The Mac Orchard - HomeHelpFAQALEMIAForumsDrew's Picks

Server Applications

LiteSpeed Web Server

Company Page Home Page Release Notes Screen Shots License:
Varies; see text.

Current Version: 4.0.15 (June 15, 2010)

From the LiteSpeed Web Server home page: "LiteSpeed Web Server is a high performance, secure and easy-to-use web server that can handle thousands of concurrent connections with a small memory footprint. It is less vulnerable when facing various attacks."

Features include:

  • HTTP/1.1
    • Backward compatible with HTTP/1.0
    • Chunked Transfer Encoding
    • Basic Authentication (htpasswd and LDAP backend)
    • Entity Tag
    • Range/Multi-range Request
    • Static and dynamic content compression(gzip)
  • IPv6 support
  • API Connectivity
    • CGI/1.1
    • FastCGI
    • LSAPI (LiteSpeed SAPI)
    • AJP 1.3
    • Transparent Reverse Proxy (interface to back-end web server, application server)
  • Dynamic Language Support
    • PHP (CGI,FastCGI,LSAPI), compatible with 3rd party PHP Accelerators.
    • JSP/Servlet (AJP)
    • Perl (CGI, FastCGI)
    • Ruby/Roby on Rails (CGI, FastCGI, LSAPI)
    • Python (CGI, FastCGI)
    • C/C++ (CGI, FastCGI, LSAPI)
  • URL Rewriting
    • URL Rewriting is fully compatible with Apache's rewrite configuration
  • .Htaccess Support
    • Apache compatible distributed per-directory Access Control and Authentication configuration.
  • Request filtering
    • Perform deep inspection of request header and body, using Apache mod_security compatible configuration directives.
  • MS Frontpage server extension 2002
    • Supports content publishing with MS Frontpage client.
  • Virtual Hosting
    • Supports IP based and name based virtual hosting
  • Security
    • LiteSpeed web server is desgined to be a secure web server. With chroot jail, IP level bandwidth throttling, connection accounting, strict HTTP request checking, and URL context filtering, DoS effects are minimized and the application backend is properly fenced away from the HTTP request layer reducing vulnerability.
    • High performance Secure HTTP (HTTPS): supports SSLv2, SSLv3 and TLSv1
    • Access Control at server, virtual host and directory (context) level
    • File system protection
    • HTTP Authentication
    • IP level throttling (Bandwidth and Request Rate)
    • Comprehensive IP level connection accounting
    • Hotlink protection
    • Strict HTTP request checking
    • Comprehensive protection for static files
    • External application firewall for dynamic content
    • CGI resources consumption limit
    • CGI suEXEC excution and chroot
    • Chroot whole server process[Enterprise Edition only]
  • Reliability
    • Zero downtime maintanance (include reconfiguration, software upgrade)
    • Watch dog and Instant recovery maximizes up-time
    • Graceful shutdown, all requests in process will be completed.
    • Runs completely in the user space, OS reliability is not affected
    • CGI, Fast CGI and servlet engine run in standalone processes,the reliability of the web server is not affected by third party software.

The program is available in two editions:

  • Standard Edition is free for both private and commercial use.
  • Enterprise Edition is a commercial product line with enhanced features, security, and tuned for the best performance/scalability. Pricing varies from $499-$1299, with leasing options available.

Version 4.0.15 adds/changes the following:

  • Security fix for null-byte exploit from script.
  • Enabled wswatch script for cPanel servers, it will monitor and launch lsws if it got killed by cPanel.
  • Fixed a bug in SSI engine.
  • A bug in web admin has been fixed that when there is only one external app for status page.

User Reviews

Currently, no user reviews have been submitted. Send me yours!


Also See . . .

Can't find what you're looking for? Try a search:

Also, if you have an older Mac, be sure to check out the "Classic" applications page for more options.

Finally, take a look at ALEMIA if you think you know that name of an application, but aren't quite sure.

Built Into Mac OS X

Mac OS X has a huge amount of TCP/IP-based server software built into it that I don't specifically cover here. Your "Sharing" Preference Pane allows you to enable and disable these services with a click of the mouse. The software running behind the scenes to provide many of these services is generally of the open source variety. The standard release of Mac OS X includes, among many others:

  • Apache httpd (web server; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane).
  • Postfix (mail server; see Mac OS X Hints for more information).
  • tnftpd (FTP server; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane).
  • OpenSSH (Secure Shell server; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane via "Remote Login" but additionally configurable via selected applications listed on this page).
  • BIND (Domain Name System server; see Mac OS X Hints for more information).
  • Samba (Windows file sharing; enabled via the Sharing Preference Pane).
  • XFree86 (X Window server; enabled via the "X11" application in your "Utilities" folder, if you elected to install it with Mac OS X).

Of course, Mac OS X Server includes many more, in addition to offering more recent versions of many of the above servers.

Related Links

Graham Orndorff has written a superb collection of articles on setting up email servers and secure email clients on Mac OS X.

Also Consider . . .

These are applications that are newer and of potential interest, but which I haven't yet selected for permanent inclusion. Have a look, and let me know if you think they deserve to be part of the permanent collection!