RFC 1689
A Status Report on Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups
Pages: 226
FYI 25
FYI 25
Part 1 of 7 – Pages 1 to 34
Network Working Group J. Foster, Editor Request for Comments: 1689 University of Newcastle upon Tyne RARE Technical Report: 13 August 1994 FYI: 25 Category: Informational A Status Report on Networked Information Retrieval: Tools and Groups Produced as a collaborative effort by the Joint IETF/RARE/CNI Networked Information Retrieval - Working Group (NIR-WG) Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness of Networked Information Retrieval by bringing together in one place information about the various networked information retrieval tools, their developers, interested organisations, and other activities that relate to the production, dissemination, and support of NIR tools. NIR Tools covered include Archie, WAIS, gopher and World Wide Web. Table of Contents 1. Introduction .............................................. 2 2. How the information was collected ......................... 3 3. What is covered? .......................................... 3 4. Updating information ...................................... 5 5. Overview of the types of NIR Tool ......................... 5 6. NIR Tools ................................................. 9 7. NIR Groups ................................................ 123 8. Security Considerations ................................... 180 9. Acknowledgements .......................................... 180 10. Author's Address .......................................... 180 11. Appendix A: NIR Tool Template ............................. 181 12. Appendix B: NIR Group Template ............................ 188 13. Appendix C: Email Lists and Newsgroups .................... 192 14. Appendix D: Coming Attractions ............................ 207 15. Appendix E: Extinct Critters (Tools) ...................... 222 16. Appendix F: Extinct Critters (Groups) ..................... 222
1. Introduction As the network has grown, along with it there has been an increase in the number of software tools and applications to navigate the network and make use of the many, varied resources which are part of the network. Within the past two and a half years we have seen a widespread adoption of tools such as the archie servers, the Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), the Internet gopher, and the Worldwide Web (WWW). In addition to the acceptance of these tools there are also diverse efforts to enhance and customise these tools to meet the needs of particular network communities. There are many organisations and associations that are focusing on the proliferating resources and tools for networked information retrieval (NIR). The Networked Information Retrieval Group is a cooperative effort of three major players in the field of NIR: The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Association of European Research Networks (RARE) and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), specifically tasked to collect and disseminate information about the tools and to discuss and encourage cooperative development of current and future tools. The purpose of this report is to increase the awareness of NIR by bringing together in one place information about the various networked information retrieval tools, their developers, interested organisations, and other activities that relate to the production, dissemination, and support of NIR tools. The intention is to make this a "living document". It will be held on-line so that each section may be updated separately as appropriate. In addition, it is intended that the full document will be updated once a year so that it provides a "snapshot" report on activities in this area. Whilst the NIR tools in this report are being used on a wide variety of information sources including files and databases there remains much that is currently not accessible by these means. On the other hand, the majority of the NIR Tools described here are freely available to the networked Research and Education community. Tools for accessing specialised datasets are often only available at a cost. It should be noted that in many ways networked information retrieval is in its infancy compared with traditional information retrieval systems. Thesaurus construction, boolean searching and classification control are issues which are under discussion for the popular NIR Tools but as yet are not in widespread use. However it should be said that, with the vast amount of effort that is currently going into the NIR field, rapid progress is being made. Much work is currently being done on expanding some of the NIR tools to include
handling of multimedia information services. Progress has also been made in the discussions on classifying and cataloguing electronic information resources. 2. How the information was collected The information contained in this report was collected over the network from the contacts for each NIR Tool or Group using two templates: - the NIR Tool Template, included in Appendix A; - the NIR Group Template, included in Appendix B. The contents of these templates were discussed by the NIR WG in Boston (July, 1992) and subsequently on the email list. (See the Section on the NIR-WG for details of how to join this mailing list.) The initial draft report was discussed at the NIR Working Group in Washington (November, 1992) and updated and added to at subsequent WG meetings. Before the final submission as an RFC the individual templates were reviewed by independent reviewers from around the world. Their efforts are acknowledged in Section 9. The NIR Tool template was used to collect the information necessary to identify and track the development of networked information retrieval tools. This template asked for information such as how and where to get the software for each NIR Tool, documentation, demonstration sites, etc. The main part of the template has been completed by the main individual responsible for the tool. Sections of the template (e.g., on clients) may have required completion by others. The NIR Group template requested information on the aim and purpose of the group, the current tasks being undertaken, mailing lists, document archives, etc. 3. What is covered? In the current report you will find information on the following NIR tools: Alex archie gopher Hytelnet Netfind Prospero Veronica WAIS (including freeWAIS)
WHOIS
World Wide Web (including MOSAIC)
X.500 White Pages
Appendix D covers "Forthcoming Attractions":
Hyper-G
Soft Pages
WHOIS++
and the following NIR Groups:
CNI Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
Architectures and Standards
Directories and Resource Information Services
TopNode for Networked Information Resources,
Services and Tools
CNIDR Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery
and Retrieval
IETF Integrated Directory Services (IDS)
Integration of Internet Information Resources (IIIR)
Networked Information Retrieval (NIR)
joint IETF/RARE WG
Network Information Services Infrastructure (NISI)
OSI-Directory Service (OSI-DS)
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)
Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS)
IRTF Internet Research Task Force Research Group on
Resource Discovery and Directory Service (IRTF-RD)
NISO Z39.50 Implementors Group
RARE Information Services and User Support Working Group
(ISUS)
USMARC/OCLC USMARC Advisory Group; OCLC Internet Resources
Cataloging Experiment (USMARC/OCLC)
Appendix C contains a list of the relevant email lists and Appendix D
contains information on "Coming Attractions" which are NIR tools not
yet in widespread use.
4. Updating Information Updates on and additions to the information contained in this report are welcome. CNIDR have agreed to host the report and to accept updates to individual templates from the template maintainers. Send updates using the appropriate template (from Appendix A or Appendix B of this report) to: nir-updates@cnidr.org The current templates and this report may be retrieved from the UK Mailbase Server: Via anonymous ftp (use your email address as the password): URL: ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/nir/files/tool.template URL: ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/nir/files/group.template URL: ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/nir/files/nir.status.report or via gopher or World Wide Web to mailbase.ac.uk or via email: Mail to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk Text of the message: send nir tool.template send nir group.template send nir nir.status.report 5. Overview of the types of NIR Tools The following is an overview of major networked information retrieval (NIR) tools available on the Internet. There are many excellent books which discuss the Internet and NIR Tools in detail. Such books include "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog" by Ed Krol and published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc and "The Internet Guide for New Users" by Daniel Dearn and published by Meckler. The number of these NIR tools is large and growing quickly. Certain techniques reappear regularly and seemingly different tools may perform similar tasks, allowing a simple classification of projects encompassing most of the existing tools and services.
The classification presented here is only one possible ordering. The
goal is to define in broad outlines what can be done with particular
tools, realizing that users will always find novel unanticipated ways
of applying them.
Interactive Information Delivery Services (Gopher, World Wide Web)
Basic Internet services such as electronic mail and anonymous FTP
can be used to share information across the Internet, but neither
allows simple browsing and neither is particularly easy for the
newcomer to learn to use. Gopher and the World Wide Web (W3) are
two recent developments that attempt to make it easier to
distribute information over the Internet. Both allow the user to
browse information across the network without the necessity of
logging in or knowing in advance where to look for information.
The Gopher project was first developed at the University of
Minnesota to provide a simple campus-wide on-line information
system. Gopher represents information as a simple hierarchy of
menus and files. It has limited capability to recognize different
types of files, allowing, for example, the display of selected
types of image files. Gateways to other services are provided
(usually in a manner that is transparent to the user). The
underlying Gopher protocol is simple, and has facilitated the
creation of freely available clients for use on a variety of
hardware platforms and operating systems. The more recent Gopher+
protocol adds the ability to provide documents in alternate forms
(PDF, PostScript, RTF, Word). These features and the ease of
installing and administering gopher servers has led to an
explosive growth of gopher sites since its initial deployment. As
of November 1993, there were over 2200 known servers.
World Wide Web relies on hypertext; formatted documents are
displayed, and hypertext links within the document can be selected
to travel from the current document to another. W3 allows a user
to annotate documents (using hypertext links), provides gateways
to other services, and has multimedia support (for example, on
appropriate hardware platforms it can intermix text and images in
a displayed document). There is a range of free W3 clients,
supporting many environments. World Wide Web was originally
developed at CERN for the High Energy Physics Community.
Gopher and WWW share a maintenance problem in that there is no
automated way to update links to other documents when those
documents are moved or removed.
Directory Services (WHOIS, X.500)
Directory Service tools are intended to provide a lookup service
for locating information about users (often referred to as White
Pages), or services and service providers (Yellow Pages). For
example, a White Pages service might be used to locate an
electronic mail address, given a name and organization, while a
Yellow Pages service could be used to locate an online library
catalog or file archive site.
One of the first directory services deployed on the Internet was
WHOIS, a simple White Pages service created to track key network
contacts for the early DARPA-sponsored incarnation of the
Internet. A number of sites currently operate WHOIS servers,
based on a range of extensions and enhancements to the original
model. WHOIS enjoys the advantages of simplicity and the presence
of WHOIS client software on a preponderance of Internet-connected
hosts. Work is underway on a more powerful protocol, known as
WHOIS++, which is backwards-compatible with WHOIS.
The X.500 Directory Service is a much more ambitious Directory
project that has been under development for a number of years
under the aegis of ISO/OSI. Implementations, concerned primarily
with White pages services, are available in the public domain and
from commercial sources. There are LDAP based X.500 clients
available for most major platforms, as well as a LDAP based gopher
gateway to X.500.
Despite years of effort, there is still no single White Pages
Directory Service for the entire Internet; Yellow Pages services
remain even less well developed and deployed. The cost of setting
up the service is one obstacle; maintaining the required databases
is even more daunting.
Indexing Services (archie, Veronica, online library catalogs)
There are several Internet-based projects that build indexed
catalogs of information to facilitate searching and retrieval.
The first such services provided network access to library card
catalogs, with more recent projects indexing network-based
information.
archie:
The archie service began as a simple project to catalog the
contents of hundreds of ftp-accessible online file archives. The
archie service gathers location information, name, and other
details describing such files and creates an index database.
Users can contact an archie server and search this database for
files they require.
The archie service is accessible through a range of access
methods, including telnet, stand-alone client programs running on
a user's own machine, gopher, WWW, or via electronic mail. The
initial implementation of archie tracks over 2,100,000 filenames
on over 1,200 sites around the world (as of November 1993). There
are about 30 (geographically distributed) archie servers. Both
commercial and freely available versions of the archie client
software are available.
Work continues on extending the archie service to provide
additional types of information. The latest version is being used
to provide a prototype Yellow Pages service and directories of
online library catalogs and electronic mailing lists.
Veronica:
Veronica arose as an attempt to do for the world of Gopher what
archie did for the world of ftp. A central server periodically
scans the complete menu hierarchies of Gopher servers appearing on
an ever-expanding list (over 2000 sites as of November 1993). The
resulting index is provided by a veronica server and can be
accessed by any gopher client.
Online library catalogs:
A large number of libraries make their computerized library
catalogs available over the Internet. Most are available through
telnet sessions in which the user connects to a specific address
and logs in using a specific login name. Some are also available
through other tools, such as Gopher.
Text-based Indexing Services (WAIS)
WAIS:
Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) is a system for indexing and
serving information in a network-based environment. It is
distinct from indexing tools such as archie and veronica in that
it is used to index text-based target documents on a server, as
well as descriptions of the contents of a server.
A WAIS server allows the administrator to set up an index of the
documents (or resources) to be published. The user employs a WAIS
client to attach to a particular WAIS server, and specifies a
search pattern which is matched against the server's index. In
early WAIS clients, searches are specified as simple natural-
language queries; common ("stop") words are removed, and Boolean
"ORs" are implicitly added between the remaining list of words.
Matching documents are rank-ordered according to a simple
statistical weighting scheme which attempts to indicate likely
relevance. The user may choose to view selected documents, or
further refine the search. The results of one search may be used
to successively refine future searches ("relevance feedback").
Gopher clients can also access WAIS servers via a transparent
gateway.
Both freely available and commercial versions of WAIS servers and
clients are available. Current work is attempting to add Boolean
expressions and proximity and field specifications to queries.
There are currently (as of November 1993) some 500 registered WAIS
databases with an estimated 2000 additional databases that are not
yet registered. There are approximately another 100 commercial
WAIS databases.
6. NIR Tools
This section contains detailed information about the various NIR
Tools. It is ordered alphabetically.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
ALEX
Date template updated or checked: 19th March, 1994
By: Name: Vincent Cate
Email address: vac@cs.cmu.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NIR Tool Name: Alex
Brief Description of Tool:
OVERVIEW:
The Alex filesystem provides users and applications transparent
read access to files in anonymous FTP sites on the Internet.
Today there are thousands of anonymous FTP sites with a total of a
few millions of files and roughly a terabyte of data. The
standard approach to accessing these files involves logging in to
the remote machine. This means that an application can not access
remote files like local files. This also means that users do not
have any of their aliases or local tools available. Users who
want to use an application on a remote file first have to manually
make a local copy of the file. There is no mechanism for
automatically updating this local copy when the remote file
changes. The users must keep track of where they get their files
from and check to see if there are updates, and then fetch these.
In this approach many different users at the same site may have
made copies of the same remote file each using up disk space for
the same data.
Alex addresses the problems with the existing approach while
remaining within the existing FTP protocol so that the large
collection of currently available files can be used. To get
reasonable performance long term file caching is used. Thus
consistency is an issue. Traditional solutions to the cache
consistency problem do not work in the Internet FTP domain:
callbacks are not an option as the FTP protocol has no provisions
for this and polling over the Internet is slow. Therefore, Alex
relaxes file cache consistency semantics, on a per file basis, and
uses special caching algorithms that take into account the
properties of the files and of the network to allow a simple
stateless filesystem to scale to the size of the Internet.
USER'S VIEW:
To a user or application, Alex is just a normal filesystem. Any
command that works on local files will work on Alex files. Since
Alex is a real filesystem, nothing needs to be recompiled and no
libraries are changed. Thus, users can apply all of their
existing skills and tools for using files.
The user sees a filesystem with a hierarchical name space. At the
top level (/alex) there are top-level Internet domains like "edu",
"com", "uk", and "jp". Each component of the hostname becomes a
directory name. Then the remote path is added at the end. If the
user does a "ls /alex/edu/berkeley" he sees some machine names
such as "ucbvax" and "sprite" and some directories on
berkeley.edu. From the "ls" it is not clear what is where. The
user may or may not be aware of host boundaries.
INFORMATION PROVIDER'S VIEW:
Alex is implemented as a user level NFS server. NFS was chosen
because it makes it easy to add Alex to a wide range of machines.
Most machines can simply use the mount command.
The model of usage is that there is one Alex server running at
each institution (though this is not required in any way). Users
mount the local server which caches files for users at that site.
Any information put into any anonymous FTP site becomes available
via Alex.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Contact(s):
Name: Vincent Cate
Email address: vac@cs.cmu.edu
Postal Address: School of Computer Science
5000 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh PA, 15213
Telephone: +1-412-268-3077
Fax: +1-412-681-1998
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Line:
At this time Alex is a one person project (Vince).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Working Groups:
Maybe the FTP working group.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsoring Organization / Funding source:
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Information Science and
Technology Office, under the title "Research on Parallel Computing,"
ARPA Order No. 7330. Work furnished in connection with this research
is provided under prime contract MDA972-90-C-0035 issued by DARPA/CMO
to Carnegie Mellon University. Vincent Cate is supported by an "Intel
foundation graduate fellowship".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mailing Lists:
Address: alex-servers@cs.cmu.edu
Administration: alex-servers-request@cs.cmu.edu
Description: alex-servers is for people setting up an Alex
fileserver.
Archive: alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu (128.2.209.13)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
News groups:
None.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Protocols:
What is supported: Any machine that can NFS mount a fileserver.
What it runs over: Unix machine and FTP
Other NIR tools this interworks with:
Uses FTP sites.
WAIS can be used to index files in Alex
(this was done for ftpable-readmes and cs-techreports WAIS servers)
New versions of archie can output Alex paths.
Future plans: Graduate from CMU.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Servers:
Date completed or updated: 19 March 1994
By: Name: Vincent Cate
Platform: UNIX
Primary Contact:
Name: Vincent Cate
Email address: vac@cs.cmu.edu Telephone: +1-412-268-3077 Server software available from: alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu Location of more information: No other place to go to. Latest version number: New versions all the time. Brief Scope and Characteristics: This software is known to still contain bugs. Approximate number of such servers in use: 200. General comments: You can use lpr, make, grep, more, etc. on files around the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Clients: You just do an NFS mount of the server. No client software is needed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Demonstration sites: Site name: alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu Access details - do the following as root: mkdir /alex mount -o timeo=30,retrans=300,soft,intr alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu:/ /alex Example use: ln -s /alex/edu/cs/cmu/sp/alex/links alexlinks cd alexlinks ls cd cs-tr cd ls cd purdue ls lpr TR758.PS
If you like Alex and want to use it regularly please find, or set up, an Alex fileserver at/near your site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Documentation: ftp://alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu/www/alex.html ftp://alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu/doc/intro.ps ftp://alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu/doc/NIR.Tool ftp://alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu/doc/alex.post ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography: @InProceedings{cate:alex, author = "Vincent Cate", title = "Alex - a Global Filesystem", booktitle = "Proceedings of the Usenix File Systems Workshop", year = 1992, pages = "1--11", month = may, place = "Ann Arbor, MI", keyword = "distributed file system, wide-area file system" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Information: FTP to alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu and "cd to doc". Get the "README" or anything else there. A current version of this document may be there and called "NIR.Tool". In Alex this file is named "/alex/edu/cmu/cs/sp/alex/doc/NIR.Tool". =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
ARCHIE
Date template updated or checked: 1 March, 1994
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NIR Tool Name: archie
Brief Description of Tool:
The archie system is a tool for gathering, indexing and serving
information from around the Internet. The current version serves a
collection of filenames found at anonymous FTP sites, as well as a
smaller collection of text descriptions for software, data and other
information found at anonymous FTP archives. Additional databases
are under development.
User's View:
Users run a client program to connect to an archie server and
issue search commands to find information in an archie database.
In the case of an anonymous FTP filename, this information can
then be used to fetch the file directly from the archive site
using the `ftp' command. To the user, archie could be seen as a
`secondary source' of information which, because of the high cost
of locating and serving, would not otherwise be available.
The user searches the archie databases through either a telnet
session to a machine running an archie server, or by using a
stand-alone client program (which uses the Prospero protocol for
sending and receiving requests). There is also an email interface
which allows users to send and receive search requests via
electronic mail.
Freely available archie clients exist for most operating systems
and can be fetched using anonymous FTP from most of the current
archie servers. There are also gateways to the archie system from
many other NIR tools, including Gopher, WAIS and WWW. An X.500
interface to archie is currently under development.
Information Provider's View:
There are two types of information providers who would be
interested in archie. Primary information providers are
interested in having a summary of the information provided by
their service tracked by an archie server. Secondary service
providers, or those sites wishing to provide a "value-added"
service for the Internet can elect to run an archie server at
their site to provide a useful service to users, to raise the
profile of their institution on the Internet, or to provide market
differentiation (for commercial service providers).
The archie system is of particular utility serving information
where there are many sites to be searched and/or where the cost of
searching each site is high.
For example, there are currently over 1,200 anonymous FTP sites on
the Internet, and the number continues to grow. Searching for a
specific filename at a single site may involve scanning hundreds,
or even thousands of filenames. Thus, most operators of anonymous
FTP archives welcome the fact that archie indexes and serves the
names of all files available from each site tracked.
Information Types Supported:
The archie system allows the gathering and serving of arbitrary
information types, although the current system serves only
freeform text and a dedicated text format for filename listings.
Internally, the archie system now supports a WAIS search engine
and frontends for Gopher, WWW and WHOIS++ for accessing archie
information through Gopher clients is now being tested.
Additional collections of information to be served by the archie
software will be announced.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Contact(s):
Name: Archie Group, Bunyip Information Systems Inc.
Email address: info@bunyip.com
Postal Address: Bunyip Information Systems Inc.,
310 St-Catherine St. West, suite 202,
Montreal, QC
CANADA H2X 2A1
Telephone: +1-514-875-8611
Fax: +1-514-875-8134
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Line: for archie server system and telnet client
Name: Archie Group, Bunyip Information Systems Inc.
Email address: info@bunyip.com
Telephone: +1-514-875-8611
Level of support offered:
o commercial support for server
(primarily for systems maintainers)
o voluntary helpdesk support for freeware clients
o volunteer helpdesk support for Internet information
gathering tools in general
Hours available: - server system:
email: 24 hour support
phone support: 9-5 EST
- helpdesk consultation: as time permits
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Working Groups:
IETF, IIIR, WNILS, URI.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source:
Bunyip Information Systems Inc.
Funded by licensing of archie software and development contracts from
sponsors. Additional information services based upon this software
are now being tested.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mailing Lists:
Address: archie-people@bunyip.com
Administration: archie-people-request@bunyip.com
Description:
This mailing list is for people interested in the archie project and
its future developments. Announcements of upgrades, new services,
etc. are made to this list.
Archive: none
-------------------
Address: archie-maint@bunyip.com
Administration: archie-maint-request@bunyip.com
Description:
This mailing list is for people who operate and maintain archie
servers. Announcements of bug fixes, new releases and discussion of
new features are carried out on this list.
Archive:
"archives.cc.mcgill.ca:/pub/mailing-lists/archie-maint"
-------------------
Address: iafa@bunyip.com
Administration: iafa-request@bunyip.com
Description:
This mailing list is for people who are involved in the Internet
Anonymous FTP Archives Working Group of the IETF. This group was
involved in standardizing the encoding of information at anonymous
FTP archives and thus is of interest to operators and users of the
archie system. It came to completion in November, 1992 and produced
two documents which have been presented to the IETF as informational
RFCs.
Archive: "archives.cc.mcgill.ca:/pub/mailing-lists/iafa"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
News groups:
Name: comp.archives.admin
Description:
This newsgroup is for operators and maintainers of Internet archives.
Announcements and discussions of issues related to archie are
presented here, as well as discussions of more general issues
relating to archiving and Internet services.
Archive: not known
-------------------
Name: alt.internet.services
Description:
This newsgroup is for people interested in Internet-related services,
with a focus at the user level. Announcements and discussions of
issues related to archie are presented here, as well as discussions
of more general issues relating to Internet services.
Archive: not known
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Protocols:
What is supported:
The current archie system clients use the Prospero protocol for
communication with the search engine on the archie server. Freely
available clients are available which include source to perform
this communication for those wishing to implement additional
clients.
The archie server is capable of building arbitrary databases,
using arbitrary search and access engines and the current release
ships with the public domain implementation of WAIS. We expect
future archie servers to serve information using this protocol.
The current server system assumes the TCP/IP protocol suite is
available, and in particular the ftp protocol for data gathering.
The archie system can be accessed through systems operating the
Gopher, WAIS and WWW (HDDL) protocols. A gateway from the X.500
system is under development.
What it runs over:
The Prospero protocol implementation runs over its own
implementation of a reliable datagram protocol based upon UDP.
Data gathering runs over the TCP/IP protocol suite.
Other NIR tools this interworks with:
Prospero, Gopher, WAIS, WWW.
Future plans:
The archie system became a commercial product in October, 1992,
marketed by Bunyip Information Systems Inc. The company plans to
market additional data gathering modules to allow the server code
to build additional types of databases. Work is also underway to
integrate extensions to WHOIS to allow the building and
maintaining of White Pages (names) directories. The company is
also working on other Internet information tools that will work
with the archie system.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Servers:
Date completed or updated: 1 November, 1993
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
Platform: Sun SPARC running SunOS 4.1 or later.
IBM RS6000 running AIX version 3.2 or later.
for additional UNIX platforms, contact
Bunyip Information Systems details.
Primary Contact:
Name: Alan Emtage
Email address: bajan@bunyip.com
Telephone: +1-514-398-8611
Server software available from:
Bunyip Information Systems Inc.
email: info@bunyip.com
Location of more information:
Additional information on the archie product line is available from
the anonymous ftp archives on the various archie server sites. Try
"archie.ans.net", "archie.sura.net", "archie.au", etc.
Latest version number: archie 3.1
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
This is the commercial inmplementation of the archie system,
replacing a version done as a Masters project at McGill University
during the period 1990-1992. It comes with an archie telnet client
that offers a number of minor improvements over earlier versions.
Additional releases, with a number of additional improvements, are
planned in the coming months.
Approximate number of such servers in use:
Currently about 27 (not all are publicly available)
General comments:
Most users access archie through a freeware or public domain client
program. These are available from most archie servers via anonymous
FTP. Check out the archie directory on any of the publicly available
archie servers or the banner message when logging into any of the
archie telnet clients for more details.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Clients:
Date completed or updated: 1 November, 1993
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
Platform: command line shell, written in C. Works
with both UNIX and MSDOS/OS2 shells.
Primary Contact:
Name: Brendan Kehoe
Email address: brendan@cygnus.com
Telephone: not known
Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
Internet archives. Look for filename
"c-archie-1.3.2.tar.Z".
Location of more information: Packaged with software.
Latest version number: 1.3.2
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
This program provides a simple command line interface to the archie
server system, using the Prospero protocol. Written in C, it has
been ported to MSDOS and OS2.
General comments:
This program should not be confused with the archie system telnet
interface, which is a program that runs on the archie server itself.
Future plans: Not known
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 1 November, 1993
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
Platform: command line shell, written in Perl.
Works with both UNIX and MSDOS/OS2
shells.
Primary Contact:
Name: Khun Yee Fung
Email address: clipper@csd.uwo.ca
Telephone: not known
Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
Internet archives. Look for filename
"perl-archie-3.8.tar.Z".
Location of more information: Packaged with software.
Latest version number: 3.8
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
This program provides a simple command line interface to the archie
server system, using the Prospero protocol. Written in Perl.
General comments:
This program should not be confused with the archie system telnet
interface, which is a program that runs on the archie server itself.
Future plans: Not known
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 1 November, 1993
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
Platform: archie client program for VMS systems.
Primary Contact:
Name: Brendan Kehoe
Email address: brendan@cygnus.com
Telephone: not known
Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
Internet archives. Look for filename
"archie-vms.com".
Location of more information: Packaged with software.
Latest version number: not known.
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
This program provides a simple command line interface to the archie
server system for users of VMS.
General comments:
This program should not be confused with the archie system telnet
interface, which is a program that runs on the archie server itself.
Future plans: Not known
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 1 November, 1993
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
Platform: Xwindows client (X11R4)
Primary Contact:
Name: George Ferguson
Email address: ferguson@cs.rochester.edu
Telephone: not known
Client software available from: cs.rochester.edu, most archie server
hosts and major Internet archives.
Look for file "xarchie-1.3.tar.Z".
Location of more information: Packaged with software.
Latest version number: xarchie-1.3
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
This program provides an Xwindows client that allows users to search
the archie anonymous FTP database. Also included is the capability of
fetching files (using ftp).
General comments: none.
Future plans: Not known
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 1 November, 1993
By: Name: Peter Deutsch
Email address: peterd@bunyip.com
Platform: NeXTStep client.
Primary Contact:
Name: Scott Stark
Email address: me@superc.che.udel.edu
Telephone: not known
Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
Internet archives. Look for file
"NeXTArchie.tar.Z".
Location of more information: Packaged with software.
Latest version number:
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
This program provides a NeXTStep client that allows users to search
the archie anonymous FTP database. Also included is the capability
of fetching files (using ftp).
General comments: none.
Future plans: Not known
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Demonstration sites:
Site name: any one of:
archie.rutgers.edu 128.6.18.15 (Rutgers University)
archie.unl.edu 129.93.1.14 (University of Nebraska in
Lincoln)
archie.sura.net 128.167.254.179 (SURAnet archie server)
archie.ans.net 147.225.1.2 (ANS archie server)
archie.au 139.130.4.6 (Australian server)
archie.funet.fi 128.214.6.100 (European server in Finland)
archie.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.11.3 (UK/England server)
archie.cs.huji.ac.il 132.65.6.15 (Israel server)
archie.wide.ad.jp 133.4.3.6 (Japanese server)
Client software should be supported at all of these sites.
Additional sites are available. Use the "sites" command in the archie
telnet interface at any of the above sites for a more complete lists.
Access details:
- telnet to any of the above sites
- login as user `archie' (no password is required)
- type `help' at the prompt to get started.
Note: Some people forget and use ftp in place of telnet. This will
not work. The hint that this is being done is that they claim
that a password is needed, not that the site can't be found.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Documentation:
Document Title: What is archie
Location details: anonymous FTP from archie.ans.net
Site: archie.ans.net
Full file name: "pub/archie/doc/whatis.archie"
Description: Brief overview of the archie system.
Document Title: archie man pages
Location details: anonymous FTP from archie.ans.net
Site: archie.ans.net
Full file name: "pub/archie/doc/archie.man.*"
Description: Manual pages for the archie system telnet
interface in various formats (raw ASCII,
nroff, compressed, etc.). This document also
explains the various search options and other
features, so is of use to users of the other
archie client programs.
Document Title: What's New in 3.0
Location details: anonymous FTP from archie.ans.net
Site: archie.ans.net
Full file name: "pub/archie/doc/whats.new"
Description: Description of the changes to archie for the
first commercial release
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography: none
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Information: none
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
GOPHER
Date template updated or checked: 14 March 1994
By: Name: Mark P. McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NIR Tool Name: Internet Gopher
Brief Description of Tool:
The Internet Gopher protocol is a client/distributed-server document
search and retrieval protocol originally developed at the University
of Minnesota. Gopher was originally created as a fast, simple,
distributed, campus-wide information search and retrieval system;
ease of use and implementation has made Gopher increasingly popular
on the Internet. Since its original release, many folks on the
Internet have contributed to its growth, submitting patches, servers,
clients, and linking their local servers into the worldwide network
of Gopher servers. Gateways exist to seamlessly access a variety of
non-Gopher services such as ftp, WAIS, USENET news, Archie, Z39.50
(1992 rev), X.500 directories, Sybase and Oracle SQL servers, etc.
In addition, an "archie for gopherspace" called Veronica (very easy
rodent-oriented net-wide index to computerized archives) has been
developed at the University of Nevada. Veronica makes it easy to
search for items in gopherspace by title.
The gopher protocol is often described as "fiercely simple"; it is
connectionless (stateless), and uses TCP reliable streams. A client
connects to a server using TCP, and sends a one-line text "selector
string". The server responds by returning the item (a file, a
directory listing, or a link to some other service) corresponding to
the selector string and immediately closing the connection. Items in
directory listings are returned as a series of lines terminated by
carriage-return line-feed. Each item (line) is defined by a one-
character tag to specify the item type, a display string or item-name
that the client should display to the user, and a number of tab
delimited fields to specify the selector string, host domain name and
port number. Because of its simple and connectionless nature, gopher
servers make very minimal demands on their host machines and gopher
clients are extremely easy to implement.
The users view the Gopher world as a series of networked hierarchical
directories much like a familiar filesystem. However, the links
define a graph rather than a simple rooted tree. Links in the Gopher
graph may define services other than simple files or directories;
these include cso (qi) servers, telnet sessions, links to other
gopher servers, and links to gateway servers.
The information provider's simplest view is that files and
directories below a certain root directory on their machine are all
visible and available for retrieval by gopher clients. More features
like long names, item types, links, and gateway services are
available to the more sophisticated information provider.
Servers and clients run on most popular hardware, including Macs,
UNIX boxes, PC-DOS boxes. The Internet Gopher name is copyright (c)
1991-1992 by the University of Minnesota. The Internet Gopher
protocol is described in an informational RFC (1436) available at
better RFC archives everywhere. Extensions to the base gopher
protocol allow for associating meta-information with gopher items,
alternate views of documents (i.e., text, postscript, rtf, etc.) and
electronic forms. Collectively, these extensions are referred to as
Gopher+. Gopher+ is upward compatible with the orginal gopher
protocol. The gopher software may be retrieved from numerous Gopher
or FTP archive sites, including the University of Minnesota Gopher
server, the Info-Mac Archive Gopher server, and by anonymous FTP from
boombox.micro.umn.edu and sumex-aim.stanford.edu. As of December
1993, about 1/3 of the approximately 4800 Gopher servers on the
internet support Gopher+.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Contact(s):
Name: The Internet Gopher Development Team
Email address: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Postal Address: Microcomputer & Workstation Networks Center
152 Shepherd Labs
100 Union Street SE.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Telephone: +1-612-625-1300
Fax: +1-612-625-6817
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Line:
Name: Microcomputer HelpLine;
ask for The Internet Gopher Development Team
Email address: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Telephone: USA: 612 MA MICRO (+1-612-626-4276)
Helpline is for general support at the U of M.
Level of support offered: all users
Hours available: Phone Helpline 9-4 weekdays.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Working Groups:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source:
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mailing Lists:
Address: gopher-news@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Administration: gopher-news-request@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Description: News and views of all things gopher. Tends to
be a high volume mailing list and technically
oriented.
Archive: Via Gopher: University of Minnesota Gopher
Information About Gopher
Address: gopher-announce@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Administration: gopher-announce-request@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Description: A low-volume mailing list of announcements of
new software and servers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
News groups:
Name: comp.infosystems.gopher
Description: Discussion of all things gopher.
Archive: Available via gopher client; connect to the
gopher server at gopher.tc.umn.edu port 70,
look in the "Information About Gopher" section.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Protocols:
What is supported: Internet Gopher
What it runs over: Anything you can run TCP/IP over.
Other NIR tools this interworks with:
Z39.50 WAIS variant via WAIS gateway
FTP via FTP gateway
archie/Prospero via an archie gateway
veronica (an archie for gopherspace)
NNTP via NNTP gateway
Finger (subset of gopher)
X.500 via X.500 gateway
Z39.50 1992 revision variant via Z39.50 gateway
Oracle and Sybase SQL servers via SQL gateway
CSO (Ph/Qi) online phone books
Future plans: New user interace metaphor on PowerPC and
Pentium-based clients.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Servers:
Date completed or updated: 14 March, 1994
By: Name: Mark McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Platform: UNIX.
Primary Contact:
Name: The Internet Gopher Development Team
Email address: gopher@micro.umn.edu
Telephone: +1-612-625-1300
Server software available from:
Via Gopher: U of M Gopher
Information About Gopher
Gopher Software Distribution
Via FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/
Location of more information:
As above.
Latest version number: (things change fast;
please check software distribution)
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Server, index server for WAIS based indices and for NeXT
native indexing, tools, gateway code. Supports Gopher+.
Approximate number of such servers in use:
Over 3000.
General comments:
The defacto standard workhorse Gopher server.
Paul Lindner is the architect and keeper of this server.
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 14 March, 1994
By: Name: Mark McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Platform: Macintosh.
Primary Contact:
Name: The Internet Gopher Development Team
Email address: gopher@micro.umn.edu
Telephone: +1-612-625-1300
Server software available from:
Via Gopher: U of M Gopher
Information About Gopher
Gopher Software Distribution
Via FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/
Location of more information:
As above.
Latest version number: (please check software distribution)
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Macintosh Gopher Server and tools,
supports Gopher+.
Approximate number of such servers in use:
Current estimates between 300 and 400.
General comments:
Runs on any Macintosh with 1MB memory or more.
Requires MacTCP. Can be configured to use Apple Computer's AppleSearch
full-text search software as a Gopher-accessible search engine.
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 14 March, 1994
By: Name: Mark McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Platform: PC-DOS.
Primary Contact:
Name: The Internet Gopher Development Team
Email address: gopher@micro.umn.edu
Telephone: +1-612-625-1300
Additional contacts:
Name: Dennis Sherman
Email address: Dennis_Sherman@unc.edu
Name: Foteos Macrides
Email address: macrides@sci.wfeb.edu
Server software available from:
Via Gopher: U of M Gopher
Information About Gopher
Gopher Software Distribution
Via FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/
Location of more information:
As above.
Latest version number: 0.91b
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Basic Gopher server for PC-DOS boxes.
Approximate number of such servers in use:
Current estimates between 25 and 75.
General comments:
Written by Chris McNeil <cmcneil@mta.ca>, based on Phil Karns net
package. The U of M Gopher team forwards difficult problems to
Chris.
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 14 March, 1994
By: Name: Mark McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Platform: VMS
Primary Contact:
Name: J. Lance Wilkinson
Email address: jlw@psulias.psu.edu
Telephone: +1-814-865-1818
Server software available from:
Via Gopher: U of M Gopher
Information About Gopher
Gopher Software Distribution
Via FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/VMS/
Location of more information:
As above.
Latest version number: 1.2 VMS-0
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Basic VMS Server, shares some code with UNIX server.
Approximate number of such servers in use:
35-40 servers in use.
General comments:
The VMS server was written and is maintained by J. Lance Wilkinson,
Foteos Macrides, Bruce Tanner and others on the
VMSGopher-L@trln.lib.unc.edu mailing list.
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 14 March, 1994
By: Name: Mark McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Platform: VM/CMS
Primary Contact:
Name: Rick Troth
Email address: TROTH@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU
Telephone:
Server software available from:
Via Gopher: U of M Gopher
Information About Gopher
Gopher Software Distribution
Via FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher/
Brazos.IS.Rice.EDU:/pub/vmcms/
Location of more information:
As above.
Latest version number: 2.4
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Gopher server for IBM VM/CMS installations.
Approximate number of such servers in use:
Unknown.
General comments:
This server was written and is maintained by Rick Troth.
This server is commonly referred to as the Rice VM/CMS server.
There is also another VM/CMS server: the Vienna VM/CMS server.
-------------------
Date completed or updated: 14 March, 1994
By: Name: Mark McCahill
Email address: mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Platform: VM/CMS.
Primary Contact:
Name: Gerhard Gonter
Email address: Gerhard.Gonter@WU-Wien.ac.at
Telephone:
Server software available from:
Via Gopher: U of M Gopher
Information About Gopher
Gopher Software Distribution
Via FTP: boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher/
(next page on part 2)