Offbeat Internet
Gopher Protocol
Server Software
Here are several Gopher servers that you can use to provide Gopherspace. We have attempted to include only the most recently released versions of each server, and the collection represents nearly every known Gopher server available to the public. There are servers here for several different computer platforms, as well as several alternative servers for each computer platform.
Almost all Gopher servers are conventional (Gopher0) servers. Gopher+ servers are extremely rare, (the buggy "UMN GopherD" and the multi-protocol "Pygopherd" are two exceptions), as the proposed Gopher+ protocol extensions were never accepted by the greater Internet community.
Although RFC1436 is an interesting antiquity describing how the Gopher Protocol was once used within the University of Minnesota's internal campus network, many of the concepts were never implemented in the same manner by Gopher Servers connected to the Internet. This is particularly true for Item-Type mappings, and as such, most Item-Type mappings mentioned in that obsolete document should not be considered as canon (or even as desirable).
Warning: Every menu line offered by a Gopher Server, regardless of the lines Name or Host address, must be "Type" mapped!
All Clients are required to recognize the three Item-Types 1, 9, and 0, so at a minimum everything offered by a Server could be safely marked as follows:
~ Item-Type 1 = a Directory offered for entering.
~ Item-Type 9 = any file offered only for downloading (including ASCII-Text files if so desired).
~ Item-Type 0 = a 7-bit ASCII-Text file offered for opening by a Clients built-in Text file viewer.
Be aware that while Item-Type 9 will prevent files from being accidentally opened by the Client's Text viewer, some Clients could be running on a platform that blocks file saving.
Lines that would normally be mapped as "Informational" (Item-Type i), could instead be mapped as Item-Type 0, as long as for safety you point the line's address to some valid ASCII-Text file.
See the Repository for other server configuration tips.