The 1100 can be administered completely from any web browser. However, corporate users who may need to manage a lot of Snap Servers can alternatively manage them via SNMP. Figure 3 shows the Home screen of the admin interface, to give you a flavor of what's available to you.

Figure 3: Admin home screen
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

I won't go through all the interface's features, but just touch on a few highlights. The Quick Configure steps you through all the basic setup items such as password setting, timezone setting for the automatic NTP client that automatically sets the 1100's clock, and IP address settings. It's also smart enough to warn you if you've already been through its screens once, but isn't obnoxious about the warning.

I found the built-in smarts helpful while checking out the Security section, which is where you define Users and Groups, set up network Shares and define Share, File and Folder level access permissions. Understanding the subtleties of Windows' file sharing permissions can be a daunting task for those of us who don't do it on a regular basis. Snap, however, seems to "feel our pain" and automatically provides warnings such as the one shown in Figure 4, when you're about to make a security setting that isn't really going to be as secure as you might think.

Figure 4: Share security warning
(click on the image for a full-sized view)

This screen appeared after I defined a network share that was essentially the same as one already in place, but which was attempting to establish read-only access, instead of the full access already provided by the existing share. I received a similar warning when I tried to lock down a folder more tightly than its parent folder - another common mistake. In both cases, the warnings were very clear and gave me enough information to figure out how to fix the problem.

In addition to these automatic warnings, Snap has included a series of "Security Guides" (mini-tutorials) in the on-line interface. Between the automatic warnings and these on-line Guides, you shouldn't even have to consult the PDF manual to get yourself set up.

Other browser-based management features include:

Support for auto-shutdown messages from networkable APC UPS products Emailed error alerts Ability to restart and shut down the server Configuration save, restore and restore to factory defaults OS upgrade from a downloaded file

About the only thing that I could find to complain about is that you can't change the port that either the HTTP or FTP servers operate on.