RFC1436 "+ item is a redundant server"

[Gopher Space]

Hello to the gopher community,

what exactly does the item type "+ item is a redundant server" mean in RFC 1436?

How does it work and what can I do with it?

Thank you very much and have a nice day.

[Olive S]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Gopher Space <in...@gopherspace.de> wrote:
> What exactly does the item type "+ item is a redundant server" mean in RFC 1436?

> How does it work and what can I do with it?

'+' items add alternative locations to the previous (non-'+') item.

For example:
> 0Fermenting Conkers /conkers/fermenting bigben.example 70
> +Fermenting Conkers /conkers/fermenting bigben.example 7070
> +Fermenting Conkers fermenting-conkers bigben.example 70
> +Fermenting Conkers /conkers/fermenting greatpaul.example 70

Primary use is if host bigben.example is down, a connection may be
attempted to alternate hosts (hence 'redundancy').

From tidbits I've read they may have been used for load-balancing too.

I'm unsure if having differing label has ever had an effect - the
obvious is an alternate title - if someone else could shed light
they'd have my gratitude.

RFC 1436 states in the appendix:
> The information applies to a duplicated server. The information
> contained within is a duplicate of the primary server. The primary
> server is defined as the last DirEntity that is has a non-plus
> "Type" field. The client should use the transaction as defined by
> the primary server Type field.

Not too helpful.

(I'm aware this is an old post - I've seen it questioned a few times &
am taking the oppurtunity to educate others.)

[Olive S]

I just wrote:
> '+' items add alternative locations to the previous (non-'+') item.
>
> For example:
> > 0Fermenting Conkers /conkers/fermenting bigben.example 70
> > +Fermenting Conkers /conkers/fermenting bigben.example 7070
> > +Fermenting Conkers fermenting-conkers bigben.example 70
> > +Fermenting Conkers /conkers/fermenting greatpaul.example 70
>
> Primary use is if host bigben.example is down, a connection may be
> attempted to alternate hosts (hence 'redundancy').
>
> From tidbits I've read they may have been used for load-balancing too.
>
> I'm unsure if having differing label has ever had an effect - the
> obvious is an alternate title - if someone else could shed light
> they'd have my gratitude.

Of course this is just in theory - in practice it's not used.
Modern processors don't need the load-balancing (for Gopher's size),
and I suspect confusion over it also led to it being neglected.
What clients do anything with these items? What do they do?
What servers are handing these out?

What happens if they occur before a non-'+' item?

If this has no use (and preferably dosen't break clients), I've had it
in my head to propose using this for menus reporting about themselves -
their locations, and their label. It seems a fairly natural progression
to me, though maybe this would be better as a new item type altogether.
('=' for "I am equal to"?)

Many clients show the label of the incoming item as a sort of title,
but have no way to obtain one for selectors manually entered. This
helps here.