NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19 / NN_1992_19.iso / spool / comp / os / linux / 9397 < prev next >

Wrap

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-30 | 17.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!kithrup!hoptoad!decwrl!deccrl!bloom-beacon!eru.mt.luth.se!lunic!sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!nntp.hut.fi!usenet From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux Subject: Linux in gopherspace Message-ID: <1992Aug29.234916.13553@nntp.hut.fi> Date: 29 Aug 92 23:49:16 GMT Sender: usenet@nntp.hut.fi (Usenet pseudouser id) Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 424 Nntp-Posting-Host: laphroaig.cs.hut.fi The otax.tky.hut.fi gopher server is available via the root of the gopher net under the name "Helsinki University of Technology", and directly at host otax.tky.hut.fi port 70 via gopher. It has a directory for Linux. The directory under Topics/Linux is: 1. Meta-FAQ 2. Tupac-Amaru.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE Linux ftp archive/ 3. fgb1.fgb.mw.tu-muenchen.de Linux ftp archive/ 4. ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de Linux ftp archive/ 5. ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de Linux ftp archive/ 6. ftp.mcc.ac.uk Linux ftp archive (MCC interim release)/ 7. kirk.bu.oz.au Linux ftp archive/ 8. nic.funet.fi Linux ftp archive/ 9. reggae.oit.unc.edu Linux ftp archive/ 10. sunsite.unc.edu Linux ftp archive/ 11. tsx-11.mit.edu Linux ftp archive (official GCC site)/ 12. utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp Linux ftp archive/ I'll attach some info on gopher for those new to it. ---------------------------------------- This is the University of Minnesota Computer & Information Services Gopher Consultant service. gopher n. 1. Any of various short tailed, burrowing mammals of the family Geomyidae, of North America. 2. (Amer. colloq.) Native or inhabitant of Minnesota: the Gopher State. 3. (Amer. colloq.) One who runs errands, does odd-jobs, fetches or delivers documents for office staff. 4. (computer tech.) Software following a simple protocol for tunneling through a TCP/IP internet. If you have questions or comments, you can get in contact with the Gopher development team by sending e-mail to: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu If you are interested in news about new gopher servers and software you can subscribe to the gopher-news mailing list by sending e-mail to: gopher-news-request@boombox.micro.umn.edu There is also a USENET news discussion group called comp.infosystems.gopher where Internet Gopher is discussed. If you want to get the most recent releases of the gopher software, you can get these via anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu in the /pub/gopher directory. ---------------------------------------- Archive-name: gopher-faq Last-modified: 1992/08/17 Common Questions and Answers about the Internet Gopher, a client/server protocol for making a world wide information service, with many implementations. Posted to comp.infosystems.gopher and news.answers every two weeks. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q0: What is Gopher? A0: The Internet Gopher client/server provides a distributed information delivery system around which a world/campus-wide information system (CWIS) can readily be constructed. While providing a delivery vehicle for local information, Gopher facilitates access to other Gopher and information servers throughout the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1: Where can I get gopher? A1: via anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu. Look in the directory /pub/gopher -------------------------------------------------------------------- Q2: What do I need to access gopher? A2: You will need a gopher "client" program that runs on your local PC or workstation There are clients for the following systems. The directory following the name is the location of the client on the anonymous ftp site boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) in the directory /pub/gopher. Unix Curses & Emacs : /pub/gopher/Unix/gopher1.02.tar.Z Xwindows : /pub/gopher/Unix/xgopher1.1a.tar.Z Macintosh Hypercard : /pub/gopher/Mac_client/ DOS w/Clarkson Driver : /pub/gopher/PC_client/ NeXTstep : /pub/gopher/NeXT/ VM/CMS : /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/Vienna_CMS/ VMS : /pub/gopher/VMS/ A Macintosh application MacGopher is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.cc.utah.edu: Macintosh Application : /pub/gopher/Macintosh Another Macintosh application, "GopherApp" is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.bio.indiana.edu: Macintosh Application : /util/gopher/gopherapp A port of the UNIX curses client for DOS with PC/TCP is available via anonymous ftp from: DOS w/ PC/TCP : /public/dos/misc/dosgofer.exe A beta version of the PC Gopher client for Novell's LAN Workplace for DOS is available from lennon.itn.med.umich.edu LWP for DOS : /gopher All of the above clients can also be fetched via a gopher client itself. Put the following on a gopher server: Type=1 Host=boombox.micro.umn.edu Port=70 Path= Name=Gopher Software Distribution. Or point your gopher client at boombox.micro.umn.edu, port 70 and look in the gopher directory. There are also a number of public telnet login sites available. The University of Minnesota operates one on the machine "consultant.micro.umn.edu" (134.84.132.4) See Q3 for more information about this. It is recommended that you run the client software instead of logging into the public telnet login sites. A client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.) A local client is also faster. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q3: Where are there publicly available logins for gopher. A3: Here is a short list, use the site closest to you to minimize network lag. Hostname IP# Login Area ------------------------- --------------- ------ ------------- consultant.micro.umn.edu 134.84.132.4 gopher North America gopher.uiuc.edu 128.174.33.160 gopher North America panda.uiowa.edu 128.255.40.201 panda North America info.anu.edu.au 150.203.84.20 info Australia gopher.chalmers.se 129.16.221.40 gopher Sweden It is recommended that you run the client software instead of logging into the public telnet login sites. A client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.) A local client is also faster. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q4: How can I add to the information in gopher? A4: You can do this by running a gopher server. Servers are available for a number of systems. Use anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) and look in /pub/gopher. The following servers are available there: Unix : /pub/gopher/Unix/gopherxx.tar.Z VMS : /pub/gopher/VMS/ Macintosh : /pub/gopher/Mac_server/ VM/CMS : /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/Vienna_CMS/ MVS : /pub/gopher/mvs/ DOS PC : /pub/gopher/PC_server/ When you have your server ready you can publish it to the world by sending e-mail to the maintainters of the "Other gophers" list: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q5: Who Develops Gopher Software? A5: Gopher was originally developed in April 1991 by the University of Minnesota Microcomputer, Workstation, Networks Center to help our campus find answers to their computer questions. It has since grown into a full-fledged World Wide Information System used by a large number of sites in the world. Many people have contributed to the project, too numerous to count. The people behind the much of the gopher software can be reached via e-mail at gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu, or via paper mail: Internet Gopher Developers 100 Union St. SE #132 Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q6: How can I set up a "CSO" phone book server? Where is the software? A6: CSO phone book servers are also known as "qi" servers. The software implementation can be gotten via anonymous ftp from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.50) as /pub/qi.tar.Z. You may also see this referred to as "ph", which is what most of the clients are called. There is also an archive of the mailing list for qi/ph software on the same machine. It's in /pub/info-ph.archive. This software is supported by Steve Dorner <s-dorner@uiuc.edu> Contact him for more information. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q7: Why can't I access the University of Minnesota's UPI news? A7: The University of Minnesota has a site license for UPI news, we are not allowed to distribute it off of our campus. We get our UPI news from Clarinet. For more information about getting UPI news send mail to info@clarinet.com. For information about setting up your own gopher-UPI server search the gopher-news archive for UPI. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q9: What are the type characters for the different Gopher Objects? A9: Normal IDs. 0 Item is a file 1 Item is a directory 2 Item is a CSO (qi) phone-book server 3 Error 4 Item is a BinHexed Macintosh file. 5 Item is DOS binary archive of some sort. 6 Item is a UNIX uuencoded file. 7 Item is an Index-Search server. 8 Item points to a text-based telnet session. 9 Item is a binary file! Client must read until the connection closes. Beware. T TN3270 connection. Experimental IDs. s Sound type. Data stream is a mulaw sound. g GIF type. M MIME type. Item contains MIME data. h html type. I Image type. i "inline" text type (used by panda). ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q10: When I do full-text searches I always get every document back, Why? A10: This is a problem occasionally encountered with Unix full-text indexes. It is caused by setting up the link incorrectly to a gindexd port. The Path= field should be *blank* when pointing to a gindexd index. Otherwise the client will send the path to the gindexd daemon, which interprets everything as a keyword. This path is likely to contain a pathname that is common to all of the indexed files. Thus a search generates hits on everything. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q11: When I try to build the UNIX software I get an error from make: "Must be a separator on rules line #. Stop" Why? A11: This is a problem with older makes that don't understand the "include" keyword. One easy way to cope with this problem is compiling GNU make, which does understand the include keyword. If this is too difficult, remove the line: include Makefile.config from all the Makefiles and paste in a copy of Makefile.config at the top of each Makefile. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)? A12: Gopher is intimately intertwined with these two other systems. As shipped the Unix gopher server has the capability to: - Search local WAIS indices. - Query remote WAIS servers and funnel the results to gopher clients. - Query remote ftp sites and funnel the results to gopher clients. - Be queried by WWW (World Wide Web) clients (either using built in gopher querying or using native http querying. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q13: Are papers or articles describing gopher available? A13: Yes. Here are some references: _The_Internet_Gopher_, "ConneXions", July 1992, Interop. _Exploring_Internet_GopherSpace_ "The Internet Society News", v1n2 1992, _The_Internet_Gopher_Protocol_, Proceedings of the Twenty-Third IETF, CNRI, Section 5.3 _Internet_Gopher_, Proceedings of Canadian Networking '92 _The_Internet_Gopher_, INTERNET: Getting Started, SRI International, Section 10.5.5 _Tools_help_Internet_users_discover_on-line_treasures, Computerworld, July 20, 1992 Gopher will also be in two forthcoming O'Reilly Books: "Administrating TCP/IP, and The Whole Internet" ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q14: On a DECstation I get the error message "/etc/svc.conf no such file or directory" when running the gopherd server, why? A14: This is caused by the chroot() call in gopherd. It can be easily fixed by running gopherd with the -c option. Alternatively you can copy /etc/svc.conf into a directory named "etc" inside the gopher-data directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q15: The boolean searching terms don't work for my full-text index, why? A15: This is probably because the searching is being provided by WAIS. WAIS opts to return all documents that contain a search phrase within certain limits. WAIS searches do return the documents with the highest "score" at the top, those documents will have the closest relevance. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q16: When linking the Unix gopher server with WAIS I get undefined symbols, such as: log_file_name logfile PrintStatus find_value Sources NumSources A17: This happens if you make gopherd before linking in the WAIS ir/ui directories. The fix is to "make clean" or remove gopherd/{waisgopher.o,Waisindex.o} and then remake gopherd. Or link the ir/ui directories first. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q18: Why don't my WAIS indexes work? I never get anything back for searches. A18: The problem could be in the server. The server should be run using the -c option if you want WAIS to work. Another solution is to patch the WAIS code so that it doesn't check the files on the disk. Search the gopher-news archive for "dangling". This will turn up a single document with the patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q19: My gopher server doesn't work under inetd, why? A19: It could be that your inetd server only supports a limited amount of arguments. For instance, the maximum number of arguments to an inetd server is 5. You can get around this by combining arguments: i.e. gopherd -I -c becomes: gopherd -Ic You may also leave the port specifier off of the command line. The gopher server automagically finds out the port it's running on. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q20: This is not a bug report, just a curiousity. I managed to install gopher on my PC, more or less by myself, which is a pretty good accomplishment, for someone who hasn't installed hardly anything on a PC. I then proceeded to load my PC/TCP kernel, ETHDRV, and try to start up gopher. It said it couldn't initialize that stack(?). I have to load this whenever I use PC/TCP. Incredibly, when I did not load ETHDRV, Gopher came up immediately and telneted to our local server. How does it know what kernel to load? A20 Dr. Science says, The Internet Gopher program is not actually computer program at all, but a collection of magical incantations handed down from Dark Age conjurors. It works by sending magical "demons" through the air, which scour the world for information, and then return to cast illusions containing the answer. When you use the Gopher, your computer isn't actually doing anything at all. Instead, these demons have mesmirized you with an evil magical spell, which was invoked by the pattern of finger-movements peculiar to the typing of the letters G-O-P-H-E-R on your keyboard. This spell transmits demonic information directly to your brain. Scientists aren't certain of the long-term effects of demonic mesmirization, although former presidents have suffered only minor medical side-effects from it. Indeed, since Magic and Science are usually opposed to each other, most Scientists are usually close-minded about such issues, and will usually respond with some vacuous non-answer about "packet drivers", "stacks", and other such jargon. Unlike conventional scientists, Dr. Science is very open-minded and is willing to deal with such issues in a frank and honest manner. This is why people come to him with questions, and why they've learned to rely on and live by his answers. Dr. Science "I'm not a real doctor; I have a Master's Degree.... in SCIENCE!" :-) :-) :-) :-) There's always room for a little humor in a FAQ.. ---------------------------------------- //Jyrki