The Netscape Server Application Programming Interface (NSAPI) is an

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...

for extending server

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

, typically

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...

software.

History

NSAPI was initially developed by

Rob McCool Robert Martin McCool (born 1973), more commonly known as Rob McCool, is a software developer and architect. McCool was the author of the original NCSA HTTPd web server, later known as the Apache HTTP Server, and until Apache version 2.2, files a ...

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

for use in

Netscape Enterprise Server Oracle iPlanet Web Server (OiWS) is a web server designed for medium and large business applications. Previous versions were marketed as Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet Web Server, Sun ONE Web Server, and Sun Java System Web Server. Oracle ...

. A variant of NSAPI can also be used with Netscape Directory Server. Because there is no formal standard, applications that use NSAPI are not necessarily portable across server software. As of 2007, varying degrees of support for NSAPI are found in Sun Java System Web Server and

Zeus Web Server Zeus Web Server is a discontinued proprietary high-performance web server for Unix and Unix-like platforms (including Solaris, FreeBSD, HP-UX and Linux). It was developed by Zeus Technology, a software company located in Cambridge, England that w ...

NSAPI plug-ins

Applications that use NSAPI are referred to as NSAPI plug-ins. Each plug-in implements one or more Server Application Functions (SAFs). To use a SAF, an administrator must first configure the server to load the plug-in that implements that SAF. This is typically controlled by a

configuration file In computing, configuration files (commonly known simply as config files) are computer file, files used to configure the Parameter (computer programming), parameters and Initialization (programming), initial settings for some computer programs. T ...

named magnus.conf. Once the plug-in is loaded, the administrator can configure when the server should invoke the SAF and what parameters it should be passed. This is typically controlled by a configuration file named obj.conf.

Comparison with related APIs and protocols

NSAPI can be compared to an earlier protocol named

Common Gateway Interface In computing, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an interface specification that enables web servers to execute an external program, typically to process user requests. Such programs are often written in a scripting language and are commonly ref ...

(CGI). Like CGI, NSAPI provides a means of interfacing

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

with a web server. Unlike CGI programs, NSAPI plug-ins run inside the server process. Because CGI programs run outside of the server process, CGI programs are generally slower than NSAPI plug-ins. However, running outside of the server process can improve server reliability by isolating potentially buggy applications from the server software and from each other. In contrast to CGI programs, NSAPI SAFs can be configured to run at different stages of request processing. For example, while processing a single

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

request, different NSAPI SAFs can be used to authenticate and authorize the remote user, map the requested

URI Uri may refer to: Places * Canton of Uri, a canton in Switzerland * Úri, a village and commune in Hungary * Uri, Iran, a village in East Azerbaijan Province * Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, a town in India * Uri (island), an island off Malakula Islan ...

to a local file system path, generate the web page, and log the request. After Netscape introduced NSAPI,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

developed

ISAPI The Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) is an N-tier API of Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft's collection of Windows-based web server services. The most prominent application of IIS and ISAPI is Microsoft's web ...

and the

Apache Software Foundation The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the A ...

developed Apache API (or ASAPI:

Apache Server The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source cross-platform web server software, released under the terms of Apache License 2.0. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Soft ...

API). All three APIs have a number of similarities. For example: NSAPI, ISAPI and Apache API allow applications to run inside the server process. Further, all three allow applications to participate in the different stages of request processing. For example, Apache API hooks closely resemble those used in NSAPI.

References

External links

Oracle iPlanet Web Server 7.0.9 NSAPI Developer's Guide

Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 NSAPI Developer's Guide

Zeus Web Server Introduction to NSAPI
(archived version) {{Netscape Netscape Application programming interfaces

History

NSAPI plug-ins

Comparison with related APIs and protocols

See also

References

External links