archie wais server - WWW access directly to files
Brewster Kahle (brewster@think.com)
Tue, 18 Feb 92 05:58:16 PST
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 92 05:58:16 PST
Message-Id: <9202181358.AA28643@quake.think.com>
From: Brewster Kahle <brewster@think.com>
To: timbl@nxoc01.cern.ch
Cc: kean@talon.ucs.orst.edu, wais-talk@think.com, www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
In-Reply-To: Tim Berners-Lee's message of Tue, 18 Feb 92 14:25:04 GMT+0100 <9202181325.AA19967@ nxoc01.cern.ch >
Subject: archie wais server - WWW access directly to files
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 92 14:25:04 GMT+0100
From: timbl@nxoc01.cern.ch (Tim Berners-Lee)
...
Magic -- I really like it. I have modified the WAIS-WWW gateway so that is the
database is an archie one (i.e.database name contains "archie" :-| ) a W3 search of
the database will give links directly to the files. This relies on the headline
starting with host:/filename.
I wish we used /filename@hostname so that waisretrieve could handle it (and
be compatible with the WAIS doc-id.
Now the things which need neatening up. The gateway I was using is here in CERN,
and the server is at ordst.edu. This implies a transatlantic link for every search.
- Would you or anyone like to run the gateway locally? Volunteers?
WAIS packets are small, but the distance makes reduces reliability.
- Perhaps we should run the WAIS archie here, mirroring files.
- One of us could run a direct W3 archie server rather than using a gateway
process.
To use www as an archie client,
setenv WWW_wais_GATE http://info.cern.ch:8001/
(or point to a more local gateway!) and
alias archie www wais://archive.orst.edu:9000/archie-orst.edu
I've put a pointer to the archie index in our CERN home page, but not publicised it
yet.
Tim BL
This is really cool.
-brewster