Info on ph name server requested

[Paul Pomes - UofIllinois CSO]

pmm at mips.COM (Paul M. Moriarty) writes:

>A couple of weeks ago, somebody posted some information on the ph
>nameserver that would supply information about a specific user by
>querying a name server.
>
>This was posted a couple of weeks ago and I thought I had saved it but
>it turns out that I didn't.

Ph is the client portion of the UIUC/CSO developed nameserver.  qi (Query
Interpreter) is the central server and is derived from the CSnet program
of the same name.  qi handles a database of over 60,000 entries and
encompasses the student/staff phone book, the unit directory, all Champaign-
Urbana restaurants, plus hourly updated weather conditions and forecasts.

Ph examines argv[0] to set the lookup type.  "weather pdx" returns the
Portland, Oregon current conditions, "unit biology" prints the phone
number of the Biology Dept, and "ph robert penka" prints information
about my manager.

A whois server interface is also provided.  Try "whois -h ns.uiuc.edu pomes".

Phquery is a back-end to sendmail that translates addresses of the form
foo at uiuc.edu to actual addresses.  It uses a fuzzy matching system that
first tries foo as a unique ph alias, then variations of the person's name.
If none or multiple matches are found, the message is bounced with a
helpful error message and a list of alternatives.

Sources for all the above are available via anon-FTP from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
in the directories net/qi, net/ph, and mail/sendmail/uiuc.  A compressed
tar archive of the UIUC mail system is in pub/sendmail-5.64+IDA-1.3.5.tar.Z .

A mailing list for qi/ph/phquery announcements and discussions can be joined
by a message to info-ph-request at uxc.cso.uiuc.edu .

/pbp
--
         Paul Pomes

UUCP: {att,iuvax,uunet}!uiucuxc!paul   Internet, BITNET: paul at uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
US Mail:  UofIllinois, CSO, 1304 W Springfield Ave, Urbana, IL  61801-2910