broome@ucbvax.ARPA (Jonathan C. Broome) (08/10/85)
[ burp ... ]
I've seen a couple of requests for manual page servers lately, and just
happen to have written such a client/server pair that we have in use on
some of our machines around here... This is a feeler to see if anyone else
out in netland is interested in it. If you would like a copy of the code,
MAIL me a note indicating so, and depending on responses received in the next
two weeks [I'm going on vacation], I will either mail directly or post the
source (it totals about 3K lines).
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Jonathan C. Broome University of California at Berkeley
...!ucbvax!broome
broome@ucb-vax.berkeley.edu
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Some stuff from the READ_ME file:
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Features:
o Eliminates the space wasted by man pages on all hosts (except servers),
allowing "man" access to machines with no or minimal disk (ie. uVAXes)
o Seeks out the server with the lowest load (assuming several are
available) and allows servers to be prioritized, resulting in the
fastest possible response (and best handling of downed hosts).
o Each server can set a load threshold so it can reject connections
if becoming overloaded.
o Reduces the hassle of maintaining copies of man pages on multiple hosts.
o Because all users are accessing the same set[s] of pages, the chances of
"hitting" a formatted page are much greater, leading to fewer waits.
o Allows users to have their own local set of man?/cat? directories,
specified by MANPATH environment variable.
o MANPAGER / PAGER environment variable to specify output paginator
o Server has very flexible configuration file, accomodating source and
formatted pages *anywhere* on the system. You can easily add sections
(ie. "cad" or "usg" or "bsd" or ....) Can be easily reconfigured for
multiple machine types, allowing one server to keep machine-specific
pages for multiple cpu types, catering specially to each client.
o DOES allow for local man pages for host-specific stuff (like Ingres),
so you don't have to worry about it ....