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Re: LYNX-DEV Using Lynx on the server side


From: Chris Gray
Subject: Re: LYNX-DEV Using Lynx on the server side
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 08:59:02 +0000 (GMT)


On Tue, 24 Mar 1998, Kristin McNally wrote:

> I have recently been given the task lf deciding whether the Lynx browser
> could fill a need that has come up at work.  Since I don't know very
> much about the browser itself, I thought I should investigate before
> giving my boss an answer. 
> 
> Here is the problem:
> 
> Currently, my company receives input from a "dumb" vt100 terminal via a
> telephone line and that data is then sent to a database for safe
> keeping.  Currently the application that handles the interface for the
> vt100 terminal uses .txt files for retrieveing the appropriate menus and
> sends data back to the data base as streams of characters.  But now, my
> company wants to give access to these "menus' via the www as well.  What
> they would like to do is have ONE SET of html documents that represent
> the menus for collecting data and somehow make them work on the "dumb"
> vt100 terminals.
> 
> Is is possible to set up Lynx on the server side and have it handle
> multiple com ports dialing into it and redirecting its output to the
> vt100 terminals?

I think this is looking at it a bit backwards.  Normally if I use my
vt100 emulator to dial up someplace, I get a login prompt and after
logging in I am connected to [an instance of] the program which has
been set up as my "default login shell": in one place this might be
tcsh, in another pine, in yet another lynx.  But it's not tcsh or
pine or lynx that is "handling multiple com ports dialing into it
and redirecting its output", it's the tty-handling part of the OS
that handles all that.

So the normal way to do what you're asking for would be to have a 
group of dialup users whose "default shell" is lynx.  You'll probably
want to tell lynx to use your company's public www server as a proxy,
in order to keep it contained.

> Be advised that on the server side, the os will be NT 4.0, meaning that
> lynx will have to run as a console application, which gives great
> restriction for accessing or redirecting std i/o.

I know nothing of NT, but I find it hard to believe that they'd make 
it impossible to run a basic terminal server.  Then again, the machine
running lynx doesn't have to be the same as the one running the httpd,
does it?  Any machine on the company LAN could do it.  What about the
one that's derving the dial-up lines today?

> Any help or suggestions to this problem will be greatly appreciated.

Two things you should realise are "non-trivial, but worth the effort":

1. writing HTML that works for both lynx and GUI browsers.  Truly
   tabular data is the hardest to handle, unless you can live with
   the "ugliness" of PRE: the rest is a state of mind.

2. having both external internet connections and dial-in modems on
   the same LAN will require you to think about security issues you
   may not previously have thought of.

That much being said, good luck. :)

 --

  Chris Gray            address@hidden    address@hidden


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