82 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
82 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
Bunyip Information Systems
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about archie 3.0
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What is archie?
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The archie information system is a network-based information tool
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offering proactive data retrieval and indexing for widely distributed
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collections of data.
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The archie Data Gathering Component automates the gathering, indexing and
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maintenance of information, allowing information providers to offer
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improved resource discovery and access to information.
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The archie User Access Component allows your users to locate and access
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your information using a variety of interfaces and search methods.
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Given the number of hosts being used as archive sites nowadays, there can
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be great difficulty in finding needed software in a distributed
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environment. You may know that the software that you need is out there,
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but it can sometimes be difficult to find. Perhaps the best known
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application of the archie system is to maintain this Internet Archives
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database. The database, already available from a number of service
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providers across the Internet, currently contains the names of over
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2,400,000 files at over 1,000 anonymous FTP archive sites. Using this
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database, users can rapidly locate needed files without the need to log
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onto dozens or even hundreds of machines. archie servers offering this
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database currently receive over 50,000 queries per day.
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Users can ask archie to search for specific name strings. For example,
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"prog kcl" would find all occurrences of the string "kcl" and tell you which
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hosts have entries with this string, the size of the program, its last
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modification date and where it can be found on the host along with some
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other useful information. In this example, you could thus find those
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archive sites that are storing Kyoto Common Lisp. With one central database
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for all the archive sites we know about, archie greatly speeds the task of
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finding a specific program on the net.
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archie also maintains a 'Software Description Database' which consists
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of the names and descriptions of various software packages, documents
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and datasets that are kept on anonymous ftp archive sites all around the
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Internet. The 'whatis' command allows you to search this database.
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But the archie system is much more than the Internet Archives database.
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With the latest release, archie has been expanded into a generalized
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information gathering and distributed database maintenance tool. Using
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archie, you can build an up-to-date, accurate directory of Internet
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services, or define new databases and gather entries from across the
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network. With archie your information collections are updated as often as
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needed.
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The archie system has gained wide acceptance and acclaim on the Internet.
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It is now accepted as a service integral to the needs of the Internet
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user community. Gateways to the archie system have been built for a
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number of other information delivery systems, including the Wide Area
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Information System (WAIS), Gopher and the World Wide Web (W3).
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A commercially supported version of the archie system is now available to
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Internet service providers wishing to build, maintain and offer
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collections of useful information to an Internet community.
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Send comments, bug reports etc to
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archie-group@bunyip.com
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If you have a favourite anonymous ftp site that archie doesn't seem to
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maintain, or if you have additions or corrections to the Software
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Description database, send mail to
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archie-admin@bunyip.com
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Please note that it is our policy only to maintain information from sites
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whose system administrators have given their approval.
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The original archie program was written by Alan Emtage (bajan@bunyip.com)
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and Bill Heelan (wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca), with some ideas and inspiration
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provided by Peter Deutsch (peterd@bunyip.com). The current version is
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a product of Bunyip Information Systems. For more information, send email
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to "info@bunyip.com".
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