WebSTAR Byte Server

WebSTAR Byte Server is a WebSTAR Plug-In that supports byte-range serving of files according to the HTTP 1.1 specification. This allows WebSTAR to serve sections (i.e. "byte-ranges") of very large files, rather than sending the entire file to the client application. Browsers and other clients that support this feature will become more common in the future.

WebSTAR installs the WebSTAR Byte Server Plug-In by default. If you need to change it, follow the instructions in Installing and Removing Plug-Ins . It does not require any additional RAM.

The WebSTAR Byte Server Plug-In is always enabled. It will automatically be used when a web-optimized file with a .pdf suffix is requested.

Browser requests which contain an HTTP Range: request in the header will automatically be passed to the WebSTAR Byte Server for processing. Adobe Acrobat (PDF) is the most common format to take advantage of this option. You do not need to set up any suffix mapping; the Range: request in the HTTP header is enough to invoke this Plug-In.

You may need to configure your browser, file-viewer helper application and original files before you can successfully serve and view byte-range served files: see the Acrobat example Example: Byte-Serving PDF files for instructions. The WebSTAR Byte Server does not require any configuration.

Example: Byte-Serving PDF files

The following describes how to use the WebSTAR Byte Server with Adobe Acrobat PDF files. Different configuration setups will be required for other file types.

1 Make sure you have the newest version of the free Acrobat Reader, which includes a PDFViewer Plug-In for browsers. Install it from the WebSTAR CD or download it from:

 
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html

2 Use Adobe Acrobat version 3 or greater to generate a PDF file.
3 Make sure that you save the file in Adobe Acrobat Exchange with the "Optimize" option enabled, and that you use the.pdf suffix at the end of the file name.
4 Place the PDF file somewhere in your WebSTAR folder hierarchy.
5 Go to your browser machine and make sure you have Adobe Acrobat Reader, version 3 or later. Download and install it if necessary.
6 Launch the Acrobat Reader and uncheck the General Preference "Allow Background Download"
7 Save the Preferences and leave the Reader open.
8 If you ran the Acrobat Reader Installer, it should have put the PDFViewer Plug-In in your browser's Plug-Ins folder. You may need to specify the PDFViewer Plug-In as the helper application for the Adobe Acrobat application/pdf MIME Type in your browser.
9 Launch the browser and connect to your server, then enter a URL requesting the PDF file.

As the PDF file loads, the browser will call the PDF Reader Plug-In (launching the Acrobat Reader application if necessary) and the Acrobat Plug-In page controls will become active in your web browser's window.

The first time you select a PDF file, you may have to tell the browser where the Acrobat Reader application is located.

As you step forward through the document, the browser will request individual ranges of bytes from WebSTAR instead of the entire document. You'll see another request to the document in your log and monitor window, and if you have specified a BYTES_SENT log token, you'll see that only a small amount of data was sent.