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Running ht://Dig
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<h1>
Running ht://Dig
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<p>
ht://Dig Copyright © 1995-2004 <a href="THANKS.html">The ht://Dig Group</a><br>
Please see the file <a href="COPYING">COPYING</a> for
license information.
</p>
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<p>
This document will attempt to show the steps needed to use
the ht://Dig system, after <a href="where.html">obtaining</a>,
<a href="install.html">installing</a> and
<a href="config.html">configuring</a> it.<br>
The main sections are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#rundig">Building the databases</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#testing">Testing and troubleshooting</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#maintenance">Maintaining the system</a>
</li>
</ul>
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<h2>
<a name="rundig">Building the databases</a>
</h2>
<p>
After setting up all the <a href="config.html">configuration
files</a>, you can build the required databases simply by running
<a href="rundig.html">rundig</a>. This script will run
<a href="htdig.html">htdig</a> first to build the initial database,
then it runs <a href="htpurge.html">htpurge</a> to clean up the
document and word databases that were created by htdig.
It then runs <a href="htnotify.html">htnotify</a>, and finally
runs <a href="htfuzzy.html">htfuzzy</a> if necessary, to build
the endings and synonyms databases if they're missing or outdated.
The rundig script can be customized for your specific needs, or
you can develop your own script that runs any of these programs.
Read the reference sections for each of these programs to get a
better understanding of what each one does.
</p>
<p>
The <a href="htfuzzy.html">htfuzzy</a> program deserves a bit more
explaining. It is used to build databases that are used by some
of the fuzzy match algorithms selected by
<a href="htsearch.html" target="_top">htsearch</a>'s
<a href="attrs.html#search_algorithm">search_algorithm</a>
attribute. The <em>endings</em> and <em>synonyms</em> algorithms
use static dictionaries, so their databases only need to be rebuilt
by htfuzzy when the dictionary files are changed, or when ht://Dig
is initially installed. The rundig script handles the building of
these two databases as needed for the default setup. A few of the
other fuzzy match algorithms use databases that are derived from
the word database built by htdig/htpurge, so if you use these
algorithms you should rebuild their databases with htfuzzy every
time you update your index. This isn't done in rundig, but the
comments in the script show where you can add your htfuzzy commands
as needed. Some fuzzy match algorithms don't need their own
database, as they just operate on the word database, so they don't
need any special setup.
</p>
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<h2>
<a name="testing">Testing and troubleshooting</a>
</h2>
<p>
Once the databases are built, you should test out htsearch.
It's recommended that you first try a few queries running
htsearch on the command line, as it helps to separate problems
that are specific to ht://Dig from web server or CGI problems.
Once you have that working, try running htsearch from your web
browser, using the search form you configured.
</p>
<p>
If you run into problems at any point in the building and testing
of your databases, there are many things you can do. All ht://Dig
programs feature a <strong>-v</strong> option to get some debugging
output. The more of these options you put on the command line, the
more output you'll usually get. To get help with common problems,
or with interpreting some of the debugging output, please look to
the ht://Dig <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a> (frequently asked questions)
as your first line of support. Most of the problems that ht://Dig
users have are explained there, and the on-line
<a href="http://www.htdig.org/FAQ.html">FAQ on the website</a> is
updated frequently as new problems arise. The FAQ will also tell
you where you can turn if your question isn't answered there.
Remember that questions may not be phrased exactly as you'd state
them, so look carefully for anything that seems similar to the
problem you're trying to solve.
</p>
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<h2>
<a name="maintenance">Maintaining the system</a>
</h2>
<p>
Once everything is running, you have to deal with the question of
how you can keep everything running and up to date. The databases
don't automatically update themselves, of course, so you'll need
to figure out how to schedule automatic updates of the database.
Most users use the <strong>crontab</strong> facility on their
systems to schedule daily or weekly updates of their database.
This can be as simple as running "rundig" or "rundig -a" from
your crontab, or from a file in /etc/cron.daily if your system
uses this, to rebuild from scratch every night. For a small site,
this may take only a few minutes to run. Other sites will run
more elaborate update scripts, to update their existing databases
nightly, and schedule complete rebuilds less frequently, such as
monthly.
</p>
<p>
You need to pay close attention to how long updates take to run.
There are no database lockouts in ht://Dig, so you don't want to
schedule update or reindexing runs so frequently that they run
into each other.
</p>
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Last modified: $Date: 2004/05/28 13:15:19 $
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