HYPERTEXT DOCUMENT TRANSPORT MECHANISM FOR FIREWALL-COMPATIBLE DISTRIBUTED WORLD-WIDE WEB PUBLISHING

A method is disclosed for publishing a hypertext file set on a world-wide web server machine by packaging the hypertext file set as an e-mail message on a client machine, transporting the e-mail message over the internet from the client machine to the world-wide web server machine, unpacking the e-mail message to recover the hypertext file set, and depositing the hypertext file set into a memory means on the world-wide web server machine. By using the e-mail transport mechanism, a direct internet connection between the client and server is not necessary. Consequently, the method allows files to pass through security firewalls and allows geographically disperse individuals to remotely update information at a WWW site without compromising server security. In addition, processing time is not wasted during direct connections sharing the server's resources and internet bandwidth is not wasted. Finally, because this method uses standard internet protocols and generic server software, the WWW server is not cluttered with client-specific software to handle special protocols and data structures.