Some RGTP clients, and getting them to work with your copy of spurge

• Really simple testing with telnet
• GREED
  (Emacs-based; all platforms)
• Yarrow
  (web-based; any browser)
• WrenGROGGS
  (Unix command line)
• Archangel
  (Mozilla-based; any platform that runs Mozilla)

If anyone has experience getting other clients (greadnew? grunge? vendepacx?) to work with spurge, do say.

Really simple testing with telnet

Just to test that your server's running, try telnetting to it from the shell prompt, with the command

telnet localhost rgtp

You should get a response beginning 230 or 231. Try typing the NOOP command, too, which should get you a 200 response, and then the QUIT command, which should give you a 280. If you want to know more about the protocol, read the protocol document; otherwise, it's time to test your installation with a real client.

GREED, by Gareth Rees and Owen Dunn, an Emacs client.

GREED is, at present, probably the best client to use for testing spurge installations. However, it's not the easiest client to get to work with systems which aren't GROGGS. Here's how to go about it:

After installation, look for a file called greed.el (very probably it'll be at /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/greed.el). In this file, look for the lines:

(defvar greed-servers
  '(("Cambridge Groggs server" "rgtp-serv.groggs.group.cam.ac.uk" 1431
     "~/.groggsrc.el" "~/.groggsecret")
    ("Experimental Groggs server" "rgtp-serv.groggs.group.cam.ac.uk" 1432
     "~/.groggsrcx.el" "~/.groggsecretx"))
  "*List of (name server port startup-file secret-file) lists.")

and add the following two lines (the highlighted ones, replacing the relevant parts with your own text):

(defvar greed-servers
  '(("Cambridge Groggs server" "rgtp-serv.groggs.group.cam.ac.uk" 1431
     "~/.groggsrc.el" "~/.groggsecret")
    ("A short description" "host.name.of.your.computer" 1431
     "~/.groggsrcV.el" "~/.groggsecretV")
    ("Experimental Groggs server" "rgtp-serv.groggs.group.cam.ac.uk" 1432
     "~/.groggsrcx.el" "~/.groggsecretx"))
  "*List of (name server port startup-file secret-file) lists.")

V may be any letter, as long as it's unique in the list (so don't re-use "x", for example). If you'd like your server to be the default one, make it the first entry in the list (but be careful not to mess up the bracketing).

Close Emacs and open it again, then type C-u M-x greed <enter> (that is, <control+u> escape x g r e e d <enter>). If your server is the default one, you can miss out the C-u.

Yarrow, by Thomas Thurman: a web client.

Once you've downloaded and installed yarrow, add this extra paragraph to /etc/yarrow/conf:

[SomeName-server]
address=host.name.of.your.computer
description=A short description.

(The hostname can be localhost if you're running yarrow on the same machine.)

You must list the server here to let you use it with yarrow; yarrow doesn't permit access to arbitrary RGTP addresses not listed in /etc/yarrow.conf. Perhaps it will in version 1.2.0, however.

Incidentally, I'd appreciate it if you also emailed me and asked to have your spurge installation added to the list of servers known to the yarrow installation on rgtp.thurman.org.uk.

WrenGROGGS, by Richard Watts, a Unix client.

This should be quite easy, using the grogprofile command. However, WrenGROGGS seems to have vanished from the net unexpectedly; when it returns I'll write it up more.

Archangel, by Thomas Thurman: a Mozilla plugin.

Archangel is not yet usable with arbitrary RGTP servers. When it is, you'll be able to test your server simply by pointing Mozilla at rgtp://localhost.