GOPHERD(1)

📦 version 1.2, in nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

🐟 GOPHERD ✨ (aka the GoFish gopher server, section 1 of the manual, bestie)

okay so. welcome to the gopherd(1) page 💖 this is the manual for GoFish, and honestly? she's kind of iconic. let's get into it.

🌸 NAME 🌸

gopherd — the GoFish gopher server. that's it, that's the whole name. short, sweet, slay.

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

gopherd [-dp] [-v] [config_file]

yep. that's the whole invocation. flags optional, config file optional, vibes mandatory 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so picture this: GoFish is a very simple gopher server. like, simple on purpose. she's not trying to be everything, she's trying to be correct. and the whole design philosophy is security and low resource usage — ngl, that's main character energy if i've ever seen it 🔥

here's the cute part: GoFish uses a single process that handles all the connections. one process. that's it. and that gives you:

  • low resource usage 💚
  • good latency (no context switches — she's not doing that back-and-forth thing, periodt) ⚡
  • good scalability 📈

then there's the chroot situation. GoFish runs in a chroot(2) environment. what does that mean for you, bestie? it means GoFish can only serve files from the root directory or below it. no escaping, no sneaking out. it's giving house arrest but make it security 🏠✨

and the privilege glow-up: GoFish must run at root privilege to be able to use port 70, but then it drops to a normal user while accessing files. so she starts fancy and then lives like a regular person. humble queen 👑

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -d — daemon mode 🌀 (she goes into the background and does her thing)
  • -p — preprocess cache 🗂️ (do the cache work up front, iykyk)
  • -v — increase verbosity 🗣️ (more talking, more details, more drama)

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • /etc/gofish.conf — the config file lives here, that's her home 🏡

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

go read those, fr fr. they're the friends of this page 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Sean MacLennan — legend behavior, we love to see it 💜

💀 REPORTING BUGS 💀

Report bugs to <headgopher@seanm.ca>. yes, actually email them, don't just complain in the group chat 🙈

Copyright © 2002 Sean MacLennan

This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

bestie please read that again. NO WARRANTY. not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. like zero. none. she's free software, not a promise 😭

that's the whole page!! this manual was gopherd, from the GoFish manual collection, dated August 2002 — yeah she's vintage and she's still serving 💖 bye bestie, go run her 🐟✨

📦 where this page comes from