Performs better than its name sounds! (Xitami)

Member Name: IanPaterson

Product:	Xitami
Date:	29/08/00 (682 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free and reliable

Disadvantages: Hard to interface with asp

The name is pronounced 'shitami'. The name comes from the writers company Imatix spelled backwards. Clever huh?

Free to download from their web site, this web server is superb. Robust, reliable, small install image, functional reporting and security. You name it, it's got it. If you have ever struggled with MS IIS then this is a breath of frsh air! Available in many ports for UNIX, Linux, Microsoft (NT, 95 etc.), FreeBSD.

This freebie has been ranked as competing with Apache in the ISP web server front for up time and CPU utilisation stats. If you're not interested in that and just want a reliable solution for Intranet/extranet then this could be your lucky day! As a personal web server it kicks the pants off MS PWS as well!

The NT port installs easily and self starts on your configured parameters of port number, root directories, administrator and all that standard stuff. The help pages are HTML and small but very comprehensive and easy to understand for newer users and to the point enough for experienced admins.

Control comes from customisable text files that detail all your home page names and locations for virtual or real directories. It is possible to host multiple root webs as well so for ISP hosting, this web server is ideal. Intranet applications are being taken over by NT IIS and asp servers but Xitami can deliver here as well. Cgi support is much better than MS and much faster. Considering the size of the install, (about 3Meg!) this little web server kicks butt on throughput for cgi, java and SQL front ending as well as Apache can.

To test my installation, I had an old Pentium 100 with 128Mb RAM and 3Gb HDD running NT 4.0 SP6 on a 10Base-T connection. Mirrored contents from a DEC Alpha Server 4000 (BIG beasty!) and switched over. 1000 concurrent connections eventually slowed down response times (due to CPU flooding) to unacceptable levels but it did take over 3 hours to do it. No
t bad considering the Alpha server was 1Gb RAM and quad 400Mhz CPU with 1k conncurrent connections used about 5% resources.

What they lack in imaginative product naming, they certainly make up for in features and stability.

Summary: