Jigsaw Overview

Jigsaw is a full blown HTTP server. It is entirely written in Java. Its design goals were:

Portability

The Jigsaw server will run on any machine running Java.

Extensibility

The server can be extended by writting new resource objects. This is a replacement for CGI, were server extensions have to be written as processes (of course, CGI are handled too).

Efficiency

The design has been done in such way to minimize file system accesses. By using some caching mechanisms, the server will reduce file system accesses (eventually to the point that most requested documents serving will require no file system access.).

News and Updates

• Jigsaw is now available for the public, check out the downloading section in this document.
• A public mailing list has been set up for an open discussion of ideas, diffs, new features etc. See the mailing list section, below.
• Several new papers are available on Jigsaw:

  Jigsaw design rationale

  If you want to understand why Jigsaw has this funny design.

  Jigsaw performances evaluation

  A quick report on the current performances of Jigsaw. Includes some of the thing we are going to work on to make Jigsaw fly.

Authors

Anselm Baird-Smith

Status

Still under development. The alpha release is now out. We are expecting your feed-backs before freezing the current set of APIs.

Plans and Activities

The W3C Activity statement reports the direction in which W3C is heading for the future of Jigsaw.

Platforms

The server will run on any platform supporting Java. At this time, it has been tested on Win95, WinNT and Solaris 2.x.

Getting the distribution file

Jigsaw release files contains the Java source code, the documentation and the pre-compiled classes. There are available in two formats:

• The zip file is suitable for Windows.
• The tar, gziped file is suitable for UNIXes

Copyright

The Jigsaw server is covered by the MIT Copyright statement

Known bugs

The current list of known bugs, along with their status.

Mailing list

 The www-jigsaw@w3.org is a public mailing list for open discussions on Jigsaw. For more informations on W3C mailing lists, check out the Mail Information page. Check out the archive before posting. Bug reports, questions on the current design, etc. should be directed to jigsaw@w3.org.

Getting more informations

• Installation guide
• Administration guide
• Tutorials

• Supported feature list
• Documentation overview
• Frequently Answered Questions

Anselm Baird-Smith
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