NetCloak 3.0 User's Guide: Configuration: Options

	Version 3.0 User's Guide

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Figure 4: The Options tab of the NetCloak Configuration window

Figure 5: The Options page of the NetCloak Web admin interface

NetCloak supports several features that allow you to improve how your server behaves in different situations and for different browsers. To select these preferences, use the "Options" tab of the configuration window or the corresponding Web admin page.

Server Options

Server Name -- The "Server Name" field is used by NetCloak to build the HTTP header returned to the client, and tells the client what server software is being used. The server name can be important for several reasons, and you should set this field carefully.

First, this field is used by many Web crawlers (also known as "robots") for studies that determine what software is being used by whom on the Internet. By correctly returning the name of your server, you are helping to promote the Mac OS platform and the server software you have chosen. This is not a trivial issue, and we strongly urge you to enter the correct name of your server software and the name "NetCloak". If you choose, you may list the names of other server applications, and they should be listed in order of importance, with the server itself always listed first.

It is not necessary to include the version numbers of the server, NetCloak, or any other server application. In fact, for security reasons, it is a good idea to leave the version number off. However, if you like, you may list the version numbers. If you choose to do this, the version number should follow the name of the application, with a slash ("/") between them, and no spaces. For example, you could set this field to:

    WebSTAR/3.0.2 NetCloak/3.0

Complete information on the server field can be found in the HTTP/1.1 specification, RFC 2068, section 14.39.

Last Modified -- Another field of the HTTP header is the "Last-Modified" date of the file. This field presents special issues when using NetCloak, because NetCloak is constantly changing the contents of files. However, it is important to use this field so that proxy servers and Web browser will correctly cache cloaked pages, and so that search engines will properly update their indexes when you update the contents of a page.

To solve this problem, there are three options:

Exclude From Header: When you select this option, NetCloak will not include the Last-Modified field in the header at all. This is a legal option, and is provided for in the HTTP specification. By choosing this, you are essentially leaving caching decisions up to proxies and browsers that access the page. It is not recommended, though, because caching is much more effective when the last-modified date is present. In addition, search engines often will not properly index pages that have no last-modified date.

Send File's Modified Date: If your site does not make excessive use of NetCloak's dynamic commands, your best option is to return the actual date the last time the file was modified. This is the same thing your server would do if the file was being served without NetCloak. This option, along with "Pragma: No-Cache for dynamic pages" is the preferred setting. Your pages will be crawled and updated correctly by search engines, but proxy servers and Web browsers will not cache them.

Send Current Date/Time: For pages that are very dynamic, and that should always be loaded from the server, use the "Send Current Date/Time" option. This will always send the date and time that the page is being served as the files last modified date. This may seem like a trick, but it is the most reasonable setting, in many cases. NetCloak modifies files as they are being served, so reporting the current date and time is, in fact, accurate.

Note that this default setting can be overridden on a page by page basis using the SET_NETCLOAK configuration command within your pages. You might want to do this if most of your pages are relatively static, with only a couple of very dynamic pages used on your site. In this case, you could set the default to "Send File's Modified Date" but use the SET_NETCLOAK command to send the current date and time for the very dynamic pages.

"Pragma: No-cache" for dynamic pages - Caching proxy servers and most Web browsers sometimes will cache a page even when the Last-Modified setting is set to "Current Date/Time". Checking this checkbox causes NetCloak to include a "Pragma: No-cache" field in the HTTP response header when the page contains any NetCloak command that causes the page's content to change with every request. This includes all SHOW, HIDE and INSERT commands, and many others. When "Pragma: No-cache" is present in the response header, HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 compliant proxy servers and browsers will not cache the page, regardless of the Last-Modified date or any other HTTP header field.

Character Translation

When Serving -- NetCloak will convert Mac Roman extended characters to ISO-Latin-1 character encoding or HTML entities. For US-ASCII only Web sites, leave this option on "No Translation", but if you use extended characters, you can select an appropriate translation and edit your documents using the standard Mac OS character set. When these pages are served, the characters will be converted as specified so that they appear correctly in the user's browser, regardless of the platform or operating system they are using.

For all of these options, the only way to know for sure what will work best for you is to test your site with a variety of browsers. There is (unfortunately) a wide variety of ways in which browsers treat extended characters, as well as the caching of pages based on the last-modified date. Decide what browsers are important to support at your site, download them, and try the various options to determine the best selection.

When Creating Files

NetCloak sometimes needs to create text files on your server. Most often, it is creating log files or files that contain configuration information such as the list of defined groups. When it needs to create a text file, you can specify what application opens the file when it is double-clicked.

Creator Signature - Enter into this field the four-character creator code of the application that you wish to use to edit text files. By default, NetCloak uses the signature 'R*ch', the creator signature of BBEdit. If you don't know the creator signature of your favorite text-editing application, use the "Same Creator As..." button.

Same Creator As... -- Clicking this button presents a standard file dialog box, which lets you select any text file. NetCloak will then enter the creator signature of the selected file into the "Creator Signature" field automatically.


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