Debian iceape and the geomyidae gopher server

I have installed the geomyidae gopher server, and I am experiencing some
differences in behaviour between different gopher clients as follows:

Currently, my gopher directory, contains a single welcome.txt file which
contains a single one line greeting message.

If I use Debian iceape, I point the browser at the gopher server address as
follows:

gopher://markhobley.yi.org/

This reveals an index page as follows:

Index of gopher://markhobley.yi.org/

File:welcome.txt

If I now click on the link File:welcome.txt , the browser jumps to an
address as follows:

gopher://neptune/0/welcome.txt
^
|
Note that a zero has appeared here after the server name.

I get an error on the browser as follows:

400 Bad Request
Your request has bad syntax or is inherently impossible to satisfy.
thttpd/2.25b 29dec2003

I don't know whether that zero should be there, but I tried removing that
component of the address, and the error 400 still occurs.

Something else weird is happening. The host name markhobley.yi.org resolves
to neptune on my network. My /etc/hosts is as follows:

10.0.0.8 markhobley.yi.org markhobley
10.0.0.8 neptune.markhobley.yi.org neptune

If I point the browser at the address gopher://markhobley.yi.org/ then, as
already mentioned, this resolves to the index page.

If I point the browser to gopher://neptune/ then I get the 400 Bad Request
error, rather than the gopher index page.

The webserver does not exhibit this problem, and pointing the browser at
either http://markhobley.yi.org/ or http://neptune/ gives me the appropriate
web pages.

If I now try the gopher address again, this time with a traditional console
mode gopher client (in this case I am using the Debian package called
"gopher") , then I get the following behaviour:

Connect to a new Gopher Server------------------------+
| |
| Hostname markhobley.yi.org |
| Port 70

I get the index page as I expect:

markhobley.yi.org

--> [1] welcome.txt

I now follow the link, and I get the content of the text file:

welcome.txt (0k) 100%
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Welcome to Mark Hobley's Gopher Server!

So, it looks like the gopher server is working, but something is screwed on
the browser client side.

Does anyone know what is going wrong when I try to view the gopher site
through the browser?

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

Hello,

Mark Hobley <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> I have installed the geomyidae gopher server, and I am experiencing some
> differences in behaviour between different gopher clients as follows:
>
> Currently, my gopher directory, contains a single welcome.txt file which
> contains a single one line greeting message.
>
> If I use Debian iceape, I point the browser at the gopher server address as
> follows:
>
> gopher://markhobley.yi.org/
>
> This reveals an index page as follows:
>
> Index of gopher://markhobley.yi.org/
>
> File:welcome.txt
>
> If I now click on the link File:welcome.txt , the browser jumps to an
> address as follows:
>
> gopher://neptune/0/welcome.txt
> ^
> |
> Note that a zero has appeared here after the server name.

The 0 here is perfectly normal. It just mean that the browser will
interpret this file as a plain text file (that's what it is...). In
every gopher URL but the root server you will have a number or a
letter. For example, create a selector foobar/ in your root : to point
on it, you have to enter the address like that :
gopher://markhobley.yi.org/1/foobar to get the directory menu listing.

By default, the browser will know what type of file you're pointing at,
but you can manually change the default behavior.

For example, try to gopher://markhobley.yi.org/0/ and you'll see your
directroy listing as plain text and not as a directory menu listing...

Those are the default types for selector lines as you might already know
(remember, that's what you're using to write your gophermap file):

* 0 = plain text file
* 1 = directory menu listing
* 2 = CSO search query
* 3 = error message
* 4 = BinHex encoded text file
* 5 = binary archive file
* 6 = UUEncoded text file
* 7 = search engine query
* 8 = telnet session pointer
* 9 = binary file
* g = Graphics file format, primarily a GIF file
* h = HTML file
* i = informational message
* s = Audio file format, primarily a WAV file

I hope I was clear on that.

> I get an error on the browser as follows:
>
> 400 Bad Request
> Your request has bad syntax or is inherently impossible to satisfy.
> thttpd/2.25b 29dec2003
>
> I don't know whether that zero should be there, but I tried removing that
> component of the address, and the error 400 still occurs.

Yes, you /don't/ have to try to remove this 0, I repeat, it's
*perfectly* normal.

> Something else weird is happening. The host name markhobley.yi.org resolves
> to neptune on my network. My /etc/hosts is as follows:

[snip: iceape issue (36 lines)]

> Does anyone know what is going wrong when I try to view the gopher site
> through the browser?

I can't tell you anything about that because I haven't tried iceape to
browse gopher holes, but, have you tried firefox as a graphical browser
just for testing purpose ? I think your problem is specific to
iceape.

BTW, are you experiencing same issues on other gopher holes with iceape
(like floodgap, hal3000, SDF, etc) ?

Oh and just to be sure, you can try to use http://gopherproxy.org or
http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/ to check your gopher hole with
iceape...

Regards,

--
(E-Mail Removed)

I don't use Iceape, but I think I see what the problem is.

Mark Hobley <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>Currently, my gopher directory, contains a single welcome.txt file which
>contains a single one line greeting message.
>If I use Debian iceape, I point the browser at the gopher server address as
>follows:

>gopher://markhobley.yi.org/

>This reveals an index page as follows:

>Index of gopher://markhobley.yi.org/

> File:welcome.txt

>If I now click on the link File:welcome.txt , the browser jumps to an
>address as follows:

>gopher://neptune/0/welcome.txt
> ^
> |
> Note that a zero has appeared here after the server name.

>I get an error on the browser as follows:

>400 Bad Request
>Your request has bad syntax or is inherently impossible to satisfy.
>thttpd/2.25b 29dec2003

This is coming from a web server, not a Gopher server. I can't connect to
markhobley.yi.org to test this, but it looks like your menu entry for
welcome.txt is pointing to a host called "neptune", not to
"markhobley.yi.org". Iceape faithfully tries to connect to that and fails.
You might try specifying the hostname explicitly in the menu entry; I am
pretty sure that Geomyidae lets you do that (I don't use it myself, but
virtually all modern servers are flexible enough).

The 0 is correct for a Gopher URL. It means a text item type. In the Gopher
protocol, the type of a file is embedded in the URL using a single-character
code (0 = text file, 1 = menu, etc.). The item type is not actually
transmitted to the server and is used internally by the client. See RFC 4266.

--
Cameron Kaiser * (E-Mail Removed) * posting with a Commodore 128
Computer Workshops: http://www.armory.com/%7Espectre/cwi/
Floodgap Systems: http://www.floodgap.com/
personal page: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/

On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 07:57:01 -0500, Cameron Kaiser wrote:

> This is coming from a web server, not a Gopher server.

Right. That's weird. The link is definitely a gopher link and not a web link.


> I can't connect
> to markhobley.yi.org to test this, but it looks like your menu entry for
> welcome.txt is pointing to a host called "neptune", not to
> "markhobley.yi.org".

I haven't got a menu setup yet. I just have a single file called "welcome.txt"

The host for domain markhobley.yi.org is neptune. They both resolve to
10.0.0.8 on my lan.

> You might try specifying the hostname explicitly in the menu
> entry; I am pretty sure that Geomyidae lets you do that (I don't use it
> myself, but virtually all modern servers are flexible enough).

Right. I'll have a look at that when I get the menu set up. It is strange
that the traditional gopher client works, but not the iceape one though.

> The 0 is correct for a Gopher URL. It means a text item type. In the
> Gopher protocol, the type of a file is embedded in the URL using a
> single-character code (0 = text file, 1 = menu, etc.). The item type is
> not actually transmitted to the server and is used internally by the
> client. See RFC 4266.

Ok.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

Mark Hobley <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>>I can't connect
>>to markhobley.yi.org to test this, but it looks like your menu entry for
>>welcome.txt is pointing to a host called "neptune", not to
>>"markhobley.yi.org".

>I haven't got a menu setup yet. I just have a single file called "welcome.txt"
>The host for domain markhobley.yi.org is neptune. They both resolve to
>10.0.0.8 on my lan.

I think I understand. Geomyidae is generating a menu for you, and since
neptune is the host's name, it fills it in.

Still, it *should* work, now that I understand the situation. Iceape should
support OverbiteFF, since it is a SeaMonkey clone. Does that fix it?

--
Cameron Kaiser * (E-Mail Removed) * posting with a Commodore 128
Computer Workshops: http://www.armory.com/%7Espectre/cwi/
Floodgap Systems: http://www.floodgap.com/
personal page: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/

On Sat, 06 Nov 2010 11:22:02 -0500, Cameron Kaiser wrote:

> Still, it *should* work, now that I understand the situation. Iceape
> should support OverbiteFF, since it is a SeaMonkey clone. Does that fix
> it?

Yeah. Thanks Cameron. Overbite fixes it. I am surprised that it was sort of
worked a little bit before I installed that.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/