The first step in getting on the Internet is to establish physical and data connections. This may be done in a few different ways, and will require the services of an Internet connection provider.
Full-time IP connection
This usually means systems on a Local Area Network are connected to the Internet by a router over a leased data line.
CCS has a router which connects our LAN through a 56K digital line to North Suburban Library System a few miles away. NSLS is connected to our Internet connection provider through a T1 line (1.544Mbps). Our connection provider is connected to the Int ernet backbone through two T1 lines.
Dial-up access to a system on the Internet
Internet service providers typically offer UNIX shell accounts with dial-up access. This level of service may be a viable option for providing text-only Internet access from a small number of PCs and terminals. However, you would not be able to use g raphical World Wide Web browsers or operate a server.
If you choose a full-time IP connection, you will be able to offer this service to librarians and patrons from your own system.
Internet protocols through dial-up access
Many Internet service providers allow you to make a TCP/IP network connection over a serial (dial-up) line via SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol).
If your system has a full-time IP connection, you will be able to offer this level of service to librarians and patrons through your own system. The Xylogics Annex Three supports SLIP and PPP.
Once you are connected to the Internet, you can use a variety of tools already on your system to access some resources. You may be familiar with URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). Your UNIX operating system already includes some basic client software for handling some Internet protocols, and Geac may have supplied additional software.
The types of URLs and protocols you are most likely to use are:
Without additional software, your UNIX operating system will only allow Internet access through ftp, electronic mail, telnet, and rlogin. Fortunately this is enough to allow you to find and download code for other programs which support the other prot ocols, and which offer superior user interfaces for ftp and email.
Please note that Sequent's DYNIX/ptx is a quirky and unusual variety of UNIX. Many programs will not compile without some modification.
At CCS, we use Lynx, developed at the University of Kansas, for text-only WWW browsing. The source code of the official releases are available at:
ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/lynx
Foteos Macrides at the Worcester Foundation has added a number of important enhancements between official releases, and continues to do so on an almost daily basis. The source code as implemented at WFEB is called 2-4-FM, and is available at:
gopher://gopher.wfbr.edu/11/_fileserv/_lynx
If you do not already have a Web browser or gopher client on your system, you will need to download the source code for Lynx using the ftp client supplied with your operating system. Unfortunately, Lynx 2-4-FM is only available via ftp from the mirror site in Denmark, so the transfer will be slow.
We recommend the Lynx 2-4-FM source tree from the Worcester Foundation for two main reasons. First, it will compile without modification on DYNIX/ptx 2.0.4. You will only need to configure the program and compile it by typing "make ptx2". A few chan ges to the source code are necessary to compile Lynx 2-4-2. Second, this version offers some support of Netscape extensions to HTML, and some of the additional tags and attributes in the HTML 3.0 specification. The current official release will not disp lay some pages as nicely, and 2-4-FM is generally more able to cope with today's Web.
Lynx offers an easy-to-use interface for http, gopher, ftp, news and WAIS. For telnet and rlogin, the program invokes the commands on your system. Lynx also supports outgoing email for mailto: URLs.
For a full-featured electronic mail program, CCS uses Pine, developed at the University of Washington. The current version is 3.91, and is available at:
ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/pine
Pine 3.91 will compile without changes on DYNIX/ptx 2.0.4, and configuration is quick. Pine provides context-sensitive help, and these help screens are the full documentation for the program.
Pine 3.90 and above support reading and posting of articles on USENET. However, the program does not offer a way to retrieve a list of available newsgroups, or a way to subscribe and unsubscribe to newsgroups.
Elm offers some features which experienced users may appreciate, but the program is less user-friendly than Pine. Elm has no support for Internet News. The current version is 2.4, and is available at:
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/packages/mail/elm
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/packages/mail/elm
If you plan to access USENET with any frequency, you will want to install a full-featured newsreader like Tin, which is available at:
ftp://ftp.germany.eu.net/pub/news/newsreader/unix/tin
One significant problem with Tin is the program wants to give the user too much information when it is run. At startup, Tin retrieves a list of available newsgroups from the NNTP server. This may be as much as 400K of data, which can take five minutes or more to transfer. It may be preferable to use Tin primarily to subscribe and unsubscribe to newsgroups, and to read and post news with Pine. CCS does not offer Tin to library staff or patrons because of bandwidth considerations.
Hytelnet, maintained by Peter Scott, is a hypertext-based index of telnet sites, including many library catalogs. The program can be downloaded from:
A World Wide Web version of Hytelnet can be accessed at:
http://library.usask.ca/hytelnet
You may still want to install the hytelnet program and database on your system to speed access and save bandwidth.
You may also want to download and install some other utilities:
ftp://archive.cs.ohio-state.edu/pub/gnu/mirror
ftp://midway.uchicago.edu/pub/unix/zmodem.tar.Z
ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/usenet/comp.sources.unix/volume12/zmodem
Once you have installed Lynx, Pine, or other programs, anyone with shell access can run them by typing the command name. However, this is unlikely to benefit most of your users, and shell access raises numerous security issues. At CCS, we allow library staff and patrons to access the Internet through LIBSplus, CL-CAT, and individual accounts.
Through LIBSplus, library staff can read and send email by selecting "Mail..." under the "Admin" menu:
| Admin Help Environ Go To | |Whoami |-------------------------------------] | |Mail... | Main Menu | | |Character Menu | | | |Change Keyboard |nline Catalog/Inquiry | | |Print Screen SF1 |irculation | | |Other Databases |atabase Maintenance | | [----------------------]ystem Administration |
In the current version of LIBSplus, this will always invoke /clsi/bin/elm. You may or may not have the most current version of Elm (2.4). If you want to use another email program, such as Pine, you will need to move the old Elm out of the way and create a symbolic link to the program you want to use:
% cd /clsi/bin
% mv elm elm.orig
% ln -s /usr/local/bin/pine elm
Library staff can telnet to several destinations through Datalink:
| Admin Help Environ Go To | |Whoami |-------------------------------------] | |Mail... | Main Menu | | |Character Menu | | | |Change Keyboard |nline Catalog/Inquiry | | |Print Screen SF1 |irculation | | |Other Databases |atabase Maintenance | | [----------------------]ystem Administration |
Then the user can press Shift-F2 for a list of targets:
| Admin Help Go To | [-----------------------------------------------] | | Main Menu | | | [--------------------------------] | | | 1| Datalink Targets | | | | 2| | | | | 3| 1. DuPage Library System | | | | 4| 2. HTLS | | | | 5| 3. Illinet Online | | | | 6| 4. Library Of Congress | | | | | 5. CCS accounts | | | | | 6. NSLS accounts | | | | | 7. Warrenville | | | | | 8. Exit | | | | | | |
Several CCS member libraries offer Internet access to the public through CL-CAT. The screenshots below illustrate how this is achieved. You will need to go into Bibliographic Maintenance and create a Menu Type in CL-CAT Menu Maintenance.
The Search Menu contains options for searching the online catalog, and one option to enter the Internet submenu:
| Admin Help Page Maint Go To | | | | CL-CAT - Menu Maintenance | | 9:49 Menu Type 1:2 Menu Name | | [------------------------] [--------------------------------------------]| | | BAKPAC | | SEARCH MENU || | | DEFAULT | | INTERNET || | | CATNET | | || | | DPKCAT1 | | || | | DPKFS | | || | | DPKIAC | | || | [------------------------] [--------------------------------------------]| | | | Press <Tab> to move 1:10 Menu Options | | among windows, <F11> to [--------------------------------------------]| | add, <F7> to update, | ~Quick Search Q || | <F15> to delete. | ~Subject S || | | ~Author A || | Press <F4> for menu bar, | ~Title T || | <F3> to exit, <F2> for | Inter~net N || | help. | ~Infotrac I || | [--------------------------------------------]| [----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
This is how the menu is configured to allow the user to enter the Internet submenu:
| | | Menu Type CATNET | | Menu Name SEARCH MENU | | Option # 5 | | Function Submenu | | Message Inter~net N | | Function Options | | | | | | | | Next Menu INTERNET | | |
The Internet menu presents the patron with several options. They may run Lynx, which by default, on our system, will start on the CCS home page on the Web. They may also browse the index of telnet sites with Hytelnet. The other two options invoke Lynx to connect to the gopher server or Web server at North Suburban Library System.
| Admin Help Page Maint Go To | | | | CL-CAT - Menu Maintenance | | 9:49 Menu Type 2:2 Menu Name | | [------------------------] [--------------------------------------------]| | | BAKPAC | | SEARCH MENU || | | DEFAULT | | INTERNET || | | CATNET | | || | | DPKCAT1 | | || | | DPKFS | | || | | DPKIAC | | || | [------------------------] [--------------------------------------------]| | | | Press <Tab> to move 1:6 Menu Options | | among windows, <F11> to [--------------------------------------------]| | add, <F7> to update, | ~Lynx (World Wide Web) L || | <F15> to delete. | Hy~Telnet T || | | NSLS ~Gopher server G || | Press <F4> for menu bar, | NSLS ~WWW home page W || | <F3> to exit, <F2> for | ~Help H || | help. | E~xit X || | [--------------------------------------------]| [----------------------------------------------------------------------------]
Another program can be invoked from the CL-CAT menu:
| | | Menu Type CATNET | | Menu Name INTERNET | | Option # 1 | | Function System | | Message ~Lynx (World Wide Web) L | | Function Options /usr/local/bin/lynx -anonymous | | | | | | | | Next Menu INTERNET | | |
Library staff can request an individual account on our system for private email and other Internet access. The system presents the account-holder with this menu:
============================ Internet Resources ============================
[1] Pine Electronic Mail
[2] Lynx World Wide Web
[3] HyTelnet Database of telnet sites
[4] Telnet Connect to another site
[5] NSLS Telnet to NSLS
[6] NSLS Gopher Gopher server at NSLS
[7] Passwd Change your password
[X] EXIT Exit this menu and log out
Enter your selection and press [RET] :
This shell script displays the menu and acts on the user's selection:
The scripts gotelnet and gonsls are quite simple.
The user can specify the argument(s) to the telnet command with the gotelnet script. If the user hits return without supplying a destination, the script will end. If the argument(s) to telnet are invalid, the telnet program will generate an error message and the script will terminate gracefully.
The gonsls script gives the user brief instructions, and then attempts to telnet to a given destination--in this case the NSLS machine in Wheeling. Of course, the user could also specify this destination in "gotelnet", but for convenience we provide the menu option which calls this script.
Netscape is now the dominant World Wide Web browser. Over 60% of the requests made from our Web server are from Netscape users. (The figure is somewhat skewed, since those who use Lynx on our system retrieve files directly, not through the Web server.) Netscape also supports some extensions to HTML which have quickly become part of the vernacular on the Web. While Microsoft will give Netscape some serious competition, Netscape is in a strong position to exert a great deal of influence on the development of the Web in the next few years.
Netscape is available from numerous sources, including:
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/netscape/
ftp://ftp2.netscape.com/netscape/
ftp://ftp3.netscape.com/netscape/
ftp://unicron.unomaha.edu/pub/netscape/
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/packages/infosystems/WWW/clients/Netscape/
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/packages/www/Netscape/
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/packages/www/Netscape/
Microsoft includes a graphical Web browser with Windows 95. After using it only very briefly, it appears to work acceptably well, but we experienced immediate problems during a telnet session. The terminal emulation was configured for VT100, but it did not recognize many terminal command sequences (e.g. to clear the screen and set the cursor position).
Several other graphical Web browsers are available. Information about other WWW clients is available at:
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Clients.html
Some of the information on that page may not be up-to-date.
Take a look at the source code for program written in C which may be used as a shell in /etc/passwd to start a non-captive CL-CAT job for certain login names. This requires two files in the user's home directory. Environment variables are specified in the file "ENV", and command-line arguments are specified in "ARG". The format of environment variables in the file must be VARIABLE=value. Command-line arguments are to be supplied one on each line, but otherwise exactly as they would be on a typed command-line, including the "-".