Introduction:

The Wildcat! Web Server (wcWEB) offers public and private web sites. Wildcat! was historically designed to be private logon intranet system with built-in authentication. In order to use it, users must login. For the Wildcat! Web Server, it has a concept of a private side and a public side:

   http\            <--- private side, login required
   http\public      <--- public side, no login required

All files and sub-folders in the http\ directory are automatically considered private where authentication is enforced with the exception of the http\public sub-folder.

When the user first visits your web site by typing or clicking a url such as:

   http://yourdomain.com

the Web Server will display the index page, such as default.wct (or default.htm if not found). Since the user is not logged in, wcWEB will display the public index page located in the public folder:

   http\public\default.wct  <--- PUBLIC HOME PAGE

This is called the PUBLIC HOME PAGE and it is where buttons and links is provided for the user to login into the web site.

Once the user is logged in, the PRIVATE HOME PAGE index page is displayed:

   http\default.wct  <--- PRIVATE HOME PAGE

Public Virtual Domains

Wildcat! Virtual Domains offers a public web site option under the VDG setup:

  [ Paths ]

    Web Root: http\__________________________________________

    [X] Web Root is Public

When the public option is enabled, this means the PUBLIC HOME PATH is no longer http\public but rather http\. So when the user first visits the web site, he will see the content of the web page:

   http\default.wct  <--- PUBLIC HOME PAGE

Under the public option, the http\public folder is not used and users do not need to authenticate to access any files under the http\ folder.

It is important to understand under the public option, all files are not protected nor secured under this mode. The exception is Wildcat! client resources (i.e, /client?file.wcn), they are still protected and required authentication for usage. However, stock folders such as http\template are now public and some templates can be used in public pages, such as /template/pageheader.inc.

However, a good example of a public web site is one that does not have traditional wcWeb sub-folders but rather is a simple web site for public access, for example:

  [ Paths ]

    Web Root: c:\websites\domain3\___________________________

    [X] Web Root is Public

Here you can begin with a index file:

   c:\websites\domain3\default.wct

to serve as the public home page for this domain.

To understand the key different of public and private, if you disable the [_] Web Root Is Public option for this web site, then the public sub-folder is expected with an public index page:

   c:\websites\domain3\public\default.wct

Using a Wildcat! Web Site as a Public Option

Even if you don't create additional Virtual Domains and use the default web site, by simply enabling the [X] Web Root Is Public you will make all http\ files public and the http\ index file is now the public home page.

However, please note if your Wildcat! Web site was setup to have private resources which required authentication, you should be aware they are now public accessible. So this will require a thorough review of the files and folders within the http\ folder and your http\ index file needs to be edited to support the login button.

Using the public web site option is useful to migrate other public web site that ran under other web servers. The operative word here is PUBLIC where the files are not protected. No Wildcat! feature is required to use the migrated web site. However, it can use WCT extensions or use the Wildcat! alias urls such as:

   /login
   /logout
   /signup

The web site can also integrate Wildcat! Clients as authenticated access only. The Wildcat! client urls are:

   /client?message.wcn      Email and Message Groups and Areas
   /client?file.wcn         File Groups and Areas Library
   /client?who.wcn          Who's Online
   /client?chat.wcn         wcJava Chat
   /client?personal.wcn     Personal Properties (Your Settings)
   /client?terminal.wcn     Telnet Client

If any of the clients are used, then you must have all the WcWeb stock files, folders and subfolders installed on the web site:

     http\audio
     http\errors
     http\images
     http\template
     http\public
     http\public\js
     http\public\graphics
     http\public\wcflash
     http\public\wcnav