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- $Id: gils.sgml,v 1.1 1996-05-07 11:19:13 quinn Exp $
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<article>
<title>Serving GILS Records with Zebra
<author><htmlurl url="http://www.indexdata.dk/" name="Index Data">, <tt><htmlurl url="mailto:info@index.ping.dk" name="info@index.ping.dk"></>
-<date>$Revision: 1.1 $
+<date>$Revision: 1.5 $
<abstract>
This document explains how to set up a simple database of Government
Information Locator Records using the Zebra retrieval engine and
-Z39.50 server (version 1.0b1 or later).
+Z39.50 server (version 1.0a6 or later).
</abstract>
<sect>Introduction
<p>
-Zebra is a powerful and versatile information management system,
-allowing you to construct arbitrarily record structures and managing
+Zebra is a powerful and versatile information management system
+which allows you to construct arbitrarily complex record structures
+and manage
efficient, robust databases.
Since the internal data modeling tools of Zebra are based on the
<p>
The first step is to download the software. If you are using a WWW
browser, you can point it at the Zebra distribution archive at
-<htmlurl url="http://www.indexdata.dk/zebra.html"
-name="http://www.indexdata.dk/zebra.html">, and follow the link named
+<tt><<htmlurl url="http://www.indexdata.dk/zebra.html"
+name="http://www.indexdata.dk/zebra.html">></tt>, and follow the link named
<it/Download the latest version of the software (xxx)/, where <it/xxx/
is the current version of Zebra.
Email-address as the password. Then type <tt>cd index/yaz</tt>, and
use the <tt/dir/ command to locate the current version of Zebra. The
file will be named <tt/zebra-xxx/, where <tt/xxx/ is the current
-version of the software. Remember to use the <it/bin/ command, before
+version of the software. Remember to use the <tt/bin/ command before
using <tt/get/ to download the software.
Once the distribution archive has been dowloaded, it must be
-decompressed. For this, use the command <tt/gunzip/ command (if your
+decompressed. To do this, use the command <tt/gunzip/ command (if your
system doesn't have the <tt/gunzip/ program, you will need to acquire
this separately). Finally, use the command <tt>tar xvf
->file<</tt> to unpack the archive.
+<file></tt> to unpack the archive.
-If you dosnloaded the source version of the software (this is the only
+If you downloaded the source version of the software (this is the only
option today, although we expect to release binary versions for Linux,
-SunOS, and Digital Unix shortly).
+SunOS, and Digital Unix shortly), you will have to compile Zebra
+before you can use it.
On many of the major version of the Unix operating system, compiling
Zebra is a simple matter of typing <tt/make/ in the top-level
you executed <tt/tar/). Normally, Zebra compiles cleanly at least on
Linux, Digital Unix (DEC OSF/1), and IBM AIX. On certain platforms
(such as SunOS), you will need to edit the top-level <tt/Makefile/ to
-set the <tt/NETLIB/ variable to include the &dquot;Berkeley Socket
-Libraries&dquot;. On other Unix platforms, you <it/may/ need to modify
+set the <tt/ELIBS/ variable to include the Berkeley Socket
+Libraries. On other Unix platforms, you <it/may/ need to modify
Makefiles or header files, but in general, we have found Zebra to be
easily portable across modern Unix-versions. You do need an ANSI-C
compliant compiler (you'll see a long list of Syntax-errors during the
If you <tt/cd/ to the <tt/test/ directory, the first thing to notice
is the file <tt/zebra.cfg/. There has to be a file like this present
-whenever you use Zebra - it establishes various settings and default,
+whenever you run Zebra - it establishes various settings and defaults,
and we'll return to its contents below (a detailed
description is found in the general Zebra documentation file).
-The subdirectory <tt/records/ contain the sample records. We'll get
+The subdirectory <tt/records/ contains the sample records. We'll get
back to them, too.
The first order of business is to index the sample records, and create
the access files required by the Z39.50 server. To do this, position
yourself in the <tt/test/ directory, and type the command
-<tt>../index/zebraidx update records</tt>.
+
+<tscreen><verb>
+$ ../index/zebraidx update records
+</verb></tscreen>
The indexing program will respond with a stream of control
information, and when it completes, the database is ready. To start
itself. To do this, start a new session on your machine (or put the
server in the background). Change to the directory <tt>yaz/client</tt>
under the main Zebra distribution directory. Now execute the command
-<tt>./client tcp:localhost:9999</tt>.
+
+<tscreen><verb>
+$ ./client tcp:localhost:9999
+</verb></tscreen>
If all went well, the client will tell you that it has established an
association with your test server. To test it, try out these commands:
It is useful to look at the records in the <tt>test/records</tt> as
examples of how SGML-formatted GILS record can look. Note that
whitespace is generally ignored, so you can choose whatever layout of
-your records suits you best. Note also that in some cases, the records
-are generated automatically rather than typed in by a human.
+your records that suits you best.
<sect>The Zebra Configuration File
<tt/zebra.cfg/ in their current working directory (unless they are
told to look for it elsewhere with the <tt/-c/ option). The example
file in the <tt/test/ directory represents all but the bare minimum
-for such a file. While it may seem daunting at first, we find the
+for such a file. We find the
following to be a powerful setup for a GILS-like database (everything
-preceded by (#) is ignored by the software):
+preceded by (#) is ignored by the software):
<tscreen><verb>
#
# Sample configuration file for GILS database
#
-# Where are the configuration tables located?
+# Where are the configuration files located?
profilePath: /usr/local/lib/zebra
# Load attribute sets for searching
amounts of megabytes (M) or kilobytes (K) of disk space that Zebra is
allowed to use in the given directory. If you specify more than one
directory:size combination <it/on the same line/, Zebra will fill up
-each directory, one at a time. This feature is essential if your
+each directory from left to right. This feature is essential if your
database is so large that the registers cannot fit into a single
partition of your disk.
the parts of the register accessed by the server are always
consistent.
+</descrip>
+
<sect>Creating Your Own Database
<p>
+Whenever we create a new database with Zebra, we find it useful to
+first set up a new, empty directory. This directory will contain the
+configuration file, the lock files maintained by Zebra (unless you
+specify a different location for these), and any logs of updates and
+server runs that you may wish to keep around. The first thing to do is
+set up the <tt/zebra.cfg/ file for your database. You can copy the one
+from the <tt/test/ directory, or you can create a new one using the
+example settings described in the previous section. Once you get your
+server up and running, you may want to read the description of the
+<tt/zebra.cfg/ file in the general documentation, to set up additional
+defaults for database names, etc.
+
+If you copy one of these files, you should be careful to update the
+pathnames to reflect the setup of your own database. In particular, if
+you want to specify one or more directories for the register files
+and/or the shadow files, you should make sure that these directories
+exist and are accessible to the user ID which will run the Zebra
+processes.
+
+You need to make sure that your GILS records are available, too. For
+small to medium-sized (say, less than 100,000 records) databases, it
+is sometimes preferable to maintain the records as individual files
+somewhere in the file system. Zebra will, by default, access these
+files directly whenever the user requests to see a specific record.
+However, you can set up Zebra to maintain the database records in
+other ways, too. Consult the general documentation for details.
+
+Finally, you need to run <tt/zebraidx/ to create the index files, and
+start up the server, <tt/zebrasrv/ (the server can be run from the
+<tt/inetd/ if required), and you are in business.
+
+To access the data, you can use a dedicated Z39.50 client, or you can
+set up a WWW/Z39.50 gateway to allow common WWW browsers to search
+your data. CNIDR's
+Isite
+package includes a good, free gateway that you can experiment with.
</article>
projects / idzebra-moved-to-github.git / blobdiff