Download Alkaline for Windows NT/2000/XP. Navigate to http://www.vestris.com/download/WinNT/ and download asearch.1.9.WindowsNT-ix86.zip. You are also free to choose a current Alkaline beta version which always have the latest improvements from the live source tree. Windows NT for Dec Alpha is not supported, you must have an x86-based configuration.
Connect to your Windows NT server using Terminal Server or login normally as a normal user or an Administrator. The administrative privileges are not required unless you want to run Alkaline as an NT service.
Alkaline has no graphical user interface. It is a direct port from the UNIX version. You must open a DOS prompt to execute the commands explained below. To do that, click on Start -> Run, type in cmd.exe and click OK. A black DOS prompt windows will appear.
Use WinZip, pkunzip or any other compressor program to unzip asearch.1.9.WindowsNT-ix86.zip into any directory. Several files will be extracted in the Alkaline.1.9 directory, among them the Alkaline executable, asearch.exe and the administration pages directory, admin .
06/13/00 08:06a 483,328 asearch.exe
02/23/00 12:51p 1,414 CONTRIBUTIONS
02/23/00 12:51p 1,438 COPYRIGHT
02/23/00 12:51p 720 README
02/23/00 12:51p <DIR> admin
02/23/00 12:51p <DIR> demos
02/23/00 12:51p <DIR> docs
02/23/00 12:51p <DIR> faqs
02/23/00 12:51p <DIR> tools
5 File(s) 486,900 bytes
7 Dir(s)
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Test the executable. Run asearch.exe .
N:\asearch.1.9> asearch
========================================================
Alkaline Search Engine, Version 1.9 (Jul 18 2000) for Windows NT
(c) Vestris Inc., Switzerland - 1994-1999 - All Rights Reserved
written by Daniel Doubrovkine and Hassan Sultan, University of Geneva
http://alkaline.vestris.com - dblock@vestris.com / hsultan@vestris.com
========================================================
usage: asearch [options] port path [path2 ...]
asearch [options] path-to-asearch.cnf command ...
port: port to bind and listen to, ex: 9999
path: relative path(s) to asearch.cnf files
options: please refer to the users guide
command: one of reindex, email, emailall, remove, rxmatch, rxrepl, etc.
_______________________________________________________________
for more information, please refer to http://alkaline.vestris.com
N:\asearch.1.9>
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Alkaline is now ready for a quick demo. Run
N:\asearch.1.9> ./asearch.exe 9999 demos\docs
==================================================
Alkaline Search Engine, Version 1.9 (May 28 2000) for Windows NT
(c) Vestris Inc., Switzerland - 1994-2002 - All Rights Reserved
written by Daniel Doubrovkine and Hassan Sultan, University of Geneva
http://alkaline.vestris.com - dblock@vestris.com / hsultan@vestris.com
==================================================
[checking post 1.3 configuration] {
[verifying that (demos\docs\asearch.cnf) exists]
[file exists (61 bytes)]
[loading global.cnf] {
[Redirect=/admin/]
[AdminPath=admin]
[DocumentPath=demos/images,docs,faqs]
} loaded 31 bytes.
[warning, you should define at least a root password in global.cnf]
[Alkaline server (Apr 2 2002) running, binding to 9999]
[loading N:\asearch.1.9>\demos\docs\asearch.cnf] {
[UrlList=file:///docs/,file:///faqs]
[Index.html=index.html]
[RegExp][enabled for 0 element(s)]
} loaded 1 inline configuration.
[newly added to Alkaline list: Demos/docs ]
[reloading Demos/docs]
[loading indexes] {
[no index files found (clean index)]
} done.
[indexing thread running - lazy mode]
[01:02:36 2002-04-02][building index in Demos/docs]
[01:02:56 2002-04-02][done building index in Demos/docs]
[01:02:57 2002-04-02][(re)indexing of Demos/docs processed 292 new/modified files in 0:21 min]
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While the engine is running, navigate to http://localhost:9999/ with your web browser. The admin section of your search engine server will appear. You can select the documentation configuration under Server Parameters -> Server Configurations -> demos/docs and perform searches on it.
Download the sample configuration files from http://alkaline.vestris.com/install/install-sample.zip and unzip it into the installation directory. Make sure you preserve subdirectories. The resulting directory is available at http://alkaline.vestris.com/install/ .
Use notepad or any other text editor to modify the downloaded files as follows.
In global.cnf: if necessary, create or modify the root password; do not use your machine's administrative password
N:\asearch.1.9> type global.cnf
Pass root=test
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In vestris\asearch.cnf: modify the server you wish to index, you can try the demo with http://www.vestris.com/.
N:\asearch.1.9> type vestris\asearch.cnf
UrlList=http://www.vestris.com
Remote=N
ExcludeWords=dicos/english.txt
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In vestris\search.html: modify the server name (www.vestris.com) by your machine's IP number or server name. You can use localhost for your local machine.
N:\asearch.1.9> type vestris\search.html
...
<form action="http://www.big-server.com:9999/vestris/search.html"
method="post">
...
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You can now create a first time index. Alkaline will spider the site defined in asearch.cnf following the rules of the same configuration file. This is also called a clean index. When you run Alkaline in production, it is capable of indexing in background while search is enabled.
To index the site defined by vestris\asearch.cnf, type asearch.exe vestris reindex .
N:\asearch.1.9> asearch.exe vestris reindex
======================================================
Alkaline Search Engine, Version 1.9 (Jul 18 2000) for Windows NT
(c) Vestris Inc., Switzerland - 1994-1999 - All Rights Reserved
written by Daniel Doubrovkine and Hassan Sultan, University of Geneva
http://alkaline.vestris.com - dblock@vestris.com / hsultan@vestris.com
======================================================
[loading /home/dblock/server-prod/t/vestris/asearch.cnf]{
[UrlList=http://www.vestris.com/]
[Remote=N]
[Excludewords=dicos/english.txt]
} loaded 1 inline configuration.
[loading indexes (zero length files are ok)] {
[vestris/siteidx1.urt][0 lines]
[vestris/siteidx1.inf][0 lines]
[building the md5 tree][*****]
[vestris/siteidx1.lnx][0 lines]
[checking cross-references, ok]
[vestris/siteidx1.ndx][0 lines]
} done.
[parsing extensions: htm,html,shtml,txt]
[processed 0/0 resource locators]
[calculating aim [**********] - 0 indexed URLs]
[robots request for http://www.vestris.com/robots.txt][122 bytes]
[/cgi-bin/][/db-cgi/][/cgi-agnes/][/~dblock/][/alkaline/dicos/]
[ExcludeWords][loading dicos/english.txt][35666 bytes][8937 elements]
[http://www.vestris.com/] (-1) - [1228 bytes][0]
[inf][lnx][md5][vix][keys][mta][ndx][ok]
...
[http://www.vestris.com/sti/company.html] (-3) - [5982 bytes][294]
[inf][lnx][md5][vix][keys][mta][ndx][ok]
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This might take some time. You can safely interrupt Alkaline with Ctrl+C after you see
[writing databases] {
[inf][**********]
[lnx][**********]
[url][**********]
[ndx][**********]
} done.
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The following files will be created in the vestris directory: siteidx1.urt, siteidx1.lnx, siteidx1.ndx, siteidx1.inf.
N:\asearch.1.9> dir vestris\
Directory of N:\asearch.1.9\vestris
06/14/00 09:35a 33 asearch.cnf
06/14/00 09:36a 69,404 siteidx1.inf
06/14/00 09:36a 2,953 siteidx1.lnx
06/14/00 09:36a 183,827 siteidx1.ndx
06/14/00 09:36a 15,760 siteidx1.urt
7 File(s) 271,977 bytes
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Run the server by typing asearch.exe 9999 vestris . Ultimately, you will have to install Alkaline as an NT service.
N:\asearch.1.9> asearch.exe 9999 vestris
=====================================================
Alkaline Search Engine, Version 1.9 (May 28 2000) for Linux
(c) Vestris Inc., Switzerland - 1994-1999 - All Rights Reserved
written by Daniel Doubrovkine and Hassan Sultan, University of Geneva
http://alkaline.vestris.com - dblock@vestris.com / hsultan@vestris.com
=====================================================
[checking post 1.3 configuration] {
[verifying that (vestris/asearch.cnf) exists]
[file exists (77 bytes)]
[surveillance thread running]
[(re)reading global.cnf]{
[setting password for {root}]
} loaded 15 bytes.
Alkaline server (Jul 18 2000) running.
[loading vestris/asearch.cnf]{
[UrlList=http://www.vestris.com/]
[Remote=N]
[Excludewords=dicos/english.txt]
} loaded 1 inline configuration.
[newly added to Alkaline list: vestris ]
[reloading vestris]
[loading indexes (zero length files are ok)] {
[vestris/siteidx1.urt][1234 lines]
[vestris/siteidx1.inf][1234 lines]
[building the md5 tree][*****]
[vestris/siteidx1.lnx][1234 lines]
[checking cross-references, ok]
[vestris/siteidx1.ndx][45678 lines]
} done.
[indexing thread running - lazy mode]
[parsing extensions: htm,html,shtml,txt]
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Try to connect to the administrative pages. Navigate to http://www.your-server:9999/ and login using the username root and the password you have entered in global.cnf above.
Now try to search. Open the search-demo.html page using a normal browser such as MS Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, and try to search something - you should get immediate results.
You can also try to navigate to the following URL: http://www.your-server:9999/vestris/search.html?search=test directly.
It is safe to terminate Alkaline with a Ctrl-C. You can stop a running server from the online administrative console. Alternatively, the Alkaline tools set contains an AlkalineStop.pl perl script. You can also kill Alkaline from the Task Manager although this doesn't give Alkaline a chance to properly cleanup temporary files or make sure that it is not in the middle of writing an index (which would corrupt it).