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 value of the environment 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 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 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 submit bug reports or comments at http://webglimpse.net/bugzilla/

AUTHORS

       Udi Manber and Burra Gopal, Department of Computer Science, University of Arizona, and Sun
       Wu, the National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan. Now maintained by Golda Velez at Internet
       WorkShop (Email:  gvelez@webglimpse.net)

                                         October 13, 1997                        GLIMPSESERVER(1)