This chapter discusses how to perform various tasks using InfoSearch. It contains the following sections:
InfoSearch provides an interface for searching, browsing, and viewing online information available on your system, a local server, or the Technical Publications Library on the World Wide Web. Online books, release notes, and man pages can be accessed through InfoSearch.
InfoSearch allows you to search all or some of the available online information, or browse by clicking the appropriate category.
If you have access to a web browser, such as Netscape Communicator, InfoSearch is also available at http://techpubs.sgi.com/infosearch
InfoSearch divides the online documentation into the following three categories:
“Online Books”: All the online books available from the desktop
“Man Pages”: All the UNIX reference pages available on your system
“Release Notes”: The release-specific installation notes for all your installed products or groups of products
You can find information by either “Searching” or “Browsing” through any or all of the above categories.
 | Tip: You can resize your InfoSearch window the same way as any desktop window. Click the left mouse button on a corner or a side of the window frame, and drag to resize. The InfoSearch window will be set to the new size the next time it launches. |
| Tip: To get help on managing your personal system, it may be easier for you to browse using the System Manager by clicking System > System Manager from the Toolchest. This contains interactive guides on many topics, such as scheduling a back-up, or improving your system security. |
To begin a search, type a word in the Search text field (see Figure 2-1) and click the “search” button (see “Search Syntax” or “Boolean Search Syntax” for more information). The “Results Page” will then report the results of this search. Each search result is prepended with a word to indicate the type of the document that was found. See Table 1-1 for a further explanation of the three document types.
Each of the hits reported on the Results Page has an prefix associated with it to tell you which category the information came from. See Table 1-1 for further details
Table 1-1. InfoSearch search results and document categories
Prefix | Category | Description |
|---|---|---|
Book: | Online Books | An online book or help system that gives you detailed information about your software or hardware. |
Man: | Man Pages | A UNIX reference page that describes a shell command, a system call or a library routine. |
Relnote: | Release Notes | Product-specific release information that supplements the standard documentation. |
See Table 1-2 for InfoSearch search syntax and search results for the sample words “disk drive.” Note that InfoSearch is always case insensitive. You can also use the “Boolean Search Syntax” in InfoSearch.
Table 1-2. InfoSearch Search Syntax
Syntax | Hit Results |
|---|---|
disk drive | disk AND drive and disk OR drive. Higher ranking given to results containing both words; lesser ranking given to results containing one word or the other. |
“disk drive” | Find the word disk followed immediately by the word drive. |
disk +drive | drive MUST be contained in all results. Higher ranking given to documents which also contain the word disk. |
+disk drive | disk MUST be contained in all results. Higher ranking given to results which also contain drive. |
disk -drive | Results must NOT contain drive. Higher ranking given to those with disk. |
disk drive* | Wildcard used at the end of a word to find multiple characters. May not be used at the beginning or in the middle of a word; and cannot be used in conjunction with only one character (this is type of search is considered to be “too general” a search). |
disk drive? | Wildcard used at the end of a word to find one character. May not be used at the beginning or in the middle of a word. |
InfoSearch also supports standard boolean search grammar. See Table 1-3 for supported boolean search syntax and hit results for the sample words “disk” and “drive”
Table 1-3. Boolean Search Syntax
Syntax | Hit Results |
|---|---|
disk AND drive | Results MUST contain disk AND drive. |
disk OR drive | Results MUST contain either disk OR drive (or both) |
disk NOT drive | Results MUST contain disk but NOT drive. |
You can use InfoSearch to browse if you are unsure about what you are looking for, or just want to see what is available on a particular topic. To begin browsing from the “Home Page”, click one of the three document types shown in Figure 2-1—“Online Books,” “Man Pages,” or “Release Notes”—and continue choosing where you want to browse from the list of documents reported on the “Results Page” (see Figure 2-3).
You must install all the content that you want to access through InfoSearch on the system that is your InfoSearch server. You can do this typically either from an installation CD-ROM, or from the installation images on your local network.
You should keep your content updated so that your database matches what is available on your local network and InfoSearch can access that information.
To install or update the content you must perform these steps.
Type su (super-user) to obtain root access to your system.
Type setenv MANPATH or setenv RELNOTESPATH to set the MANPATH and RELNOTESPATH environment variables to the location where your man pages and release notes reside, if the files are outside of the standard areas (/usr/share/catman and /usr/relnotes).
Type /usr/lib/infosearch/bin/sgindexAdmin -update to update the InfoSearch database with the latest information.
This causes the full-text index to be updated. It can take a while. As an example, an 85-book online library might take approximately 20 minutes.
To function properly, the InfoSearch server requires that the following items be installed and running on the server system:
A web server such as OutBox (with DOCROOT set to /var/www/htdocs)
A Dynaweb server (to act as a server for the online books)
You can add a server in the following way:
Type the pathname of the server you want to add in the InfoSearch Server text field in the Server pane.
Click the Open Location button or hit Enter.
The server will now launch, and show up in your server list. You can view the full server list by clicking the Recycle button in the server pane (see Figure 2-1).
You can delete a server in the following way:
Click Session > Edit Server List.
Highlight as many servers as you want to delete in the Edit Server dialog box
Click the Remove Server(s) button.
Click OK for your modifications to take effect, or click Cancel to cancel the operation.
The servers are now deleted from your list.