Dienst: Implementation Reference Manual

We describe the architecture and implementation of Dienst: a protocol and server that provides distributed document libraries over the World Wide Web. Dienst is based on a document model that incorporates unique document names, multiple document formats, and multiple document decompositions. Interoperability among Dienst servers provides the user with a single logical document collection, even though the actual collection is distributed across multiple servers. The Dienst protocol uses HTTP (the protocol of the World Wide Web) as a transport layer, making Dienst servers accessible from any WWW client. Dienst is currently used as the infrastructure for a distributed computer science technical report library by a number of U.S. universities. This document is intended as a guide for Dienst site administrators and implementors of other digital library systems. It describes the architecture of an individual server and network of Dienst servers and includes the server installation instructions. Appendices describe copyright issues and retrospective conversion of the Cornell technical report collection.