---
name: "gopherd.conf"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "gopherd"
version: "3.0.3woody2"
release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/gopherd.conf"
---

# gopherd.conf(5)

configuration file for gopherd(8)

## NAME

gopherd.conf - configuration file for [gopherd(8)](/gopherd/8.md)

## DESCRIPTION

The **gopherd.conf** file contains a list of directives that alter the behaviour of the [**gopherd**(8)](/gopherd/8.md) server.  It is composed of lines of the form:

-

  *Token: Value*

Tokens are case insensitive and the value field will change, depending on the token.  A pound sign ("#") at the beginning of a line signifies a comment line.

*Quick pseudo grammar*

-

  ```
  Abstract: <Abstract Information>
  Admin: <Administrator Name/Info>
  AdminEmail: <Email address of Administrator of the server>
  Hostalias: <DNS alias name>
  Site: <Name of site>
  Org: <Organization or group owning the site>
  Loc: <city, state, country>
  Logfile:  <filename>
  Geog: <latitude> <longitude>
  Language: <default language>
  ViewExt: <extension> <Gophertype> <Prefix> <Gopher+Type> [Langauge]
  BlockExt: <extension> <Blockname>
  BlockRefExt: <extension> <Blockname>
  Ignore: <extension>
  Ignore_patt: <regular expression>
  Decoder: <extension> <decoderprogram>
  SecureUsers: <tix-filename>
  Access: <domain name|ip fragment|"default"> <[!](browse|read|search)+> <maxsessions>
  Bummermsg: <message>
  VeronicaIndex: <yes/no>
  Cachetime: <time in seconds>
  auxconf: <gopher-selector> <auxilliary-config-file>
  Authitem: <authentication method> <regexp> [<password file> <list of groups>]
  FileSep: <separation regular expression>
  Include: <another gopherd.conf file>
  MaxConnections: <max concurrent sessions>
  GroupDir: <directory containing group files>
  ```

The following tokens are recognized

- *hostalias:*

  changes the hostname that is returned by the server.  This is useful when the gopher server is defined by a CNAME record in the DNS system.

- *Abstract:*

  sets an abstract for the server as a whole.  If you want to have a multiline abstract put a backslash character (\\) at the end of the line you wish to continue.

- *Admin:*

  The name of the administrator.  It may contain a name, a phone number, etc.

- *AdminEmail:*

  An email address where the administrator can be reached.

- *Site:*

  The name of the site, such as **Turnip Research and Development Labs**

- *Loc:*

  The physical location of the site, put stuff like the City, State, and country in this field.

- *Geog:*

  The lattitude and longitude of the server location.  For instance, the entry for Minneapolis, MN, USA would be: **44 58 48 N 93 15 49 W**

- *Language:*

  The ANSI language of the site, as used by setlocale().  Here are some sample settings:

-

   Danish                  Da\_DK\
    Dutch (Belgium)         Nl\_BE\
    Dutch                   Nl\_NL\
    English (Great Britian) En\_GB\
    English (US)            En\_US\
    Finnish                 Fi\_FI\
    French (Belgium)        Fr\_BE\
    French (Canada)         Fr\_CA\
    French (Switzerland)    Fr\_CH\
    French                  Fr\_FR\
    German (Switzerland)    De\_CH\
    German                  De\_DE\
    Greek                   El\_GR\
    Icelandic               Is\_IS\
    Italian                 It\_IT\
    Japanese                Jp\_JP\
    Norwegian               No\_NO\
    Portuguese              Pt\_PT\
    Spanish                 Es\_ES\
    Swedish                 Sv\_SE\
    Turkish                 Tr\_TR

- *Cachetime:*

  sets the time (in seconds) to cache gopher directory listings into the files named **.cache** and  **.cache+**

- *ViewExt:*

  maps a filename extension onto a particular gopher type.  The first parameter is a case insensitive extension like **.gif.** The next parameter is the single character gopher type (1,0,I,etc...) The third parameter is a prefix that will be appended to the normal filename path.  The fourth parameter is the gopher+ view attribute or Internet Media Type (formerly called MIME Content Types), such as **image/gif** The optional fifth parameter is a language to use for the file instead of the default language.

- *Ignore:*

  specifies a filename extension to ignore completely.  Files matching the ignore criteria are never presented to the gopher user.  However, ignoring files does not protect them from prying eyes.

- *Ignore\_patt:*

  specifies a regular expression for filenames to not include in directory listings presented to clients. Ignoring files does not protect them from prying eyes.

- *BlockExt:*

  specifies that a file with a particular extension is to be mapped to a specific gopher+ attribute block.  For instance the line: **BlockExt: .abstract ABSTRACT** would map all files with the extension .abstract into an abstract for the file without the abstract extension.

- *BlockExtRef:*

  Alias of *BlockExt*.

- *Decoder:*

  specifies that the given program will be run on the given extension when the file is retrieved.  This is most often used for compressed files.

- *SecureUsers:*

  specifies account file for AUTH1 access protocol.

- *VeronicaIndex:*

  defines a crude control of whether or not *Veronica* servers should index this tree. Valid values: "no" to forbid, anything else to allow.

- *BummerMsg:*

  specifies a message that will be presented to the client when access is denied.

- *MaxConnections:*

  allows you to control access to your server by limiting access to a maximum number of concurrent sessions.  When this maximum is reached connections will be refused.  You can gain a finer level of control by using the access: keywords.

- *Access:*

  allows you to set who can browse directories, read files, and search your system.  The first parameter is a domain name component ( like .micro.umn.edu), a fragment of an IP address (like 129.42.172), or the special key "default"  The second parameter is a list of comma separated words defining the access for the particular match, optionally beginning with a negation character (!).  The four words that define access levels are "browse", "read", "search", and "ftp". For instance, to allow reading and browsing, and usage of local gopher/ftp gateway, but not searching specify "read,browse,!search,ftp" for the second parameter.

  If you're using the site access system, you'll want to set the default access level \*first\*.  All following entries inherit the default that you set.  For instance, if your default is "!read,!browse,!search,!ftp" and you want to turn on browse access for a certain machine you can just specify "browse", not "!read,browse,!search,!ftp"

  You can also limit access based on the amount of concurrent transactions.  An error message is returned once the maximum number of connections have been reached..

- *Authscript:*

  allows you to specify an authentication script that will be run for a specific access method.  The script will be run with the user environment set as follows:

    GOPHER\_USER    The username typed in the form.\
     GOPHER\_PW      The password typed in the form.\
     GOPHER\_HOST    The full dns name of the client.\
     GOPHER\_IP      The ip# of the client.

  The script should return the following result values:

    0   User is okay.\
     1   The password is bad.\
     2   The password is expired.\
     3   The user does not exist.\
     \>4  Other error.

- *Authitem:*

  allows you to specify username and password authentication for a given item.  The first parameter is the authentication method.  This will be etc/passwd file in the gopher-data directory or a script method that was previously defined with an **Authscript:** line in gopherd.conf.

  The second parameter is the item to authenticate.  This can be a directory name, a file or a regular expression.

  Two optional parameters are available when using the unixfile authentication method.

  You can specify a third parameter for a specific password file to use. An optional fourth parameter specifies a group access list.  Multiple groups are separated by commas.  See the section on GroupDir: for more information on managing groups.

   Here are some examples:

   Authitem: unix /documents/secure\
    Authitem: unixfile /README etc/mypasswd staff,admin\
    Authitem: myscript .\*/Protected

  The first example protects the directory /docuemnts/secure and it's contents by asking for a valid username and password combination from the system's default passwd file.

  The second protects the file /README in the same fashion, except it looks in the {gopher-data}/etc/mypasswd file for a valid username and password, and only allows users in the staff and admin group access.

  The third protects all items named 'Protected' by asking for a valid username and password that gets passed to the script defined for the myscript authentication method.  A line like the following must precede this line.

    Authscript: myscript /bin/authenticate-me

  To actually generate the form for authentication you will need to put a link on your server that has the same path as the authenticated item with the word 'validate ' prepended to it.  Here is a sample link:

   Type=1?\
    Name=Secure Documents\
    Path=validate 1/documents/secure\
    Host=+\
    Port=+

- *Serverpw:*

  allows you to specify the internal server password used to encode tickets for  **Authitem:** items.

- *Filesep:*

  allows you to split files into a gopher directory.  The single argument is a regular expression that denotes the lines that separate the sections of the file.  (i.e. a row of dashes)  You can specify any legal regular expression here.

  Note that the first line of the file to be split must match this expression to be a canidate for splitting.

- *Include:*

  allows you to process the contents of another configuration file.  You could separate out options into different files with this option.

  The single argument is the name of a file that contains the options you wish to load.  If the filename does not begin with a slash (/) the server tries to open the file in the SERVERDIR directory defined in Makefile.config.

  Currently you can next include directives ten levels deep.  Further includes will generate an error message after 10 levels.

- *GroupDir:*

  allows you to specify a directory that contains one or more group files.  The format of a group file is very simple.  To create a new group, you create a new file with the name of the group.  For instance, to create the group staff, you would create a new text file called 'staff' inside your specific GroupDir.

  To add a user to a group you simply add the user to the appropriate file.  List each username on a line by itself.

  To actually use these groups you should refer to the documentation on the Authitem: line.

*Sample gopherd.conf file*

-

   \#\
    \# The name we want to be known as\
    \#\
    hostalias: gopher.turnip.com

   \# How long a .cache or .cache+ file is valid (in seconds)\
    Cachetime: 180

   \# Administrator

   Admin: Bob Bagel, Turnip Postmaster and Gopher support 1-800-555-1212 \
    AdminEmail: gopher@turnip.com

   \#\
    \# Site description\
    \#

   Site: Turnip Research and Development labs\
    Org: Turnip Incorporated\
    Loc: Minneapolis, MN, USA\
    Geog: 44 58 48 N 93 15 49 W\
    Language: En\_US

   \#\
    \# Extension mapping\
    \#

   \# Files the server needs to decode before sending\
    decoder: .Z /usr/ucb/zcat\
    decoder: .gz /usr/gnu/bin/zcat

   \# Different Languages\
    viewext: .txt.spanish 0 0 Text/plain Es\_ES\
    viewext: .txt.german 0 0 Text/plain De\_DE\
    viewext: .txt.french 0 0 Text/plain Fr\_FR

   viewext: .hqx 4 0 application/mac-binhex40

   \#\
    \# Graphics file formats\
    \#\
    viewext: .gif I 9 image/gif\
    viewext: .tiff I 9 image/TIFF\
    viewext: .jpg I 9 image/JPEG

   \#\
    \# Sounds\
    \#\
    viewext: .au s s audio/basic\
    viewext: .snd s s audio/basic\
    viewext: .wav s s audio/microsoft-wave

   \#\
    \# Movies\
    \#\
    viewext: .mov ; 9 video/quicktime\
    viewext: .mpg ; 9 video/mpeg

   \#\
    \# Binary files\
    \#\
    viewext: .zip 5 9 application/zip\
    viewext: .arj 5 9 application/x-arj

   \#\
    \# Various forms of text\
    \#\
    viewext: .ps 0 0 application/postscript\
    viewext: .tex 0 0 application/x-tex\
    viewext: .dvi 0 9 application/x-dvi\
    viewext: .troff 0 0 Text/x-troff

   \#\
    \# These are defined by IANA..\
    \#\
    viewext: .rtf 0 0 application/rtf\
    viewext: .word 0 0 application/MSWord\
    viewext: .mw 0 0 application/MacWriteII\
    viewext: .wp 0 0 application/dca-rft\
    viewext: .rch 0 0 Text/richtext\
    viewext: .wri 9 9 application/Microsoft-write

   viewext: .smell 9 9 smell/funky

   \#\
    \#\
    viewext: .mindex 7 mindex: application/gopher-menu\
    viewext: .src 7 waissrc: Directory\
    viewext: .html h 0 text/html

   \#\
    \# Map files to certain blocks\
    \#

   blockext: .abstract ABSTRACT\
    blockext: .ask ASK

   \#\
    \# Error message generated for non local hosts\
    \#\
    Bummermsg: Sorry no access for non turnipheads.

   \# scratch directory for concurrent session load limiting.\
    \# Needs to be inside your gopher-data directory if running chrooted.\
    \#\
    PIDS\_Directory: /pids

   \# Don't allow anyone to read or browse, nor ftp via us, \
    \# anyone can search though.\
    access: default         !browse,!read,!ftp,search\
    \#\
    \# allow any hostname that ends with \
    \# turnip.com to browse, read, and ftp\
    \#\
    access: .turnip.com 	browse,read,ftp\
    \#\
    \# Allow anyone on a class C network \
    \# (starting with 192) to browse\
    \#\
    access: 192.		browse\
    \#\
    \# Allow anyone on the 128.101.193 network \
    \# to read from us.\
    \#\
    access: 128.101.193  	read\
    \#\
    \# Turn off searching for these bozos\
    \# they can't do anything\
    \#\
    access: bozo.org	!search

## SEE ALSO

*Media Type Registration Procedure*, March 1994, RFC 1590