Very Computer

Is it possible to have users connect to my web server (APACHE) and get
an auto-update or auto-install of a software (SmartUpdate style)?

Claudio Testa

To answer the question in the subject first, "yes", Apache will serve any
file you tell it to. A .jar file is a Java ARchive, which is really just a
ZIP file (usually) containing Java class libraries. The .jar file often
contains a PGP signature file, so that you (or the browser) can
authenticate the contents.

To answer the second part, Netscape's SmartUpdate uses a .jar file to
download a new version of a program. I believe that Netscape also checks
the PGP signature of the archive before doing any installations, so you
probably couldn't use this same mechanism for your own files.

And while you could theoretically write your own Java code that downloads
your own .jar file, it wouldn't work unless you put the user through the
rather tedious (and confusing to someone who doesn't know what all the
terminology means) process of authorizing your applet to perform the
update. Without authorization, Java applets cannot write files to the
local hard drive. This prevents "trojan horses" from installing themselves
and doing harm to the user's machine.

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