Archive-name: gopher-faqăLast-modified: 1993/03/11ăăCommon Questions and Answers about the Internet Gopher, aăclient/server protocol for making a world wide information service,ăwith many implementations. Posted to comp.infosystems.gopher, ăcomp.answers, and news.answers every two weeks.ăăThe most recent version of this FAQ can be gotten through gopher, orăvia anonymous ftp:ăăpit-manager.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/gopher-faqăăThose without FTP access should send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.eduăwith "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find outăhow to do FTP by e-mail.ăă------------------------------------------------------------------- ăList of questions in the Gopher FAQ:ăăQ0: What is Gopher?ăQ1: Where can I get Gopher software?ăQ2: What do I need to access Gopher?ăQ3: Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher?ăQ4: How can I add to the information in gopher?ăQ5: Who Develops Gopher Software?ăQ6: How can I set up a "CSO" phone book server? Where is the software?ăQ7: Why can't I access the University of Minnesota's UPI news?ăQ9: What are the type characters for the different Gopher Objects?ăQ10: When I do full-text searches I always get every document back, Why?ăQ11: When I try to build the UNIX software I get an error from make:ă "Must be a separator on rules line #. Stop" Why?ăQ12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)?ăQ13: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available?ăQ14: On a DECstation I get the error message "/etc/svc.conf no such fileă or directory" when running the gopherd server, why?ăQ15: The boolean searching terms don't work for my full-text index, why?ăQ16: When linking the Unix gopher server with WAIS I get undefined symbols,ăQ18: Why don't my WAIS indexes work? I never get anything back for searches.ă or Why do I get "Dangling file" error messages in my logfile?ăQ19: My gopher server doesn't work under inetd, why?ăQ20: This is not a bug report, just a curiousity. I managed to installăQ21: Help! I have PC-NFS and want to use the PC-Gopher client. How?ăQ22: How do I nuke a hung TCP connection? I can't restart my UNIXă gopher server unless I get rid of it, and I don't want to reboot!ăQ23: Is there somewhere I can retrieve a list of announced gopheră links? I'd like to keep a local, up-to-date list of available gopheră holes without requiring our users to gopher to umn just to scană GopherSpace.ăQ24: Why doesn't my unix gopher client display ISO-Latin-1 charactersăQ25: What is veronica?ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ0: What is Gopher?ăăA0: The Internet Gopher client/server provides a distributedă information delivery system around which a world/campus-wideă information system (CWIS) can readily be constructed. Whileă providing a delivery vehicle for local information, Gopheră facilitates access to other Gopher and information serversă throughout the world. ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ1: Where can I get Gopher software?ăăA1: via anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu. Look in the directoryă /pub/gopherăă--------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ2: What do I need to access Gopher?ăăA2: You will need a gopher "client" program that runs on your local PCă or workstationăă There are clients for the following systems. The directoryă following the name is the location of the client on the anonymousă ftp site boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) in the directoryă /pub/gopher.ăă Unix Curses & Emacs : /pub/gopher/Unix/gopher1.12.tar.Ză Xwindows (athena) : /pub/gopher/Unix/xgopher1.2.tar.Ză Xwindows (Motif) : /pub/gopher/Unix/moogă Macintosh Hypercard : /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher/old-versions *ă Macintosh Application : /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher *ă DOS w/Clarkson Driver : /pub/gopher/PC_client/ă NeXTstep : /pub/gopher/NeXT/ă VM/CMS : /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/VieGOPHER/ă VMS : /pub/gopher/VMS/ă OS/2 2.0 : /pub/gopher/os2/ă MVS/XA : /pub/gopher/mvs/ăă Many other clients and servers have been developed by others, theă following is an attempt at a comprehensive list. ăă A Microsoft Windows Winsock client "The Gopher Book"ă sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/goph_tbk.zipăă A Macintosh Application, "MacGopher".ă ftp.cc.utah.edu:/pub/gopher/Macintosh *ăă Another Macintosh application, "GopherApp".ă ftp.bio.indiana.edu:/util/gopher/gopherapp *ăă A port of the UNIX curses client for DOS with PC/TCPă oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu:/public/dos/misc/dosgopher.exeăă A port of the UNIX curses client for PC-NFSă bcm.tmc.edu:/nfs/gopher.exeăă A beta version of the PC Gopher client for Novell's LAN Workplaceă for DOSă lennon.itn.med.umich.edu:/dos/gopherăă A VMS DECwindows client for use with Wollongong or UCXă job.acs.ohio-state.edu:XGOPHER_CLIENT.SHAREăăă * Note: these Macintosh clients require MacTCP.ăă Most of the above clients can also be fetched via a gopher clientă itself. Put the following on a gopher server:ăă Type=1ă Host=boombox.micro.umn.eduă Port=70ă Path=ă Name=Gopher Software Distribution.ăă ă Or point your gopher client at boombox.micro.umn.edu, port 70 andă look in the gopher directory.ăăă There are also a number of public telnet login sites available.ă The University of Minnesota operates one on the machineă "consultant.micro.umn.edu" (134.84.132.4) See Q3 for moreă information about this. It is recommended that you run the clientă software instead of logging into the public telnet login sites. Aă client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse,ă scroll bars, etc.) A local client is also faster.ăă---------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ3: Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher?ăăA3: Here is a short list, use the site closest to you to minimizeă network lag.ăă Non-tn3270 Public Logins:ăă Hostname IP# Login Areaă ------------------------- --------------- ------ -------------ă consultant.micro.umn.edu 134.84.132.4 gopher North Americaă gopher.uiuc.edu 128.174.33.160 gopher North Americaă panda.uiowa.edu 128.255.40.201 panda North Americaă gopher.sunet.se 192.36.125.2 gopher Europeă info.anu.edu.au 150.203.84.20 info Australiaă gopher.chalmers.se 129.16.221.40 gopher Swedenă tolten.puc.cl 146.155.1.16 gopher South Americaă ecnet.ec 157.100.45.2 gopher Ecuadoră ă tn3270 Public Logins:ăă Hostname IP# Login Areaă ------------------------- --------------- ------ -------------ă pubinfo.ais.umn.edu 128.101.109.1 -none- North Americaăăă It is recommended that you run the client software instead ofă logging into the public login sites. A client uses theă custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.)ă and gives faster response.ăă---------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ4: How can I add to the information in gopher?ăăA4: You can do this by running a gopher server. Servers are availableă for a number of systems. Use anonymous ftp toă boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) and look in /pub/gopher. Theă following servers are available there:ă ă Unix : /pub/gopher/Unix/gopherxx.tar.Ză VMS : /pub/gopher/VMS/ă Macintosh : /pub/gopher/Mac_server/ă VM/CMS : /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/Vienna_CMS/ă MVS : /pub/gopher/mvs/ă DOS PC : /pub/gopher/PC_server/ăăă When you have your server ready you can publish it to the world byă sending e-mail to the maintainters of the "Other gophers" list:ăă If your gopher server is in Europe, send mail to:ă ă gopher@ebone.netăă Otherwise send mail to:ăă gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu ăă---------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ5: Who Develops Gopher Software?ăăA5: Gopher was originally developed in April 1991 by the Universityă of Minnesota Microcomputer, Workstation, Networks Center to helpă our campus find answers to their computer questions. ăă It has since grown into a full-fledged World Wide Informationă System used by a large number of sites in the world.ăă Many people have contributed to the project, too numerous toă count. ăă The people behind the much of the gopher software can be reachedă via e-mail at gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu, or via paper mail:ă ă Internet Gopher Developersă 100 Union St. SE #190ă Minneapolis, MN 55455 USAăă Or via FAX at:ă ă +1 (612) 625-6817ăă---------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ6: How can I set up a "CSO" phone book server? Where is the software?ăăA6: CSO phone book servers are also known as "qi" servers. Theă software implementation can be gotten via anonymous ftp from ă uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.50) as /pub/qi.tar.Z. You may alsoă see this referred to as "ph", which is what most of the clientsă are called. A collected set of clients for Macs, PCs, VMS, VM,ă etc, are in the /pub/ph.tar.Z file.ăă There is also an archive of the mailing list for qi/ph software onă the same machine. It's in /pub/info-ph.archive. You may join theă list by sending email to info-ph-request@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu.ăă This software is supported by Paul Pomes ă Contact him for more information. ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ7: Why can't I access the University of Minnesota's UPI news?ăăA7: The University of Minnesota has a site license for UPI news, weă are not allowed to distribute it off of our campus. We get oură UPI news from Clarinet. For more information about getting UPIă news send mail to info@clarinet.com. For information aboută setting up your own gopher-UPI server search the gopher-newsă archive for UPI.ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ9: What are the type characters for the different Gopher Objects?ăăA9: Normal IDs. ăă 0 Item is a fileă 1 Item is a directoryă 2 Item is a CSO (qi) phone-book serveră 3 Erroră 4 Item is a BinHexed Macintosh file.ă 5 Item is DOS binary archive of some sort. ă 6 Item is a UNIX uuencoded file.ă 7 Item is an Index-Search server.ă 8 Item points to a text-based telnet session.ă 9 Item is a binary file! Client must read until the connectionă closes. Beware.ă T TN3270 connection.ăă Experimental IDs.ăă s Sound type. Data stream is a mulaw sound.ă g GIF type.ă M MIME type. Item contains MIME data.ă h html type.ă I Image type.ă i "inline" text type (used by panda).ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ10: When I do full-text searches I always get every document back, Why?ăăA10: This is a problem occasionally encountered with Unix full-textă indexes. It is caused by setting up the link incorrectly to aă gindexd port.ăă The Path= field should be *blank* when pointing to a gindexdă index.ăă Otherwise the client will send the path to the gindexd daemon,ă which interprets everything as a keyword. This path isă likely to contain a pathname that is common to all of the indexedă files. Thus a search generates hits on everything.ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ11: When I try to build the UNIX software I get an error from make:ă "Must be a separator on rules line #. Stop" Why?ăăA11: This is a problem with older makes that don't understand the "include"ă keyword. One easy way to cope with this problem is compiling GNUă make, which does understand the include keyword.ăă If this is too difficult, remove the line:ă ă include Makefile.configăă from all the Makefiles and paste in a copy of Makefile.config ată the top of each Makefile.ăă Or, instead of pasting you can make the client/server by goingă into the appropriate directory and typing:ăă make -f ../Makefile.config -f Makefileăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ12: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)?ăăA12: Gopher is intimately intertwined with these two other systems.ă As shipped the Unix gopher server has the capability to: ă ă - Search local WAIS indices.ă - Query remote WAIS servers and funnel the results to gopheră clients.ă - Query remote ftp sites and funnel the results to gopheră clients.ă - Be queried by WWW (World Wide Web) clients (either usingă built in gopher querying or using native http querying.ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ13: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available?ăăA13: Gopher has a whole chapter devoted to it in :ăă _The_Whole_Internet_users_guide_and_catalog by Ed Krol ă (publisher O'Reilley & Associates, Inc; ISBN: 1-56592-025-2).ă (Editors note: ...Great book, go out and buy a bunch!)ăă _The_Internet_Passport: NorthWestNet's Guide to Our World Online"ă By Jonathan Kochmer and NorthWestNet. Published by NorthWestNet,ă Bellevue, WA. 1993. 516 pp. ISBN 0-9635281-0-6. ă Contact info: passport@nwnet.net, or (206) 562-3000ăă _A_Students_Guide_to_UNIX by Harley Hahn. (publisher McGraw Hill,ă Inc.; 1993 ISBN 0-07-025511-3)ăăă Other references include:ăă _The_Internet_Gopher_, "ConneXions", July 1992, Interop.ăă _Exploring_Internet_GopherSpace_ "The Internet Society News", v1n2 1992, ăă (You can subscribe to the Internet Society News by sending e-mail toă isoc@nri.reston.va.us)ăă _The_Internet_Gopher_Protocol_, Proceedings of the Twenty-Thirdă IETF, CNRI, Section 5.3ăă _Internet_Gopher_, Proceedings of Canadian Networking '92ăă _The_Internet_Gopher_, INTERNET: Getting Started, SRIă International, Section 10.5.5ăă _Tools_help_Internet_users_discover_on-line_treasures, Computerworld,ă July 20, 1992ăă _TCP/IP_Network_Administration_, O'Reilly.ăă Balakrishan, B. (Oct 1992)ă "SPIGopher: Making SPIRES databases accessible through theă Gopher protocol". SPIRES Fall '92 Workshop, Chapel Hill, Northă Carolina.ăă Tomer, C. Information Technology Standards for Libraries,ă _Journal of the American Society for Information Science_,ă 43(8):566-570, Sept 1992.ăăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ14: On a DECstation I get the error message "/etc/svc.conf no such fileă or directory" when running the gopherd server, why?ăăA14: This is caused by the chroot() call in gopherd. It can be easilyă fixed by running gopherd with the -c option.ăă Alternatively you can copy /etc/svc.conf into a directory namedă "etc" inside the gopher-data directory.ă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ15: The boolean searching terms don't work for my full-text index, why?ăăA15: This is probably because the searching is being provided by WAIS.ă WAIS opts to return all documents that contain a search phraseă within certain limits. WAIS searches do return the documents withă the highest "score" at the top, those documents will have theă closest relevance.ăă Alternatively you could get a booleanized version of wais fromă ftp.bio.indiana.edu.ă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ16: When linking the Unix gopher server with WAIS I get undefinedă symbols,ă such as:ăă log_file_nameă logfileă PrintStatusă find_valueă Sourcesă NumSourcesăăA17: This happens if you make gopherd before linking in the WAIS ir/uiă directories. The fix is to "make clean" or removeă gopherd/{waisgopher.o,Waisindex.o} and then remake gopherd. Oră link the ir/ui directories first.ă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ18: Why don't my WAIS indexes work? I never get anything back for searches.ă or Why do I get "Dangling file" error messages in my logfile?ăăA18: The problem could be in the server. The server should be rună using the -c option if you want WAIS to work. Another solution is toă patch the WAIS code so that it doesn't check the files on the disk.ă Search the gopher-news archive for "dangling". This will turn up aă single document with the patch.ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ19: My gopher server doesn't work under inetd, why?ăăA19: It could be that your inetd server only supports a limited amountă of arguments. For instance, the maximum number of arguments to ană inetd server is 5. You can get around this by combining arguments: i.e.ăă gopherd -I -c ăă becomes:ăă gopherd -Icăă You may also leave the port specifier off of the command line.ă The gopher server automagically finds out the port it's running on.ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ20: This is not a bug report, just a curiousity. I managed to installă gopher on my PC, more or less by myself, which is a pretty goodă accomplishment, for someone who hasn't installed hardly anything on aă PC. I then proceeded to load my PC/TCP kernel, ETHDRV, and try toă start up gopher. It said it couldn't initialize that stack(?). I haveă to load this whenever I use PC/TCP. Incredibly, when I did not loadă ETHDRV, Gopher came up immediately and telneted to our local server.ă How does it know what kernel to load?ăăA20 Dr. Science says,ă ă The Internet Gopher program is not actually computer program ată all, but a collection of magical incantations handed down from Darkă Age conjurors. It works by sending magical "demons" through the air,ă which scour the world for information, and then return to castă illusions containing the answer.ăă When you use the Gopher, your computer isn't actually doingă anything at all. Instead, these demons have mesmirized you with ană evil magical spell, which was invoked by the pattern ofă finger-movements peculiar to the typing of the letters G-O-P-H-E-R onă your keyboard. This spell transmits demonic information directly toă your brain.ăă Scientists aren't certain of the long-term effects of demonică mesmirization, although former presidents have suffered only minoră medical side-effects from it. Indeed, since Magic and Science areă usually opposed to each other, most Scientists are usuallyă close-minded about such issues, and will usually respond with someă vacuous non-answer about "packet drivers", "stacks", and other suchă jargon.ăă Unlike conventional scientists, Dr. Science is very open-minded andă is willing to deal with such issues in a frank and honest manner.ă This is why people come to him with questions, and why they've learnedă to rely on and live by his answers.ăă Dr. Scienceă "I'm not a real doctor; I have a Master's Degree.... in SCIENCE!"ăă:-) :-) :-) :-)ăThere's always room for a little humor in a FAQ..ă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ21: Help! I have PC-NFS and want to use the PC-Gopher client. How?ăăA21: Use a piece of software called PKTMUX, available at fine ftpă sites everywhere. This will let you use any packet driveră application.ăă Or, aquire a client that supports PC-NFS. See Q2.ă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ22: How do I nuke a hung TCP connection? I can't restart my UNIXă gopher server unless I get rid of it, and I don't want to reboot!ăăA22: ăăHere is an example of using dbx to change a socket from CLOSING toăCLOSED.ăă # netstat -A|grep CLOSINGă c4bc5100 tcp 0 11 mymachine.gopher 129.89.8.4.70 CLOSINGă # dbx -k /vmunix /dev/memă ...ă (dbx) 0xc4bc5100+8/1X -- display contents of PCB+8ă c4bc5108: 00000007ă (dbx) assign 0xc4bc5108=0 -- zero ită 0ă (dbx) qăăAfter a minute or two, the CLOSED socket should disappear.ă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ23: Is there somewhere I can retrieve a list of announced gopheră links? I'd like to keep a local, up-to-date list of available gopheră holes without requiring our users to gopher to umn just to scană GopherSpace.ăăA23: In the Unix client/server distribution is a perl script calledă "gopherdist". Gopherdist can fetch the contents of any point ină GopherSpace.ăă To dump the contents of all the North American links fromă gopher.tc.umn.edu do the following:ăă % gopherdist gopher.tc.umn.edu 70 "1/Other Gopher and Informationă Servers/North America" > .Linksă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ24: Why doesn't my unix gopher client display ISO-Latin-1 charactersă properly? BTW I'm using a Sun workstation..ăăA24: It is the client's problem, the server is perfectly 8-bit transparent.ă The BSD curses library uses bit 8 in order to remember, whether a ă character has been displayed reverse. So use just /usr/5bin/cc andă you get the System V curses version which is 8 bit clean.ăă Note that this may be a problem under other versions of UNIX too...ăă-------------------------------------------------------------------ăQ25: What is veronica?ăăA25: veronica: Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to ă Computerized Archives.ăă veronica offers a keyword search of most gopher-server menu titlesă in the entire gopher web. As archie is to ftp archives, veronica ă is to gopherspace. A veronica search produces a menu of gopheră items, each of which is a direct pointer to a gopher data source.ă Because veronica is accessed through a gopher client, it is easyă to use, and gives access to all types of data supported by theă gopher protocol.ăă To try veronica, select it from the "Other Gophers" menu on ă Minnesota's gopher server, or point your gopher at:ăă Name=veronica (search menu items in most of GopherSpace) ă Type=1 ă Port=70 ă Path=1/veronica ă Host=futique.scs.unr.eduă--ă | Paul Lindner | lindner@boombox.micro.umn.edu | Slipping into madnessă | | Computer & Information Services | is good for the sakeă | Gophermaster | University of Minnesota | of comparison.ă///// / / / /////// / / / / / / / / //// / / / / / / / /ă