LiteSpeed Web Server is a high performance HTTP server that features a lot of functionality.
The server comes as a Standard version, which is free and it has several limitations, and it comes as an Enterprise version which is more optimized, and it doesn't have limitations. The Standard version is recommended for small projects or for Web development, since the number of maximum concurrent connections is limited to 150.
The installation of the Web server requires the shell, but the whole operation isn't difficult. You need to read carefully the guidelines provided by each step of the installation process. At the end of the setup you can start the server, and place it into the startup items.
LiteSpeed, besides its high performance and small memory footprint, also provides you features like HTTP 1.1 compliancy, IPv6 support, API connectivity like CGI 1.1, FastCGI, the own API, LSAPI (LiteSpeed API), or AJP. It also provides you support for dynamic languages such as: PHP, JSP/AJP, Ruby/Ruby on Rails, Python, C/C++. The PHP support comes with the distribution package. The standard version comes with PHP 4.4.7.
Other useful features for LiteSpeed: .htaccess support, Microsoft Frontpage server extension, Virtual Hosts, it can import an existing Apache configuration. It also features a strong built in security. The support for
SSL and TLS is also implemented.
Unlike other HTTP servers, LiteSpeed provides a Web configuration interface. This interface provides you a lot of flexibility in configuration and it is also very usable for remote editing of the server settings.
Pluses: it has a lot of features, it integrates with various dynamic server side programming languages, it's less vulnerable because it has built in a strong security, it has a Web administration interface, it comes with PHP extensions.
Drawbacks / flaws: the Standard version has a 150 concurrent connections limit.
In conclusion: this product can be used either as a Web hosting solution, or it can be used for development. In either of the cases, you can take advantage of the high performance of this solution.
version reviewed: 3.1.1
LiteSpeed Web Server Publisher's Description
LiteSpeed Web Server is a high performance, secure and easy-to-use web server, which can handle thousands of concurrent connections with a small memory footprint. It is less vulnerable when facing various attacks.
Some Features of LiteSpeed Web Server:
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.
System Requirements Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
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