GLIMPSESERVER(l)GLIMPSESERVER(l)NAMEglimpseserver 4.1 - a server version of the glimpse searching package.
OVERVIEW
Glimpse is an indexing and query system that allows you to search
through all your files very quickly. The use of glimpse in servers
that handle frequent queries is growing, which is why we wrote
glimpseserver to make searches more efficient. Glimpseserver starts a
process that listens to queries, runs glimpse, and sends the answers
back. The main advantage is that the index is read only once into mem‐
ory saving a lot of IO. Glimpse communicates with glimpseserver
through a given port number. See the warning about security below.
SYNOPSISglimpseserver [ -H dir -K port -J host. ]
DESCRIPTION-H dir specifies the directory of the index. Similar to the -H option
of glimpse. The default directory is the value of the environ‐
ment variable $HOME if that is set, otherwise it is the current
directory.
-K port
this is the TCP port for communication: glimpseserver waits for
requests on this port and clients that want to search using the
index in specified by the -H option must use this port (by call‐
ing glimpse -K). The defaults port number is 2001.
-J host
the name of the host. The default is the host where
glimpseserver is running, which is probably the only possibility
anyway.
RESTARTING
If a new index is created by running glimpseindex every night, restart‐
ing a new glimpseserver is now easier: simply send a SIGUSR2 (signal
#31 - i.e., "kill -31 pid") to glimpseserver; it then re-reads the NEW
index and is ready to serve requests again. (A SIGHUP, i.e., signal
#1, can also be sent instead of SIGUSR2 to make the glimpseserver re-
read the new index.) The recommended way to do a fresh indexing while
the server is still running is:
send SIGSTOP to glimpseserver
do the indexing
send SIGUSR2 to glimpseserver
send SIGCONT to glimpseserver (to ask it to continue after stop)
The SIGSTOP is required so that glimpseserver doesn't answer any
queries while the indexing is going on.
WARNING
Glimpseserver should be used only for public servers. Any client that
knows the port number can get any information available in the index
(and port numbers are not that secret). When glimpse is run as a
standalone application it requires read permission of the index and all
the files. When glimpse uses the -C option to communicate with
glimpseserver, glimpse (the client) does not require any permission,
because glimpseserver does all the searching. So, we recommend not to
run glimpseserver on any data that should be protected. Glimpseserver
is meant to be used for public data.
SEE ALSOglimpse(1), glimpseindex(1),
BUGS
Please send bug reports or comments to glimpse@cs.arizona.edu.
AUTHORS
Udi Manber and Burra Gopal, Department of Computer Science, University
of Arizona, and Sun Wu, the National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan.
(Email: glimpse@cs.arizona.edu)
October 13, 1997 GLIMPSESERVER(l)