of a webserver. NSAPI applications can access and modify the internal state of a web server, and may contribute to processing a user's request, authenticating it, locating resources, generating content and logging any results. Many third-party commercial web applications are written to the NSAPI specification. Zeus supports NSAPI to provide a migration path for customers using these applications.

The Zeus NSAPI module provides a binary-compatible emulation of Netscape's NSAPI interface v3.0 and v4.0. Zeus does not provide any support for NSAPI application development.

Advantages

• Many commerical 3rd party applications interface to the web server using NSAPI
• High performance multi-threaded API
• Rich, comprehensive API allowing all aspects of the web server behaviour to be modified.

Disadvantages

• Proprietary API designed by Netscape
• NSAPI applications must be MT-safe (multi-threaded). Writing stable multi-threaded applications is the domain of a professional software team, and is complicated and very difficult to debug.

Content Manager [Administrator] 16 December 2005