isbnsearch-0.41 released

isbnsearch-0.41

The greatest limitation on any isbnsearch site is the size of the database files. On webhosts, webspace costs money and most hosting accounts offer hundreds of time less storage than a home system. This can translate into
millions of extra ISBN records. To tap into this resource, v0.41 of isbnsearch has been adapted to access systems that are installed behind firewalls and using dynamic or static IP broadband connections. These portals are called 'private' and divided into 'internet-visible' and 'non-visible'.

There are two new files in www/, designed to help an indexserver to communicate with linked portals, other indexservers or private sites. missing.php does not
need configuration.

matching.php is a new script and will be a useful tool in the overall distributed framework for isbnsearch.

Indexservers can now arrange to share data with other indexservers to reduce the number of pending records listed on overloaded indexservers. It should be called
from your local indexserver and can query all pending records of the chosen remote indexserver, 1,000 titles at a time. Any records on your site that match pending records on the remote site will be written to a temporary XML file,
temp/missing.xml. matching.php then offers a WWW link to the chosen indexserver to allow collection of the XML file. You will see the results of the import and be provided with a suitable link back to your own indexserver with the next 1,000 records. It is possible to automate this process using GNU/Linux utilities like wget - please report all experiences to the mailing list.

The chosen indexserver MUST be configured to accept data from your site. Operators must request this service from the maintainer of the chosen indexserver using the mailing list by giving the full URL of their site. The indexserver maintainer can then verify the availability of your site - if this fails or is unacceptably slow, the indexserver maintainer is free to decline the request - and add appropriate details to the configuration of private.php on the remote indexserver. Without this permission, you can run the match against the pending titles, but the remote indexserver will not import the data - the temp/missing.xml file will simply be overwritten.

An 'internet visible' private portal has a static IP and a valid DNS name, the indexserver must be able to resolve the name and retrieve a file from the private portal using HTTP on port 80. It is NOT necessary for HTTP on the
private portal to provide any service to the general internet. Any private portal that cannot provide a local file over the internet in this way (dynamic IP, firewalls etc.) is deemed 'non-visible' for the purposes of this section.