CS337 Gopher lab

The purpose of this lab is to test your gopher client and server for interoperability with other gopher software. Take notes on the results of each section, and then e-mail your notes to ondich@mathcs.carleton.edu as soon as you finish your testing. Label your notes using the numbering scheme below.

I. Testing your server with telnet

  1. Launch your server at some port number over 5000. Report the exact command line syntax you use to do this.

  2. Open another terminal window and connect to your server via telnet. Hit return. Copy whatever text the server sends back into your notes.

  3. Look at the server output from the previous item. Select a line corresponding to a text file, and use telnet to send the query for that text file. Report the exact query you send, and report what the server sends back in response.

  4. Do the same thing for a line corresponding to a subdirectory.

  5. Do the same thing for a line corresponding to an item on a remote server.

II. Testing your client with the gopher server on prism

  1. Launch your client to connect to the gopher server running on prism. Report the exact command line syntax you use.

  2. Assuming you have a text-based user interface, copy your client's output upon connection to the gopher server, and paste it into your report.

  3. Use your client to retrieve rfc1097.txt from the server. Report the results.

  4. Use your client to go into the "About This Server" directory. Paste the resulting menu into your report.

  5. Use your client to follow the Main Gopher Site at the UMN link. Report your results. Paste the resulting menu into your report.

III. Testing your server with your client

  1. Perform the steps from section II again, but this time use your own server. Test a text file, a subdirectory in your server's tree, and an external link.

IV. Testing your server with somebody else's client

  1. Perform the steps from section II using somebody else's client and your server.

V. Testing your client with somebody else's server

  1. Do part IV, only the other way around.

VI. Getting serious

  1. Discuss with your neighbors whether their .links file has the same format as yours. If so, then exchange server executables so your server can be run on their gopher directory tree, and their server can be run on your gopher directory tree. Report the results.

  2. Try using Netscape to connect to your server. If, for example, you are working on wilkes and your server is listening on port 5432, you should use gopher://wilkes.mathcs.carleton.edu:5432/ as the URL. Report how things go.