Date completed or updated: 13th December, 1993
By: Name: Brewster Kahle
Email address: Brewster@wais.com
Platform: DOS
(Clarkson packet driver and Erick Englke's WATT/TCP)
Primary Contact:
Name: Faeiz Hindi
Email address: hindi@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
Telephone:
Client software available from:
/pub/tcpip/pcwais.zip@hilbert.wharton.upenn.edu
Location of more information:
Latest version number:
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
General comments:
Future plans:
------------------
Date completed or updated: 13th December, 1993
By: Name: Brewster Kahle
Email address: Brewster@wais.com
Platform: AVS
Primary Contact:
Name: Steve Thorpe
Email address: thorpe@ncsc.org
Telephone:
Client software available from:
avs_modules/data_input/awais/* @avs.ncsc.org
Location of more information:
Latest version number:
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
General comments:
Future plans:
------------------
Date completed or updated: 13th December, 1993
By: Name: Brewster Kahle
Email address: Brewster@wais.com
Platform: RS6000
Primary Contact:
Name: Dennis Shiao
Email address: shiao@ans.net
Telephone:
Client software available from:
/pub/freeware/rs6000/wais-8-b3-dist.tar.Z@wais.com
Location of more information:
Latest version number:
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
General comments: client and server
"The details are correct, but I must point out that this
version of WAIS is most outdated. I'd suggest replacing it
with AIX ports of the wais-8-b5 or freeWAIS packages, if
anyone's done those (I haven't) .."
-Dennis.
Future plans:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Demonstration sites:
List of sites which are willing to act as demonstration sites for this
application.
Site name: quake.think.com
Access details: telnet quake.think.com
login as wais.
Site name: cnidr.org
Access details: telnet cnidr.org
login as demo
select #2 (Demos of NIDR software)
select #2 (WAIS)
(this is the worst of all possible interfaces since it is just a
dumb terminal interface)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Documentation:
o current overview
- "WAIS Server, WAIS Workstation, and WAIS Forwarder for UNIX
Technical Description", Release 1.1, December, 1993.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais-inc-doc/msWord/Tech-description -1.1.sit.hqx @ftp.wais.com
- "Interfaces for Distributed Systems of Information Servers",
Brewster Kahle, Harry Morris, Jonathan Goldman (Thinking Machines
Corporation), Thomas Erickson (Apple Computer), John Curran (NSF
Network Service Center), March, 1992. (formally named "Interfaces
for Wide Area Information Servers")
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais-inc-doc/txt/Interfaces.txt@ftp.wais.com
or WAIS server wais-discussion-archives.src
o instructions to information providers
See the documentation in the release:
/pub/freeware/unix-src/wais-8-b5.1.tar.z@wais.com
or the wais-docs.src WAIS server.
o user manuals
The Mac interface WAIStation has a user manual. The unix
commands have man pages.
o training materials
- tutorials
- canned demos
- Macintosh demostration screen-movie: Steve Cisler of Apple put
together a short screen-recorder movie for seeing some of what
WAIStation does.
Available via anonymous FTP:
/pub/wais-doc/WAIStation-Canned-Demo.sit.hqx@wais.com
- sample session (screen dumps)
- "WAIStation, A User Interface for WAIS", February 1991, Thinking
Machines technical report TMC-203.
User interface documentation with screen shots.
- videos
Available in special circumstances. Contact info@wais.com.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography:
- "WAIS Bibliography", WAIS Inc, (last update) September 1993.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais-inc-doc/txt/WAIS-bibliography.txt @wais.com or WAIS server
wais-discussion-archive.src
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Information:
Check for current information about freeWAIS on CNIDR's gopher and WWW
servers: gopher.cnidr.org and www.cnidr.org
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
WHOIS
Date template updated or checked: 17 March, 1994
By: Name: Joan Gargano
Email address: jcgargano@ucdavis.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NIR Tool Name: Whois
Brief Description of Tool:
As currently defined, NICNAME/WHOIS services is a TCP transaction
based query/response server, running on a few specific central
machines, that provides netwide directory service to internet users.
Since the WHOIS service was defined in 1985, it has evolved into a
distributed service.
The InterNIC Registration Services is located at Network Solutions,
Inc., Herndon, VA, and is funded by a cooperative agreement from the
National Science Foundations to provide assistance in registering
networks, domains, asn's, and other entities to the Internet
community via telephone, electronic mail, and U.S. postal mail.
Databases and information servers of interest to network users are
provided, including the WHOIS registry of domains, networks, asn's
and their associated poc's. Gopher and Wais interfaces are also
available for retrieving information and accessing whois. Online
documents maintained at registration services include registration
related rfc's, registration templates, and various netinfo files.
Many of the online files are available through our automatic mail
service, MAILSERV@RS.INTERNIC.NET. Whois queries can also be
directed to rs.internic.net. From a host, use the TELNET program to
connect to host RS.INTERNIC.NET. When greeted by the Registration
host, type "WHOIS" and press RETURN.
MAILSERV@RS.INTERNIC.NET is an automated service provided by InterNIC
Registration Services. It allows access to documents and information
via ordinary electronic mail. This is especially useful for users
who do not have access to the NIC via a direct Internet link, such as
users of BITNET, CSNET and UUCP sites.
To use the mail service, send a mail message to
MAILSERV@RS.INTERNIC.NET. In the SUBJECT field, request the type of
service you wish followed by any needed arguments. The message body
is normally ignored. Large files will be broken into smaller
separate messages. The information you request will be sent back to
you as soon as possible.
WHOIS xxx Returns information about xxx from the WHOIS service.
Use "WHOIS HELP" for information on how to use WHOIS.
The MILNET Network Information Center, maintains the central NICNAME
database and server, providing online look-up of individuals, network
organizations, MILNET nodes, and other information of interest to
those involved in management of the Internet. Whois queries can be
sent to nic.ddn.mil.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Contact(s): Network Solutions, Inc.
Name: Hostmaster
Email address: hostmaster@rs.internic.net
Postal Address: Network Solutions
AttN: InterNIC Registration Services
505 Huntmar Park Drive
Herndon, VA 22070
Telephone: +1-703-742-4777
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Line:
(for major center as well as each client)
Name: Hostmaster
Help information available via gopher,
gopher.internic.net
Email address: hostmaster@rs.internic.net
Telephone: +1-703-742-4777
Level of support offered:
o funded
o all users
Hours available: 24 hours/day, 7 days per week.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Working Groups:
Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source:
National Science Foundations
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mailing Lists:
Address: ietf-wnils@ucdavis.edu
Administration: ietf-wnils-request
Description: This mailing list is used by the IETF Whois and
Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS)
working group which is defining enhancements
to whois.
Archive: ftp.ucdavis.edu:/archive/wnils-archive
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
News groups: None.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Protocols:
What is supported: TCP/whois
What it runs over: TCP/IP networks
Other NIR tools this interworks with:
Future plans: Enhancements through Whois++
Enhancements through Referral Whois.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Servers:
Date completed or updated: 4 March, 1994
By: Name: Joan Gargano
Platform: Unix
Primary Contact: Network Solutions, Inc.
Name: Hostmaster
Email address: hostmaster@rs.internic.net
Telephone: +1-703-742-4777
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Clients:
Clients are available from the source listed for server software. VMS
clients are available from TVG/Multinet Most TCP/IP networking
packages for personal computers include a whois client.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Demonstration sites:
Site name: rs.internic.net
Access details: Using a whois client,
whois -h rs.internic.net "name"
where "name" is the name of a person.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Documentation:
Document Title: RFC954
Location details:
Site: nic.ddn.mil:/rfc
Full file name: rfc954.txt
Document Title: Specifications for WHOIS Services
Location details:
Site: ftp.ucdavis.edu
Full file name: /archive/ietf-wnils/Discussion.Paper
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography:
RFC954
Internet Drafts:
draft-ietf-wnils-whois-01.txt
draft-ietf-wnils-whois-02.txt
draft-ietf-wnils-whois-lookup-00.txt
draft-huitema-solo-00.txt
Please check the 1id-abstracts.txt listing contained in the
internet-drafts Shadow Directories on nic.ddn.mil,
nnsc.nsf.net, nic.nordu.net, ftp.isi.edu, or munnari.oz.au
to learn the current status of any Internet Draft.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Information:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Evaluation:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
World-Wide Web
Date template updated or checked: 28th January, 1994
By: Name: Tim Berners-Lee
Email address: timbl@info.cern.ch
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NIR Tool Name: World-Wide Web
Brief Description of Tool:
The WWW project merges the techniques of networked information and
hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system. W3
uses the concept of a seamless information space (the "web"), in
which all objects including those accessed by earlier protocols
(wais, gopher, ftp, etc.) exist.
The project allows information sharing within internationally
dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support
groups. Originally aimed at the High Energy Physics community, it
has spread to other areas and attracted much interest in user
support, resource discovery and collaborative work areas. It is
currently the most advanced information system deployed on the
Internet.
READER VIEW
The WWW world consists of documents, and links. Indexes are
special documents which, rather than being read, may be searched.
The result of such a search is another ("virtual") document
containing links to the documents found. A simple protocol ("
HTTP ") is used to allow a browser program to request a keyword
search by a remote information server.
The web contains documents in many formats. Those documents which
are hypertext, (real or virtual) contain links to other documents,
or places within documents. All documents, whether real, virtual
or indexes, look similar to the reader and are contained within
the same addressing scheme.
To follow a link, a reader clicks with a mouse (or types in a
number if he or she has no mouse). To search and index, a reader
gives keywords (or other search criteria). These are the only
operations necessary to access the entire world of data.
INFORMATION PROVIDER VIEW
The WWW browsers can access many existing data systems via
existing protocols (FTP, NNTP) or via HTTP and a gateway. In this
way, the critical mass of data is quickly exceeded, and the
increasing use of the system by readers and information suppliers
encourage each other.
Providing information is as simple as running the W3 server and
pointing it at an existing directory structure. The server
automatically generates the hypertext view of your files to guide
the user around.
To personalize it, you can write a few SGML hypertext files to
give an even more friendly view. Also, any file available by
anonymous FTP, or any internet newsgroup can be immediately linked
into the web. The very small start-up effort is designed to allow
small contributions. At the other end of the scale, large
information providers may provide an HTTP server with full text or
keyword indexing. This may allow access to a large existing
database without changing the way that database is managed. Such
gateways have already been made into Oracle(tm), WAIS, and
Digital's VMS/Help systems, to name but a few.
The WWW model gets over the frustrating incompatibilities of data
format between suppliers and reader by allowing negotiation of
format between a smart browser and a smart server. This should
provide a basis for extension into multimedia, and allow those who
share application standards to make full use of them across the
web.
This summary does not describe the many exciting possibilities
opened up by the WWW project, such as efficient document caching.
The reduction of redundant out-of-date copies, and the use of
knowledge daemons. There is more information in the online
project documentation, including some background on hypertext and
many technical notes.
GETTING STARTED
You can bootstrap yourself into the web by telnetting to
info.cern.ch (no user or password). You can try a full screen
interface "Lynx" by telnetting to ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, login in
as "www". You can also find out more about WWW in this way.
These are the least sophisticated browsers -- remember that the
window-oriented ones are much smarter! It is much more efficient
to install a browser on your own machine, and you have many more
facilities.
If you have an X-windows based workstation, PC or Mac just FTP to
FTP.NCSA.UIUC.EDU and get the binary of NCSA's "Mosaic" browser in
directory /Web/Mosaic-binaries. Download it, uncompress it, set it
executable, and run it. It will tell you all you need to know.
Mosaic is now available for PCs and Apple Macs.
If you have an MSDOS machine with Windows, you could try the
"Cello" browser from FATTY.LAW.CORNELL.EDU in directory
/pub/LII/Cello.
The line mode browser is currently available in source form by
anonymous FTP from node info.cern.ch [currently 128.141.201.74] if
you take both files
/pub/www/src/WWWLibrary_v.vv.tar.Z.
/pub/www/src/WWWLineMode_v.vv.tar.Z.
(v.vv is the version number - take the latest.)
Also available is a hypertext editor for the NeXT (in
/pub/www/bin/next), the MidasWWW and ViolaWWW browsers for X11, an
alpha-test Mac browser, and and a basic server
(/pub/www/src/WWWDaemon_v.vv.tar.Z). Documentation, including the
latest list of software available , is readable using www. A plain
text version of the installation instructions is included in the tar
file!
Printable (postscript) documentation and articles are in /pub/www/doc
on info.cern.ch.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary Contact(s):
Name: Tim Berners-Lee
Email address: timbl@info.cern.ch
Postal Address: CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
Telephone: +41-22-767-3755
Fax: +41-22-767-7155
Name: Robert Cailliau
Email address: cailliau@cernnext.cern.ch
Postal Address: CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
Telephone: +41-22-767-5005
Fax: +41-22-767-7155
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Line:
(for www technical or political issues, to report bugs, to register
new servers, or new software)
Name: www support
Email address: www-request@info.cern.ch
Telephone: none.
Telnet: info.cern.ch for information.
Level of support offered:
o funded for High-Energy Physics users
o volunteer for others who have read the online
information already.
While CERN collaborates with all NIR and W3 development anywhere, CERN
cannot provide user support for non-HEP end users.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Working Groups: NIR, URI, IIIR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsoring Organisations / Funding source: NO FUNDING SOURCE
Bodies providing development effort include
HEP labs (CERN, CH; SLAC, CA, USA; FNAL, IL, USA; NIKHEF, NL; etc.),
National Center for SuperComputer Applications (NCSA, IL, USA),
O'Reilly Associates, (ORA, CA, USA),
Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval
(CNIDR, NC, USA),
BSD Inc (BSD, CA, USA) and many others too numerous to mention.
Other sources welcomed!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroup:
Name: comp.infosystems.www
Description: General technical discussion, announcements
of new software, etc.
Please mail new server announcements to
www-request@info.cern.ch.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mailing Lists:
1. Address: www-talk@info.cern.ch for CONTRIBUTIONS ONLY
Administration: listserv@info.cern.ch (robot)
www-talk-request@info.cern.ch (human)
Description: Technical discussion, W3 related.
Experts to experts. General questions to
comp.infosystems.www, please.
Archive: Not currently served, but kept.
-------------------
2. Address: www-announce@info.cern.ch
NOT FOR GENERAL USE - serious low-volume
announcements only
Administration: listserv@info.cern.ch (robot)
www-announce-request@info.cern.ch (human)
Description: Low volume summary announcemements
of product releases, etc.
Archive: Not currently public
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Protocols:
What is supported: HTTP
FTP
anonymous FTP
Gopher
NNTP
WAIS (compile time option)
Local mounted file access
Telnet sessions
Rlogin sessions
What it runs over: TCP/IP
DECnet option.
Other NIR servers W3 clients interworks with:
Techinfo, Hyper-G and X.500 via gateways.
Built-in capability in clients for others above
Archie access via WWW "WARCHIE" archie server
with direct hypertext pointers to FTP sites.
Resource indexing: Many browsable and searchable indexes of
available information, by subject (virtual
libraries), and by position (geographical list of
servers). Many of these point to any form of
data, HTTP or other server. A list of such
indexes is at
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/
bySubject/Virtual_libraries/Overview.html
Future plans: Collaborative work features,
Hypertext editors for information organisation
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
HTTP Servers: CERN httpd
Platform: unix, VMS, VM/XA, VM/CMS
Primary Contact: www-request@info.cern.ch
Server software available from:
ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/src
Location of more information:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/User/Guide.html
Latest version number: 2.14
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
* Fast stateless file server runs over TCP/IP.
* Suitable for rapid documentation navigation.
* Multimedia server allows multiple file formats to be used.
* File format selected for transmission based on client
capabilities.
* Add special functions using scripts. Standard CGI interface.
* Logging
Approximate number of such servers in use: 600
General comments:
Some servers serve many databases.
Many tools available for serving different sorts
of information
Gnu info
teX
SGML
man pages
etc., as hypertext.
--------------------------------
Other servers:
For more information use WWW to access
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Daemon/Overview.html
Servers include:
NCSA server Similar feature set to CERN's httpd, support from
NCSA.
Plexus Written in Perl -- many features. Unix.
MacHTTPD Server for the Macintosh
REXX for VM A server consisting of a small C program which
passes control to a server written in REXX.
---------------------------
Mail Server:
Platform: unix
Primary Contact: www-request@info.cern.ch
Server software available from:
ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/src/WWWMailRobot_*.tar.Z
Location of more information:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MailRobot/Overview.html
Latest version number: 1.0
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Mailing list subscription/unsubscription handling (crude)
Return of documents given URL
Restricts length of data returned.
Allows access to ANY document by URL unless restrictions
are imposed (FTP, news, etc., included). Quite generic.
When hypertext messages are retrieved, the links are
numbered like [1] and a list of URLs of referenced documents
is appended to the document.
Send message containing HELP to listserv@info.cern.ch for
details.
Approximate number of such servers in use: 1 (-3?)
General comments
Extends potential readership of W3 information to anyone
with email, so an important step for universal readership.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: A full list of client software is kept in
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Clients.html
and is not repeated here, as the list is constantly
changing. Around 20 different clients. Telnet to info.cern.ch
to see the list. Only the Line Mode Browser, lynx and
Mosaic are covered here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Client: Line Mode Browser
Date completed or updated: 28th January, 1994
By: Name: Tim Berners-Lee
Email address: timbl@info.cern.ch
Platform: Anything. Even a hard copy terminal.
Written in portable C.
Primary Contact:
Name: Tim Berners-Lee
Email address: timbl@info.cern.ch
Client software available from:
ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/src
Location of more information:
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/WWW/LineMode/Browser.html
and linked documents
Latest version number: 2.14
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
The LineMode Browser is suitable for use on dumb terminals, requiring
no control sequences except for carriage return and line feed. It is
also of course useable from terminal emulators in workstation windows.
It can also be used as a text formatter, as part of a mail server,
and as a general information retrieval tool.
History list, Back/Next/Previous/Home navigation, ability to print or
save documents (or pipe to shell commands on unix).
General comments:
Very stable product which has many uses apart from interactive use.
Generates C .h files from hypertext marked files, etc.
Source release requires W3 library product.
Public Domain.
Future plans:
Future enhancements to include tracing of many links.
Demonstration sites:
telnet info.cern.ch or telnet 128.141.201.74 (SWITZERLAND)
telnet vms.huji.ac.il or telnet 128.139.4.3 (www) (ISRAEL)
-----------------------------------
Client: Lynx
Date completed or updated: 11 February 1994
By: Name: Lou Montulli
Email address: montulli@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Platform: Unix + VMS
Primary Contact(s):
Name: Lou Montulli, Michael Grobe
Email address: montulli@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu,
grobe@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Postal Address: Computer Center, University of Kansas,
Lawrence KS, 66045
Telephone: +1-913-864-0436 (Lou)
+1-913-864-0452 (Michael)
Fax: +1-913-864-0485
Client software available from:
ftp2.cc.ukans.edu in directory /pub/lynx.
Location of more information: ftp2.cc.ukans.edu
Latest version number: 2.2
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
Lynx clients provide a user-friendly hypertext interface to
all of the major internet protocols for character cell (vt100)
terminal users on UNIX and VMS platforms. Lynx natively
understands Gopher, HTTP, WAIS, FTP, NNTP (USENET NEWS) and
CSO protocols and can transparently retrieve information using
any of them. Lynx can also launch telnet and tn3270 sessions
and has support to run executable programs on the local machine
so that it can be used as a menuing system. Lynx is a part of
the World Wide Web (WWW) project and has all of the features
of a WWW client including HTML support and HTML+ forms support.
Additional resource types such as Archie Techinfo, X.500, and
Hytelnet may be also accessed through HTTP and Gopher gateway
functions.
Future plans:
Development of a DOS (non windows) version.
Help Line:
Name: Lou Montulli
Email address: montulli@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Telephone: +1-913-864-0436
Level of support offered: volunteer
Hours available: 11-5pm M-F CST
Demonstration sites:
Site name: ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Access details: telnet ukanaix.cc.ukanse.du
login as "www"
Documentation:
o current overview
http://www.cc.ukans.edu/about_lynx/about_lynx/about_lynx.html
o user manuals
http://www.cc.ukans.edu/lynx_help/lynx_help_main.html
o miscellaneous documents
tar file of all documentation:
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/lynx/lynx_help_files.tar.Z
Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source:
Academic Computing Services
University of Kansas
Mailing Lists:
Address: lynx-dev@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Administration: listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
-----------------------------------
Client: NCSA MOSAIC for X
Date completed or updated: 16th December, 1993
By: Name: Marc Andreessen
Email address: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Platform: X Window System (Unix)
-- Sun, DEC, IBM, SGI, HP, others.
Primary Contact:
Name: Marc Andreessen
Email address: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Postal Address: National Center for Supercomputing
Applications
605 E. Springfield
Champaign, IL 61820
Telephone: +1-217-244-0765
Client software available from:
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in /Web/Mosaic.
Location of more information:
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu in /Web/mosaic, and online, within Mosaic.
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/help-about.html
o Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/mosaic-faq.html
o user manuals
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/mosaic-docs.html
Latest version number: 1.1
Brief Scope and Characteristics:
NCSA Mosaic for the X Window System is a client interface to a wide
variety of networked information systems, including World Wide Web,
Gopher, WAIS, FTP, Usenet News, Archie, Techinfo, X.500, Hytelnet,
Telnet, NCSA Data Management Facility, CSO ph/qi and others. It
offers a Motif-based point-and-click X interface with support for
plaintext, formatted text, and embedded images; hyperlinks can also
refer to images, video sequences, audio clips, PostScript files, etc.
Mosaic also offers substantial interaction and collaboration
facilities, including global history tracking, text and voice
annotations, group/community-wide annotations, and more.
General comments:
Sponsoring Organisation:
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Future plans:
Enhancement of the NCSA Mosaic environment to support advanced
networked information systems and collaboration capabilities;
development of clients on other architectures; research and
development into intelligent agent-style user assistance mechanisms
and novel navigation and representation strategies for dense, dynamic
distributed information spaces. (This is all dependent upon funding,
of course.) Beta-test versions of Mac and Microsoft Windows 3.1
were released in the fall of 1993.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Demonstration sites:
See individual sections on clients.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Documentation:
All the W3 documentation available is in the web. Some is also dumped
off into postscript. Here are the URLs of entry points into the web
for the subjects requested:
** To retrieve any document by URL, use WWW (www <url> for example) or
** send mail containing the command "send " followed by the URL to
** listserv@info.cern.ch
o current overview
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
see also
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/help-about.html
o executive summary
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/WWW/Summary.html
o instructions to information providers
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/WWW/Provider/Overview.html
o Frequently Asked Questions
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/WWW/FAQ/List.html
o user manuals
See under individual products.
ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc/*.txt
o training materials
Illustrated talk on WWW including transparencies: see
ftp://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Talks/General/html
see also
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/demo.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[General WWW bibliography]
Bibliography:
o For latest list, see:
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/WWW/Bibliography.html
Bibliography for the World Wide Web
WORLD-WIDE WEB BIBLIOGRAPHY
This lists papers and articles about the W3 initiative and related
matters which you may want to pick up for background reading or quote
as references. You can of course also quote any page you read with
W3 by its document address. The FTP server info.cern.ch has some of
these in /pub/www/doc.
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Other Information:
All WWW working notes and specs are on the web. If it is not there
somewhere, it may not be anywhere.
Seek and ye shall find. And if ye don't, mail someone to fix it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
X.500 White Pages
Date completed or updated: 10 March, 1994
By: Name: Chris Weider
Email address: clw@bunyip.com
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NIR Tool Name: X.500
Brief Description of Tool:
X.500 is an international standard designed to provide a distributed
global directory service. It is primarily used today to provide
'White Pages' services, although other types of services which have
directory components (automated mail aliasing, for example) are
beginning to be run over X.500. In addition to information about
people and organizations, the Directory also contains a pilot K-12
Directory, pilot Information Resource information, and some other
non-White Pages information. X.500 contains a number of security
features, which are implemented on different paradigms in the various
servers.
User's View:
Users (either human or electronic) run a client program to connect
to a local X.500 server. Since X.500 is distributed, it appears
that the entire global X.500 directory is available from the local
server. From this server connection, the user can add, delete, or
modify information held by the Directory, or issue powerful search
commands to locate individuals or other information.
The first solid version of the X.500 protocol was released in
1988, and has been the subject of much research in the past 5
years. Consequently, there are a large number of clients, for
almost every platform, and a healthy number of servers. There are
mail interfaces to some parts of the X.500 directory, and there is
a X.500 to Gopher gateway. An X.500 interface to archie is
currently under development, as well as an X.500 to WWW interface.
Information Provider's View:
X.500 provides a set of mechanisms to allow distributed location
of, maintenance of, and access to a large set of data. However,
current servers force a hierarchical view on the location of the
data, so it may not be suitable for all applications. Also, the
X.500 directory is today unable to provide access to information
at a rate which would allow 'real-time' applications (such as
keeping routing information in the directory).
Also, there is a great effort underway to reduce the startup costs
of X.500 access by providing a lightweight X.500 access protocol
for client-server applications. This work is detailed in RFC
1487:
"Lightweight Directory Access Protocol", by Yeong, Howes, and
Kille. This protocol is expected to make the cost of entry for a
service provider much less that it has been.
Information Types Supported:
X.500 allows information to be served in an attribute:value
paradigm, with related attributes grouped into 'objects'. Each
entry in the directory can be described by multiple objects.
Attributes can have values which are text strings, dereferenceable
file names, or text-encoded photographs, and experimentation is
underway to keep digitally encoded sounds in the directory.
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Primary Contact(s):
Name: The PARADISE Project
Email address: helpdesk@paradise.ulcc.ac.uk
Name: The White Pages Pilot Project
Email address: wpp-manager@psi.com
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Help Line:
X.500 encompasses a great number of clients and as a distributed
system does not have a central help line. Please see the
Documentation section for pointers to servers, clients, and associated
help lines.
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Related Working Groups:
IETF's OSI-DS (OSI Directory Services)
IETF's IDS (Integrated Directory Services)
OSI Implementor's Workshop's DS-SIG (Directory Services-SIG)
RARE's WG-NAP (Network Application Support)
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Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source:
Not Applicable
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Mailing Lists:
Address: osi-ds@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Administration: osi-ds-request@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Description: Mail list for OSI-DS working group.
-------------------
Address: ietf-ids@umich.edu
Administration: ietf-ids@umich.edu
Description: Mail list for IDS working group.
Archive: Anonymous FTP, merit.edu in directory
/pub/ietf-ids-archive.
-------------------
Address: dssig@ics.uci.edu
Administration: dssig-request@ics.uci.edu
Description: Mail list for OIW DS-SIG group
-------------------
Address: wg-nap@rare.nl
Administration: mailserver@rare.nl
Description: Mail list for RARE working group WG-NAP
Archive: Anonymous FTP, ftp.rare.nl, directory
/rare/working-groups/wg-nap/mail/current
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Protocols:
What is supported: X.500
What it runs over: Applications run on full ISO stack down to
transport over TCP/IP + RFC1006, CONS, CLNS, or
X.25(80)
Other NIR tools this interworks with: Gateways to Gopher and WWW.
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Servers:
A full list of servers and clients is available in FYI 11, RFC1292,
"A guide to available X.500 Implementations". See the Documentation
section for the location of this document. However, the most widely
deployed server is listed here for convenience.
QUIPU
Date completed or updated: 21 October, 1993
By: Name: Chris Weider
E-Mail: clw@bunyip.com
Platform: BSD 4.2, 4.3; AT&T System V; SunOS; AIX
Primary Contact:
Name: Steve Kille
E-Mail: S.Kille@isode.com
Telephone: +44-81-332-9091
Fax: +44-81-332-9019
Location of more information:
RFC1292
Latest Version Number: 8.0 (public domain)
IC R1 (ISODE consortium version)
Approximate number of such servers in use: 400
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Demonstration sites:
Site name: paradise.ulcc.ac.uk
Access details: telnet to paradise.ulcc.ac.uk
login as dua
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Documentation:
Document Title: FYI 11, RFC1292, "Catalog of Available X.500
Implementations", R. Lang, R. Wright.
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1292.txt
An update of this document is in preparation:
Document Title: "A Revised Catalog of Available X.500
Implementations", A. Getchell, S. Sataluri.
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: draft-ietf-ids-catalog-00.txt
Document Title: FYI 13, RFC1308, "Executive Introduction to directory
services using the X.500 protocol", C. Weider, J. K. Reynolds
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1308.txt
Document Title: FYI 14, RFC1309, "Technical Overview of Directory
Services using the X.500 protocol", C. Weider, J. K. Reynolds,
S. Heker.
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1309.txt
Document Title: RFC1430, "A Strategic Plan for Deploying an Internet
X.500 Directory Service",
S. Kille, E. Huizer, V. Cerf, R. Hobby, S. Kent.
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1430.txt
Document Title: FYI 21, RFC1491, "A Survey of Advanced Usages of
X.500", C. Weider, R. Wright.
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1491.txt
Document Title: RFC1487, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol",
W. Yeong, T. Howes, and S. Hardcastle-Kille
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1487.txt
Document Title: RFC1588, "WHITE PAGES MEETING REPORT",
J. Postel, C. Anderson
Location details: Available for anonymous FTP from
Site: ds.internic.net
Full file name: RFC-1588.txt
These documents contain pointers to the rest of the literature.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
7. NIR Groups
This section contains information about the various groups working in
the area of networked information retrieval. The groups are listed
alphabetically within their overall groupings (CNI, IETF, RARE,
etc.). See Section 3.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
CNI Groups
Date template updated or checked: 1st March, 1994
By: Name: Craig A. Summerhill
Email address: craig@cni.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NIR Group Name: Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
Sponsoring Organisation: Association of Research Libraries
(ARL), CAUSE, and EDUCOM
Working subgroups:
Name of subgroup: Modernization of Scholarly Publishing
Transformation of Scholarly Communication
Directories and Information Resource Services
Architecture and Standards
Legislation, Codes, Policies and Practices
Access to Public Information
Teaching and Learning
Management and Professional and User Education