telnet access for web page

[Joseph Potts]

Ruth, You could do it with a special gateway Unix machine. The easiest way is
to setup a special user (i.e. lynx) on a special gateway machine without a
password and make its shell be the lynx program.  The Dynix users would have
to be instructed to login as "lynx". There is also some chance the user could
break out of the lynx program, so for security reasons it might be best to
have a machine dedicated to this task. You could probably make do with Linux
installed on a low end 486 or even a 386 with 8-16 MB of memory and a
monochrome monitor. You probably have a castoff PC around that could do the
job. Linux is free on the Internet at numerous ftp sites or less than $20 for
a CD. 

Here at Marriott Library we have a gateway machine that requires no login
(you just telnet to it and get a menu of various services), but that required
some fancy tricks (assigning a 2nd IP number, using a tcp wrapper program,
and modifying the telnetd daemon). 

There is also a way to telnet into expect scripts to automagically run 
programs like lynx under the control of the script. Expect is an 
extension to the Tcl programming language that allows the spawning and 
controlling of other programs so the program can supply passwords 
without revealing them the user and generally prevent the user from 
doing various stupid things.  This solution requires that the user 
telnet to another port besides the standard 23. Don't know if the Dynix 
Gateway can do that.

Of course, for any of these solutions, you'll need someone who knows Unix 
or has the time and inclination to learn it.  Sounds like you might be 
short of that kind of resource. 

Joseph C. Potts
Systems R & D Librarian
Marriott Library, University of Utah
(801) 581-3852


On Wed, 13 Nov 1996, Ruth Hartman - Adult Services - Ventura Library System wrote:

> Thanks.  Here is our situation.  The library has no graphics capability.
> We have access to the Internet through the Gateway screen of our Dynix
> OPACs (dumb terminals).  We built a web page using lynx.  In order for our
> patrons in the library to see our web page, we would need to link it to
> the Gateway screen.  Unfortunately, the little Dear (Gateway screen) will
> only link to something which has a Telnet address.
> 
> Our library system has gone from a Materials budget of almost $1 million
> in 1991 to about $63,000 this year.  I have turned my attention from
> print materials which I can't buy, to searching out web resources that our
> patrons could use; adding them to our web page.  But at present, our
> patrons in the library cannot see them.  Dynix has recently added
> Internet-related products, but we can't buy them.  My question has been
> asked of DYNIX_L some months ago by another member of our staff.   Any
> suggestions would be welcome.
>