Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 19:26:17 -0500 From: Zan Oliphant <zan@gate.net> To: www@freebsd.org Subject: Press Release (FreeBSD Related) Message-ID: <32C1C629.3E21@gate.net>
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NEW INTERNET SOFTWARE COMPANY DEBUTS WITH WINDOWS 95 NETWORK CLIENT AND UNIX SERVER FOR WEBMASTERS Software Provides a Windows 95 Network Drive that Maps to a Single Process, Single Client Server Running Under a Standard Unix Shell Account. DELRAY BEACH, FL, December 16, 1996 - Zan Software, a new software firm specializing in Internet software, today introduced a beta of its first product called ZanNet. The software provides Windows 95 users with a network drive to access their web files through a standard Unix shell account. The product allows server file maintenance through standard file utilities such as the Windows Explorer rather than using traditional Unix based tools like the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Unix command line. Breaking away from the classical client/server paradigm, the ZanNet server is a single process that handles a single Windows client. This design keeps the server code simple and portable. Because all configuration of the software is maintained on the client side, server installation is a snap and requires no help from a Unix system administrator. Great news for small to medium sized companies maintaining web files through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) with a combination of FTP and Unix command line. The initial ZanNet beta contains server binaries for SunOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and AIX with more on the way. POSIX compliant source code for the server is also provided with a single 2000 line C language source file making porting easy for even the most novice C programmers. "Last June, I was looking for a better way to maintain my web files through a local ISP. I asked the Internet provider if I could access my files with the Network File System (NFS) standard. Their response was: NF what?" said Zan Oliphant, founder and president of Zan Software. "Even if they know how to configure a server for a Windows client, fearing security problems, Internet Service Providers are hesitant to allow anything but FTP and shell account access. ZanNet avoids this security risk by requiring login through a shell account and provides for more flexibility than FTP and better usability than the Unix command line." Seeing a market for a new product, Mr. Oliphant, with help from a crew of programmers, took on the 6 month development project. "Our design philosophy was to keep the server side extremely simple requiring no intervention on the part of the service provider. That way, a Windows user could configure the server through a standard Unix Telnet login without needing administrative privileges," went on Oliphant. "Keeping the ISP happy was also a priority. We kept the Unix binary under 50,000 bytes in size for a small memory image and maintained tight control of the server's CPU cycles." The client software, consisting of a Windows 95 network provider and network redirector, communicates with the Unix server through both WinSock and Microsoft's TCP/IP-32 VxD Interface. A control connection is established to the server with WinSock through Telnet by the Windows network provider. After control is established through WinSock, network file system requests are sent to the server by the ZanNet network redirector with the TCP/IP-32 VxD Interface. Once ZanNet is setup for the first time, it can automatically connect a network drive after an Internet connection is established. Multiple volumes and multi-threaded I/O are also supported. File progress is available through a user dialog in addition to I/O speed and other statistics. ZanNet network file system I/O can be stopped at any time with both a hot-key sequence and control buttons to free applications from an I/O request on a slow or dead server. Password security is provided by the Windows 95 password caching mechanism. For Unix porting and problem debugging, server debug messages can be enabled through the Telnet connection. After weeks of in-house testing, in addition to alpha testing with selected ISPs, a 30 day trail beta of ZanNet is available to the general public from: http://www.gate.net/~zan. The product is initially priced at $95.00 for a single user license. For more information, contact Zan Oliphant at zan@gate.net.
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