[gopher] Re: Trying to figure out setting up Gopher server

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning James!

James Milne <jmilne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> I'm interested in using Gopher for a few projects I have in mind, but
> I'm having some trouble figuring out how to actually set things up.

Glad to hear it!

> When I pull everything up in Lynx, I get this:
> 
>                                   Gopher Menu
> 
> (FILE) Net.txt (DIR) HTML-files
>  (DIR) Text-files

I should mention here that it is a known bug in Lynx that the first
two items in a Gopher menu are displayed on a single line.  That
happens everywhere.

> sorta explain what everything is, etc. I haven't found the
> documentation on how to do that, or perhaps I haven't understood the
> documentation on how to do that.

It's probably not documented :-)

Gopher, the original gopher protocol, has various document types -- 0
for text, 1 for directory, etc.  There is a type 'i' that is used for
information.  With UMN gopherd, you can create a file that looks like
this:

Name=Welcome to gopher at quux.org!
Type=i
Path=fake
Numb=1

Name=
Type=i
Path=fake
Numb=2

Name=This server has a lot of information of historic interest,
Type=i
Path=fake
Numb=3

I have a script (that is included in gopherweblink in Debian, BTW)
that will take a simple text file and generate this file, so you don't
have to edit this hideous monster by hand :-)

> I'm also somewhat confused as to what I should be using at
> times. .map, .cap, .link, etc... 

The .cap are for individual directories.  Other than that, it wouldn't
hurt to stick to the filenames as mentioned in the gopherd manpage.
However, UMN gopherd will actually parse any dotfile in the directory
that looks like it's of the right format.  So you can use whatever
names you like.

> I know Gopher isn't really "pretty", and I'm more interested in
> getting results, but it would still be nice to layout everything nicer
> and explain things a bit better. Can anyone provide a nice guide on
> how to actually "write" Gopher sites, akin to the many HTML tutorials
> I could find?

I'm not sure if there are any comprehensive ones out there, but feel
free to ask your questions here.  At the simplest level, you can
simply arrange your documents in a directory hierarchy and let people
get to them via gopher.  On a more advanced level, you can include
links to files in other locations or on other servers.  It's also
possible to serve up HTML and related formats via gopher.

-- John

-- 
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>                       www.complete.org
Sr. Software Developer, Progeny Linux Systems, Inc.    www.progenylinux.com
#include <std_disclaimer.h>                     <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>