From: brewster@Think.COM (Brewster Kahle)
Subject: WAIS-discussion digest #61: WAIS Mail Interface
Organization: Comp.Center (RUS) U of Stuttgart, FRG
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 22:14:09 GMT


       Forum On Wide Area Information Servers and Electronic Publishing
                              Brewster Kahle
                 

Contents:
     WAIS mentioned in MacWeek (John Duhring Mktg Svcs,JDuhring,VCA)
     Number of WAIS servers (jsq@tic.com)
     WAIS mail interface (Jonny Goldman)
     Couple of WAIS questions  (ohansen@europe.cisco.com)

Send mail to waismail@think.com (!)  (thanks to Jonny Goldman, see below).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 Jan 93 06:37 GMT
From: DUHRING@AppleLink.Apple.COM (John Duhring Mktg Svcs,JDuhring,VCA)
Subject: WAIS mentioned in MacWeek

Seen in the January 4, 1993 issue of MacWeek (page 1 story "Apple architecture
promises mix-and-match networking"):
 
"Sources said Apple is developing server software that may include intelligent
agents that can act as proxies for individual users when they are not
physically connected to the network...
 
"Taradalsky cited Apple's Rosebud project, a WAIS (Wide Area Information
Server) client application demonstrated during the past year, as an early
example of the type of intelligent agents it plans for the servers.
 
"'We also must provide a lot of needed value to customers who have a lot of
information in unstructured form,' he said, adding that users will value 'being
able to find information whether it's stored locally or in the libraries of
other providers.'"
 
(Morris Taradalsky is Vice President and general manager of Apple's Enterprise
Systems Division.  The above quotes were cited as being delivered at a
"briefing last month")
 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 09:22:48 PST
From: jsq@tic.com
Subject: Number of WAIS servers

Brewster,

Thanks for the data.  As you can see, it fits the canonical
network service exponential growth curve, after you the initial
seeding you mentioned.

Thanks,
John

    ^
357 |                                                                 W
    |
318 |                                                       W
    |
283 |                                                 W
262 |                                           W
    |                                        W
225 |                                     W
    |
193 |                                  W
    |
    |
152 |                              W
140 |                           W
    |
121 |                        W
    |
    |
 98 +---------------------W------------------------------------------->
                               92                                    93
    4                    11 12  1  2  3  4  5  6      8    10        1

	 WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers) Databases 
	 (Logarithmic Scale) 
	 Drawn by MIDS, Austin, Texas <mids@tic.com>. 
	W: WAIS Databases


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 13:59:55 PST
From: Jonny Goldman <jonathan@Think.COM>
Subject: WAIS mail interface


Ok,  it's been long enough already.

I just hacked together a WAIS Mail server.  It's not particularly robust,
but it works (all due to the magic of perl!).

To use it, send the appropriate message to waismail@quake.think.com

Appropriate messages are:

search <source-name> {keywords...}

 <source-name> is a source name as found in the directory of servers
  (without the .src ending!).
 {keywords...} are the words you would normally type into a query.

retrieve DOCID

 DOCID is a DocID as returned by a search above.  It's a rather ugly thing,
 so don't mess with it (it's actually just the DocID waisretrieve can
 handle).

(Note: you can substitute "DocID:" for "retrieve", which means all you
really have to do is cut and paste)

The word "search" or "retrieve" (or "DocID:") must be in the first column.
Right now it limits the maximum results to 10.

Only one search is allowed per message (the last one will be used), but
multiple retrievals are possible (try it).

Here are some examples (using the weather server, doing one search and one
retrieval):
______________________________________________________________________

My Mail:

Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 19:04:33 PST
From: Jonny Goldman <jonathan@Think.COM>
Subject: My WAIS Request

search weather san francisco
______________________________________________________________________

The response:

Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 19:04:07 PST
From: WAISMail@quake.think.com
Subject: Your WAIS Request

Searching: weather
Keywords: san francisco 
Results:
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Result # 1 Score:1000 lines: 72 bytes:   3073 Date:930117 Type: TEXT
Headline: San-Francisco-CA.txt
DocID: 0 3073 /proj/wais/db/weather/San-Francisco-CA.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210

Result # 2 Score: 605 lines: 37 bytes:   1618 Date:930117 Type: TEXT
Headline: San-Jose-CA.txt
DocID: 0 1618 /proj/wais/db/weather/San-Jose-CA.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210

Result # 3 Score: 535 lines:103 bytes:   4631 Date:930117 Type: TEXT
Headline: San-Diego-CA.txt
DocID: 0 4631 /proj/wais/db/weather/San-Diego-CA.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210

Result # 4 Score: 209 lines: 56 bytes:   2265 Date:930117 Type: TEXT
Headline: Denver-CO.txt
DocID: 0 2265 /proj/wais/db/weather/Denver-CO.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210

Result # 5 Score: 186 lines:129 bytes:   5327 Date:930117 Type: TEXT
Headline: Los-Angeles-CA.txt
DocID: 0 5327 /proj/wais/db/weather/Los-Angeles-CA.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210

Result # 6 Score: 139 lines: 74 bytes:   2753 Date:930117 Type: TEXT
Headline: US-National-Summary.txt
DocID: 0 2753 /proj/wais/db/weather/US-National-Summary.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210

______________________________________________________________________

And:

Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 19:04:43 PST
From: Jonny Goldman <jonathan@Think.COM>
Subject: My WAIS Request

DocID: 0 3073 /proj/wais/db/weather/San-Francisco-CA.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210
_____________________________________________________________________

Which yields:

Date: Sun, 17 Jan 93 19:04:17 PST
From: WAISMail@quake.think.com
Subject: Your WAIS Request

Retrieving: "0 3073 /proj/wais/db/weather/San-Francisco-CA.txt:/proj/wais/wais-sources/weather@quake.think.com:210"
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FORECAST
 NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO CA
 330 PM PST SUN JAN 17 1993 ...DO NOT USE AFTER 930 PM SUNDAY

  TONIGHT...SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS. LOWS IN THE 40S. 
 SOUTHEAST WIND 10 TO 20 MPH SHIFTING TO THE NORTHWEST BY MORNING.
 STRONGER AND GUSTY WIND NEAR THUNDERSTORMS.
  MONDAY...SCATTERED MORNING SHOWERS TAPERING OFF DURING THE
 AFTERNOON. HIGHS IN THE 50S. NORTHWEST WIND TO 15 MPH.
  MONDAY NIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY. LOWS IN THE UPPER 30S AND 40S. 
  TUESDAY..INCREASING CLOUDS WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN NORTH OF SAN
 FRANCISCO BY AFTERNOON. HIGHS FROM THE UPPER 40S TO MID 50S.

 SAN FRANCISCO  45 55                        SAN RAFAEL     41 52
 SFO AIRPORT    43 53                        OAKLAND        46 54
 REDWOOD CITY   42 54                        FREMONT        42 55

                    EAST BAY INLAND COMMUNITIES

 CONCORD        40 51                        LIVERMORE      42 52

 DYKEMA
 

     ***********************************************
         Winter weather advisory in effect for SFO
      ***********************************************

 WINTER STORM WARNING/SNOW ADVISORY
 NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO CA
 3 PM PST SUN JAN 17 1993

  ..WINTER STORM WARNING DOWNGRADED TO A SNOW ADVISORY 
             TONIGHT FOR THE SIERRA NEVADA NORTH OF YOSEMITE...
  ..WINTER STORM WARNING TONIGHT AND MONDAY FOR THE 
             SIERRA NEVADA FROM YOSEMITE PARK SOUTH...
  ..SNOW ADVISORY CANCELLED FOR THE SHASTA/SISKIYOU REGION...

 SNOW IS FALLING OVER THE SIERRA NEVADA WITH THE HEAVIEST AMOUNTS FROM
 YOSEMITE PARK SOUTHWARD. THE RAIN HAS TAPERED OFF TO SHOWERS WEST OF
 THE SIERRAS AND WILL TURN SHOWERY OVER THE SIERRA NEVADA DURING THE
 EVENING. 

 RAIN WAS FALLING BELOW 4000 FEET IN THE NORTH TO 5000 FEET IN THE
 SOUTH SUNDAY AFTERNOON BUT SHOULD FALL TO 3000 TO 4000 FEET BY
 HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE SOUTHERN SIERRA NEVADA WITH LESSER AMOUNTS
 TO THE NORTH. 

 TRAVELERS HEADED FOR THE SIERRA NEVADA OR SHASTA/SISKIYOU REGION
 SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR HEAVY WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS...CARRY CHAINS
 AND CHECK THE LATEST ROAD AND WEATHER REPORTS BEFORE DEPARTING.

 JOHN PLANKINTON 
 LEAD FORECASTER

 MARIN...SOLANO...SACRAMENTO AND EL DORADO COUNTIES NORTHWARD
  EXTENDED FORECAST... 
  WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY...RAIN LIKELY IN THE NORTH WITH A CHANCE OF
 RAIN FARTHER SOUTH.  HIGHS UPPER 40S AND 50S EXCEPT 30S AND LOWER 40S
 IN THE MOUNTAINS.  LOWS TEENS AND 20S MOUNTAINS...30S TO MID 40S
 ELSEWHERE.
  FRIDAY...A CHANCE OF RAIN NORTH...MOSTLY SUNNY SOUTH.  HIGHS UPPER
 40S AND 50S EXCEPT 30S AND LOWER 40S MOUNTAINS.  LOWS ZERO TO 25
 MOUNTAINS...30S AND LOWER 40S ELSEWHERE.

 SAN FRANCISCO, CONTRA COSTA TO ALPINE COUNTIES SOUTHWARD
  EXTENDED FORECAST...
 HIGHS 50S AND LOWER 60S EXCEPT 30S TO MID 40S IN THE SIERRA.  LOWS 
 30S AND 40S...EXCEPT TEENS AND 20S MOUNTAINS.
  THURSDAY AND FRIDAY...PARTLY CLOUDY NORTH...FAIR SOUTH.  AREAS OF 
 NIGHT AND MORNING VALLEY FOG.  HIGHS 50S AND 60S EXCEPT 30S AND 40S
 IN THE SIERRA.  LOWS 30S TO MID 40S...EXCEPT ZERO TO 25 MOUNTAINS.

 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bugs to me.

- Jonny G


Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 09:34:04 GMT
From: ohansen@europe.cisco.com
Subject: A couple of WAIS questions 

I have a couple of questions which might be in a FAQ somewhere, if they are
sorry about that, could you let me know how to find this...?

Question 1: How would one go about restricting access to some of one's WAIS
databases, but not all? Let's say I have two types of databases: one which
should be available to anyone in the entire world (press releases, product
information etc), and internal documentation which should be restricted to
people within my own organisation. 

The only way I can think of doing this is to have two different WAISservers
running, with a TCP wrapper and access control list around one. Is this
really the case, or is there a cleaner way of doing this?

Question 2: Is it possible to query a WAIS server and get a list of all the
databases it serves? I have seen 'swais' give a list of all the databases
on the server, but I can't find an option to use 'swais' with remote
servers. My Mac waisstation doesn't seem to have any options to query the
remote server for this.

Thanks in advance for any info,
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ove Hansen, Cisco Systems Europe                  | Mail: ohansen@cisco.com  
16, avenue du Quebec,   Z.A. de Courtaboeuf       | Tel:  +33 1 60 92 20 56
91961 Les Ulis cedex, France                      | Fax:  +33 1 69 28 83 26

------------------------------

End of WAIS-discussion Digest 61
************************

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Newsgroups: alt.wais,comp.infosystems.wais