KB142859 - Configuring Internet Server Gopher Searches

Article ID: 142859

Article Last Modified on 6/23/2005

Microsoft Internet Information Server 1.0

This article was previously published under Q142859

We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. IIS 6.0 significantly increases Web infrastructure security. For more information about IIS security-related topics, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx

SUMMARY

The search function to search for files on a Gopher server is not included with Microsoft Internet Server. However, Microsoft Internet Server does support searching through the European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre (EMWAC) Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) Toolkit, which is included in the Windows NT Resource Kit. You can use these tools to prepare and search full-text databases for computers running Microsoft Windows NT.

NOTE: If you install the WAIS Toolkit, make sure to do it after you install the Microsoft Internet Information Server software.

MORE INFORMATION

The following procedure shows how the server conducts searches for information:

The process passes the information typed in at the client as search strings.
The server does the search.
The filenames containing the strings are retrieved.
The server converts the filenames to a Gopher Menu.
The server sends the Gopher Menu to the client.

To configure the server for searches, you need to do the following:

Configure an index of keywords to speed up the search.
Set up search tools, either by selecting them from other sources, or by writing your own.
Create tag information for all searches supported by a particular server.

Creating an Index File

First, install the EMWAC WAIS software. Then you can create an index file by using the WAIS Toolkit.

Prepare a directory to work in, for example:

C:\Search
Create a subdirectory to hold the files you are going to index, for example:

C:\Search\Here
Put some text files into the C:\Search\Here directory. These files must be ASCII text files.

To Create an Index

Make C:\Search your current directory.
Execute the following command with these parameters:

waisindex -d myindex here\*
Check the messages from Waisindex to make sure that there are no errors.
In the C:\Search directory, type DIR to make sure that Waisindex has created the seven index files named Myindex.*.
Search your files. For the example, search for a word that you know is in the files.

Searching the Index

The Waislook command in the EMWAC WAIS Toolkit allows you to search files through the index file you created with Waisindex. Make sure C:\Search is the current directory and execute the following command with these parameters:

waisindex -d myindex word

where word is any word that you know appears in one of the files.

Check the output of Waislook, which will show you the names of the files that contain the word you typed.

Configuring Log Records

When you set up a Gopher server, you can see who has been using it and how many times your online information was accessed. Through Gopher you can log incoming connections to the server.

To record logs properly:

Determine in which directory the logs will be stored.
Specify the frequency with which logs are collected (every day, every week, every month, etc.).
Select the log tools you want to analyze the logs your server collects.

Additional query words: prodiis1 gopher wais emwac

Keywords: kbusage KB142859