From: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu (UofMN Gopher Team)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gopher,news.answers
Subject: Gopher (comp.infosystems.gopher) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Summary: Common Questions and Answers about the Internet Gopher, a 
	client/server protocol for making a world wide information 
	service, with many implementations.
Date: 15 Aug 92 02:56:59 GMT
Reply-To: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu (UofMN Gopher Team)
Followup-To: comp.infosystems.gopher
Organization: University of Minnesota
Supersedes: <gopher-faq_08-04-92@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu>,<1992May29.161107.27400@news2.cis.umn.edu>

Archive-name: gopher-faq
Last-modified: 1992/08/14

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.

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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. 

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Q1:  Where can I get gopher?

A1:  via anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu.  Look in the directory
     /pub/gopher

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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/
      Macintosh Application :  /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/

     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.

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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
     gopher.uwp.edu	       131.210.1.4      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. 

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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/

     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 

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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

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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. 

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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.

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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.
     M       MIME type.  Item contains MIME data.
     h       html type.
     I       Image type.
     i       "inline" text type.

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.
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--
 | Paul Lindner | lindner@boombox.micro.umn.edu   | Slipping into madness
 |              | Computer & Information Services | is good for the sake
 | GopherMaster | University of Minnesota         | of comparision.
///// / / /    /////// / / / /  /  /  /   /      //// / / / /  /  /  /   /