Ultimate User Control: Bibhost Configuration

Bibliographic protocol is designed to support a natural hierarchy of default bibliographic services so that most users need never worry about explicitly specifying one.

But if you want to you can. Reasons that you might want to include the following.

  1. You know of an external bibliographic service provider that provides service more to your liking than the default bibhost for your domain.
  2. There is no local bibhost for your domain and you are unsatisfied with default global services.
  3. You are using an Internet Service Provider whose domain is different from your usual working domain. For example, you have ISP services through myISP.com, but you want services from bibhost.myUniversity.edu in your normal working domain.
  4. You want to install and operate a personal bibliographic server for access to your own reference collection and holdings with backup from library, publisher and global services.

I. The DNS-Based Configuration Concept

Bibliographic protocol uses the relative name bibhost under the Domain Name System (DNS) to specify a local bibliographic service. Simply put, you tell your computer what bibliographic service provider it should use for bibhost and you're done.

One of the advantages of DNS-based configuration is that you only need do it once for all the different web clients you may use. No need to set a local configuration option for each different browser.

DNS-based configuration is also flexible. It gives you two basic methods of specifying your bibhost.

  1. Direct specification of bibhost by using the IP address of your bibliographic service provider.
  2. Indirect specification by defining a search domain within which bibhost may be found.

Which method to use may depend on considerations such as the following.

II. Direct Method: Setting a Bibhost IP Address

Most operating systems provide a hosts file for explicitly registering names and IP addresses of internet services. The following table identifies typical locations for this file on various operating systems. The hypertext links may let you confirm the location of the file and view its contents.
OSTypical Hosts File Location
Linux/Unix/etc/hosts
BeOS/boot/beos/etc/hosts
Windows 95/98/Me working file: c:\windows\hosts
sample file: c:\windows\hosts.sam
Windows NT/2000working file: c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
sample file: c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.sam
MacHosts in your Preferences folder.
perhaps Macintosh HD:System Folder:Preferences:Hosts

Linux/Unix/Windows

If you don't have a working file, you'll need to make one by copying the sample file before proceeding further. You may have to login with system administrator priveleges (e.g., root access under Linux/Unix) to work with this file.

Once you've found your hosts file, you simply need to update it to define the IP address for bibhost. Just edit the file to add a line specifying the IP address for your bibhost service. For example, you could add the line 

127.0.0.1 bibhost
if you have installed a personal bibligraphic server on your own computer. To use another bibliographic service provider, use a similar line, but with the service provider's IP address instead of 127.0.0.1.

If you are uncomfortable with directly editing system configuration files, you may want to use a GUI configuration program that comes with your operating system. For example, under Linux, you may be able to use the linuxconf program: choose "Networking" and then "Information about other hosts" under the "Misc" tab to bring up the window entitled "/etc/hosts".

Macintosh

The Macintosh Hosts file uses a different format. Consult your documentation.

III. Indirect Method: Setting a Search Domain

Most operating systems provide a method for specifying the default or search domains for interpretation of relative DNS names like bibhost. If the default domain is myUniversity.edu, then bibhost is interpreted as bibhost.myUniversity.edu. If multiple search domains are specified, then each of them may be consulted in turn for a bibhost.

Linux/Unix

Under Linux/Unix the conventional way of setting the default or search domains is through the file /etc/resolv.conf. This file may contain either a single domain directive or a single search directive.

To configure a default or search domain, you can login as root and edit the /etc/resolv.conf file. If you just want a single default domain (and bibhost exists in this domain, you should use a domain directive such as the following. 

domain myUniversity.edu
Alternatively, you may want to use a line such as 
search myISP.com myUniversity.edu
to specify two different domains to be searched. Once you've made these changes, your bibhost service should be locatable.

Under Linux, you may want to use the GUI program linuxconf to carry out these changes. After starting linuxconf, choose "Networking" and then "Name Server Specification" to bring up a window entitled "Resolver configuration". Enter your domain information in the appropriate boxes.

Windows

Windows does not have a resolv.conf file that can be edited, but does allow search domains to be set through Control Panel. Open up the Network icon, and select "TCP/IP" for configuration. Find the "DNS Configuration" area and make the appropriate changes under "DNS Server Search Order".