archie NIR Tool Template - DONE!!!

[[e-mail]]

 Peter Deutsch has won the prize for first back with the template.
 (His prize is to do the keynote speech for the European Conference in
 Pisa :-)  )

 I'm mailing thisfirst one out to the list - as seeing a completed
 template may give you a better idea of what's wanted - and hopefully
 will encourage others to fill theirs in quickly.

 Looks like we're going to get a very useful document together between
 us.

 -- Jill

%%%%%%%% Forwarded message %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Date:     Sat, 17 Oct 92 19:26:52 GMT-0:02
>From:    peterd @ bunyip.com

 First: Peter makes a couple of point:

Here are a couple of comments on the exercise:

Newsgroups:

There is a minor "bug" in the section on Newsgroups, in which you speak of
"mailing lists". I deleted the line, but you should be able to find it...

Clients:

There are a couple of smaller "clients" that I've not yet documented, such
as the archie EMACS interface, another one or two DOS clients and another
VMS client.  I also wanted to mail a copy
to each client author to see if they wanted to take on responsibility for
their own entries.


Documentation:

When filling out the "Documentation" section, I felt the need for a
"Description" field so I added one.

Note also that a couple of the references are not yet in place. For example,
the "whats.new" paper will be released when we start shipping, probably next
week.

Final comments:

First, I'm _really_ glad I did this. It's quite comprehensive exercise. I'm
going to be encouraging everybody else to finish up theirs.


                                        - peterd

 Note (from Jill): I'll be editing out all comments on HOW to complete
 the template.  Feel free to do this yourself on yours.

----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<----8<---
   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut   cut


Date template updated or checked:       October 17, 1992
By: Name:                               Peter Deutsch
    Email address:                      [e-mail]

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

NIR Tool Name:                  archie

Brief Description of Tool:

#  Note: This should be a maximum of 100 line description which
#  should cover the following:
#  - overview of use, purpose, scope and characteristics
#  - user's view
#  - information provider's view
#  - information types supported (e.g. text, sound, etc)


The archie system is a tool for gathering, indexing and serving information
from around the Internet. The current version serves a collection of
filenames found at anonymous FTP sites, as well as a smaller collection of
text descriptions for software, data and other information found at
anonymous FTP archives. Additional databases are under development.

User's View:

Users run a client program to connect to an archie server and issue search
commands to find information in an archie database. In the case of an
anonymous FTP filename, this information can then be used to fetch the file
directly from the archive site using the `ftp' command. To the user, archie
could be seen as a `secondary source' of information which, because of the
high cost of locating and serving, would not otherwise be available.

The user searches the archie databases through either a telnet session to a
machine running an archie server, or by using a stand-alone client program
(which uses the Prospero protocol for sending and receiving requests). There
is also an email interface which allows users to send and receive search
requests via electronic mail.

Freely available archie clients exist for most operating systems and can be
fetched using anonymous FTP from most of the current archie servers. There
are also gateways to the archie system from many other NIR tools, including
Gopher, WAIS and WWW. An X.500 interface to archie is currently under
development.


Information Provider's View:

There are two types of information providers who would be interested in
archie. Primary information providers are interested in having a summary of
the information provided by their service tracked by an archie server.
Secondary service providers, or those sites wishing to provide a
"value-added" service for the Internet can elect to run an archie server at
their site to provide a useful service to users, to raise the profile of
their institution on the Internet, or to provide market differentiation (for
commercial service providers).

The archie system is of particular utility serving information where there
are many sites to be searches and/or where the cost of searching each site
is high. 

For example, there are currently over 1,200 anonymous FTP sites on the
Internet, and the number continues to grow. Searching for a specific
filename at a single site may involve scanning hundreds, or even thousands
of filenames. Thus, most operators of anonymous FTP archives welcome the
fact that archie indexes and serves the names of all files available from
each site tracked.

Information Types Supported:

The archie system allows the gathering and serving of arbitrary information
types, although the current system serves only freeform text and a dedicated
text format for filename listings. WAIS support is provided in the most
recent release and it is expected that additional collections of information
will be maintained and served using WAIS tools for access in the near future.


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

Primary Contact(s):
#  [Please duplicate this section for each separate contact]

Name:                   Archie Group, Bunyip Information Systems Inc.

Email address:          [e-mail]

Postal  Address:        266 Blvd. Neptune,
                        Dorval, QC
                        CANADA H9S 2L4

Telephone:              1 [phone] (primary)
                        1 [phone] (secondary)

Fax:                    1 [phone] (mark "attn. archie group")

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

Help Line:      for archie server system and telnet client

Name:           Archie Group, Bunyip Information Systems Inc.

Email address:  [e-mail]

Telephone:      [phone] (primary)
                1 [phone] (secondary)

           Level of support offered: [delete as appropriate]
                o commercial support for server
                 (primarily for systems maintainers)

                o voluntary helpdesk support for freeware clients

                o volunteer helpdesk support for Internet information
                  gathering tools in general


Hours available:        - server system:
                          email:                24 hour support
                          phone support:        9-5 EST

                        - helpdesk consultation: as time permits

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

      Related Working Groups

        Prospero, WAIS, WWW, Gopher.

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

      Sponsoring Organisation / Funding source

                Bunyip Information Systems Inc.

                Funded by licensing of archie software and
                development contracts from sponsors.
                Donations to help fund helpdesk and
                operation of free servers gratefully
                accepted.

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

      Mailing Lists 
      [Duplicate this section for each list or news group]

Address:                [e-mail]

Administration:         [e-mail]

Description:

This mailing list is for people interested in the archie project and its
future developments. Announcments of upgrades, new services, etc are made to
this list.


Archive:                none


----------

Address:                [e-mail]

Administration:         [e-mail]

Description:

This mailing list is for people who operate and maintain archie servers.
Announcments of bug fixes, new releases and discussion of new features are
carried out on this list.


Archive:                "archives.cc.mcgill.ca:/pub/mailing-lists/archie-maint"

----------

Address:                [e-mail]

Administration:         [e-mail]

Description:

This mailing list is for people who are involved in the Internet Anonymous
FTP Archives Working Group of the IETF. This group is involved in
standardizing the encoding of information at anonymous FTP archives and thus
is of interest to operators and users of the archie system.


Archive:                "archives.cc.mcgill.ca:/pub/mailing-lists/iafa"



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

News groups 


Name:           comp.archives.admin

Description:          

This newsgroup is for operators and maintainers of Internet archives.
Announcements and discussions of issues related to archie are presented
here, as well as discussions of more general issues relating to archiving
and Internet services.

Archive:                not known

----------

Name:           alt.internet.services

Description:          

This newsgroup is for people interested in Internet-related services, with a
focus at the user level.  Announcements and discussions of issues related to
archie are presented here, as well as discussions of more general issues
relating to Internet services.

Archive:                not known

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

Protocols

What is supported:

The current archie system clients use the Prospero protocol for
communication with the search engine on the archie server. Freely available
clients are available which include source to perform this communication for
those wishing to implement additional clients.

The archie server is capable of building arbitrary databases, using
arbitrary search and access engines and the current release ships with the
public domain implementation of WAIS. We expect future archie servers to
serve information using this protocol. The current server system assumes the
TCP/IP protocol suite is available, and in particular the ftp protocol for
data gathering.

The archie system can be accessed through systems operating the Gopher, WAIS
and WWW (HDDL) protocols. The a gateway from the X.500 system is under
development.

What it runs over:      

The Prospero protocol implementation runs over its own implementation of a
reliable datagram protocol based upon UDP. Data gathering runs over the
TCP/IP protocol suite.

Other NIR tools this interworks with:

Prospero, Gopher, WAIS, WWW.


Future plans:

The archie system became a commercial product in October, 1992, marketed by
Bunyip Information Systems Inc. The company plans to market additional data
gathering modules to allow the server code to build additional types of
databases. Work is also underway to integrate extensions to WHOIS to allow
the building and maintaining White Pages (names) directories. The company is
also working on other Internet information tools that will work with the
archie system.

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

Servers:
#  [Duplicate the following for each platform
#            e.g. Unix, VMS, VM/CMS,....] 
#
#  [The main contact for this NIR tool should complete at least
#   "platform" and "contact" for each server known to them.]

Date completed or updated:      October 17, 1992
By: Name:                       Peter Deutsch
Email address:                  [e-mail]

Platform:               Sun SPARC running SunOS 4.1 or later.
                        IBM RS6000 running AIX version 3.2 or later.
                        for additional UNIX platforms, contact 
                        Bunyip Information Systems details.

Primary Contact 
Name:                   Alan Emtage
Email address:          [e-mail]
Telephone:              1 [phone]

Server software available from:
                        Bunyip Information Systems Inc.
                email:  [e-mail]

Location of more information:
#   [Such as installation instructions
#    copyright statements, warnings & bug reports etc. 
#    Eventually this will be the Unique Resource 
#    Identifiers of the documents]

Additional information on the archie product line is available from the
anonymous ftp archive on "bunyip.com".

Latest version number:          archie 3.0


Brief Scope and Characteristics:

This is the first commercial inmplementation of the archie system, replacing
a version done as a Masters project at McGill University during the period
1990-1992. It comes with an archie telnet client that offers a number of
minor improvements over earlier versions. Additional releases, with a number
of additional improvements, are planned in the coming months.

Approximate number of such servers in use:      Currently about 12.

General comments:

Most users access archie through a freeware or public domain client program.
These are available from most archie servers via anonymous FTP. Additional
client functionality has been incorporated into the server and will be
available once the next version of the Prospero protocol is frozen and the
features become incorporated into the clients in the next few months. Check
out the archie directory on "bunyip.com" or the banner message when logging
into any of the archie telnet clients for more details.

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


Clients
#      [Duplicate the following for each platform
#       e.g. MS-DOS PC, MAC, vt100,...] 
#
#      [The main contact for this NIR tool should complete
#       "platform" and "contact" for each server known to them.]

Date completed or updated:      October 17, 1992
By: Name:                       Peter Deutsch
Email address:                  [e-mail]

Platform:                       command line shell, written in C. Works with
                                both UNIX and MSDOS/OS2 shells.

Primary Contact 
   Name:                        Brendan Kehoe
   Email address:               [e-mail]
   Telephone:                   not known

Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
                                Internet archives. Look for filename
                                "c-archie-1.3.2.tar.Z".
                                

Location of more information:
#  [Such as installation instructions
#   copyright statements, warnings & bug reports etc. 

Packaged with software.


Latest version number:          1.3.2


Brief Scope and Characteristics:

This program provides a simple command line interface to the archie server
system, using the Prospero protocol. Written in C, it has been ported to
MSDOS and OS2.

General comments:

This program should notbe confused with the archie system telnet interface,
which is a program that runs on the archie server itself.

Future plans:
#      Items included here could include 
#      - optional items to come.
#      - plans for moving to international standards
#      - plans for interoperating with other NIR tools
#      - other functionality to be supported

                        Not known


----------

Date completed or updated:      October 17, 1992
By: Name:                       Peter Deutsch
Email address:                  [e-mail]

Platform:                       command line shell, written in Perl. Works
                                with both UNIX and MSDOS/OS2 shells.

Primary Contact 
   Name:                        Khun Yee Fung
   Email address:               [e-mail]
   Telephone:                   not known

Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
                                Internet archives. Look for filename
                                "perl-archie-3.8.tar.Z".
                                

Location of more information:
#  [Such as installation instructions
#   copyright statements, warnings & bug reports etc. 

Packaged with software.


Latest version number:          3.8


Brief Scope and Characteristics:

This program provides a simple command line interface to the archie server
system, using the Prospero protocol. Written in Perl.

General comments:

This program should notbe confused with the archie system telnet interface,
which is a program that runs on the archie server itself.

Future plans:
#      Items included here could include 
#      - optional items to come.
#      - plans for moving to international standards
#      - plans for interoperating with other NIR tools
#      - other functionality to be supported

                        Not known


----------

Date completed or updated:      October 17, 1992
By: Name:                       Peter Deutsch
Email address:                  [e-mail]

Platform:                       archie client program for VMS systems.


Primary Contact 
   Name:                        Brendan Kehoe
   Email address:               [e-mail]
   Telephone:                   not known

Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
                                Internet archives. Look for filename
                                "archie-vms.com".
                                

Location of more information:
#  [Such as installation instructions
#   copyright statements, warnings & bug reports etc. 

Packaged with software.


Latest version number:          not known.


Brief Scope and Characteristics:

This program provides a simple command line interface to the archie server
system for users of VMS.

General comments:

This program should notbe confused with the archie system telnet interface,
which is a program that runs on the archie server itself.

Future plans:
#      Items included here could include 
#      - optional items to come.
#      - plans for moving to international standards
#      - plans for interoperating with other NIR tools
#      - other functionality to be supported

                        Not known


----------

Date completed or updated:      October 17, 1992
By: Name:                       Peter Deutsch
Email address:                  [e-mail]

Platform:                       Xwindows client (X11R4)

Primary Contact 
   Name:                        George Ferguson
   Email address:               [e-mail]
   Telephone:                   not known

Client software available from: cs.rochester.edu, most archie server hosts
                                and major Internet archives. Look for file
                                "xarchie-1.3.tar.Z".
Location of more information:
#  [Such as installation instructions
#   copyright statements, warnings & bug reports etc. 

Packaged with software.


Latest version number:          xarchie-1.3


Brief Scope and Characteristics:

This program provides an Xwindows client that allows users to search the
archie anonymous FTP database. Also included is the capability of fetching
files (using ftp).

General comments:               none.

Future plans:
#      Items included here could include 
#      - optional items to come.
#      - plans for moving to international standards
#      - plans for interoperating with other NIR tools
#      - other functionality to be supported

                        Not known

----------

Date completed or updated:      October 17, 1992
By: Name:                       Peter Deutsch
Email address:                  [e-mail]

Platform:                       NeXTStep client.

Primary Contact 
   Name:                        Scott Stark
   Email address:               [e-mail]
   Telephone:                   not known


Client software available from: most archie server hosts and major
                                Internet archives. Look for file
                                "NeXTArchie.tar.Z".
                                

Location of more information:
#  [Such as installation instructions
#   copyright statements, warnings & bug reports etc. 

Packaged with software.


Latest version number:          


Brief Scope and Characteristics:

This program provides a NeXTStep client that allows users to search the
archie anonymous FTP database. Also included is the capability of fetching
files (using ftp).

General comments:               none.

Future plans:
#      Items included here could include 
#      - optional items to come.
#      - plans for moving to international standards
#      - plans for interoperating with other NIR tools
#      - other functionality to be supported

                        Not known



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

Demonstration sites :

#  List of sites which are willing to act as demonstration
#  sites for this application.
#  [Duplicate for each site]

Site name:      any one of:

    archie.rutgers.edu   128.6.18.15     (Rutgers University)
    archie.unl.edu       129.93.1.14     (University of Nebraska in Lincoln)
    archie.sura.net      128.167.254.179 (SURAnet archie server)
    archie.ans.net       147.225.1.2     (ANS archie server)
    archie.au            139.130.4.6     (Australian server)
    archie.funet.fi      128.214.6.100   (European server in Finland)
    archie.doc.ic.ac.uk  146.169.11.3    (UK/England server)
    archie.cs.huji.ac.il 132.65.6.15     (Israel server)
    archie.wide.ad.jp    133.4.3.6       (Japanese server)
 
   Client software should be supported at all of these sites.


Access details:
                - telnet to any of the above sites
                - login as user `archie'
                - type `help' at the prompt to get started.


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

      Documentation:

# The following is a list of suggested items to be found in a
# document archive.  The NIR-WG may be able to help with the
# production of some of these if they are not available
# initially.  Note that the location pointers below could be
# replaced in the future by the "Universal Resource Identifier"]
#
#      o   current overview
#      o   instructions to information providers
#      o   Frequently Asked Questions
#      o   user manuals
#      o   training materials
#              -   tutorials
#              -   canned demos
#              -   sample session (screen dumps)
#              -   videos
#              -   etc.
#      o   miscellaneous documents
#
# [Duplicate the following for each existing document as
# necessary]

Document Title:         What is archie
Location details:       anonymous FTP from bunyip.com
Site:                   bunyip.com
Full file name:         "pub/archie/whatis.archie"
Description:            Brief overview of the archie system.

Document Title:         archie man pages
Location details:       anonymous FTP from bunyip.com
Site:                   bunyip.com
Full file name:         "pub/archie/archie.man.*"
Description:            Manual pages for the archie system telnet
                        interface in various formats (raw ASCII, nroff,
                        compressed, etc). This document also explains the
                        various search options and other features, so is of
                        use to users of the other archie client programs.

Document Title:         What's New in 3.0
Location details:       anonymous FTP from bunyip.com
Site:                   bunyip.com
Full file name:         "pub/archie/whats.new"
Description:            Description of the changes to archie for the
                        first commercial release.

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

      Bibliography:

        Additional documentation, papers, etc available from the anonymous
        ftp archive on bunyip.com in the subdirectory "pub/archie/docs".


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

      Other Information:

      [Feel free to add other information that you feel is relevant.
      This will be considered for inclusion in the report.]

        To come after some deliberation...

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

 Evaluation:

        Reviews & user comments:
        It is intended that this section will be completed by users and
        user reps in the NIR-WG to provide some "consumers" evaluation
        of the NIR tools
                o   General pros and cons
                o   NIR tool implementation 
                o   Strengths and weaknesses

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=