GLIMPSESERVER(l)UNIX System V (October 11, 1995) GLIMPSESERVER(l)
NAME
glimpseserver - 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 memory
saving a lot of IO. Glimpse communicates with glimpseserver
through a given port number. See the warning about security
below.
SYNOPSIS
glimpseserver [ -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
home 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 calling 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, restarting 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
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GLIMPSESERVER(l)UNIX System V (October 11, 1995) GLIMPSESERVER(l)
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 ALSO
glimpse(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)
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