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Pics setup

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This page describes how to setup the Jigsaw server for PICS support.

  1. Using the server as a label bureau
  2. Using the server to serve labels with document

Sample implementation configuration

We describe here the setting for the sample implementation. These objects use a simple database, whose implementation relies on the underlying file system:. To each sample label bureau, is associated a home directory. To look for labels on a given URL U rated by service whose identifier is SURL it parses it into the following components: Out of these components, it builds a file name:
For generic labels
For specific labels
If the port equals 80 (the normal http port), it is omited. The label bureau directory is a parameter of the sample label bureau implementation. As an example, if the label bureau directory is www/labels and we are looking for generic labels for http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW by the service http://www.rating.com, the sample implementation will check for a file named www/labels//http/www.rating.com/http/www.w3.org/pub/WWW.gen. If such a file exists, it should contain a label representation, in a format decribed below.

The rest of this document answers the following questions:

Serving labels with documents

Jigsaw uses the PICSFilter to implement this part of the PICS specification . This filter will process each outgoing reply by adding to it the appropriate PICS headers. It takes one parameter, named bureau which will be passed to the label bureau factory when the server needs to access the label bureau. In the implementation of label bureau, this should be a string giving the absolute path of the label bureau database.

Upon each request crossing the labeled directory, the PICS filter will examine both the request, and the original reply (as built by the target resource). If PICS labels are requested, it will query the label bureau (whose home directory is given through the bureau parameter), and add to the reply the additional PICS headers.

Label bureau

Jigsaw can also be used as a label bureau. This is fearly easy to setup: the label bureau itself is implemented as a specific resource, which will decode requests, make the appropriate queries to its bureau implementation, and send back the automatically generated PICS document.

To register a label bureau resource within your server space, follow the normal configuration steps (see the Resource Configuration guide for more informations).

Editing labels

Editing labels, right now, is done by editing the label files, as described in the first section of this document. These files have a very simple format:
lines     = line lines | <empty>
line      = <attribute> '=' <value>
attribute = <Any char except '='>
value     = <Any char except EOL>

The following attributes are mandatory:

For all labels:
Wether the label is generic or not
The actual ratings for the labeled document
For generic labels:
The full URL of the labeled document

Here is the list of all attributes:

by                = quotedname
generic           = boolean
for               = quotedURL
on                = quoted-ISO-date      
signature-RSA-MD5 = "base64-string"
until             = quoted-ISO-date
exp               = quoted-ISO-date
at                = quoted-ISO-date      
MIC-md5           = "base64-string"
md5               = "base64-string"
comment           = quotedname       
complete-label    = quotedURL
full              = quotedURL
extension         = '(' mand/opt quotedURL data* ')'
 mand/opt :: 'optional' | 'mandatory'
 data :: quoted-ISO-date | quotedURL | number | quotedname | '(' data* ')'
ratings           = pics-ratings

Read this for more informations about Pics labels.

Sample setting

This section describes a full example of PICS setting. We will use the following terms:
The server root directory (not to be confused with its space directory, which will usually be root/WWW).
The host the server is running on, as defined by your command line, or by the org.w3c.jigsaw.host property
The port the server is listening to, as defined either by your command line, or by the org.w3c.jigsaw.port property.

When ever you encounter these italized tokens, you should replace them with your own value.

Setting up a label bureau database

We will first set-up a label bureau. For this we need to assign a directory to it, let's use root/labels for this purpose. We create this directory, empty:

create the directory root/labels

Than we need to define some service. Let's say we want to create the www.rating.com service, which will use the http protocol. Its identifier URL will be http://www.rating.com, so we need to create the following directories:

create the directory root/labels/http/www.rating.com

Now, lets make a label for http://www.w3.org/PICS by this service. This label will be generic (so it will apply to anything below this url), and will be locate in the following file:


What should we put in this file ? This depends on the category the rating service defines. For the sake of simplicity, lets say that it defines only one category, namely the minimal age the surfer should be. Note that we need not be concerned by the service description here, as this is the role of the maintainer of this service (ie www.rating.com), here we just want to distribute labels for this service. Given all this, we can write our label file PICS.gen:

create the directory root/labels/http/www.rating.com/http/www.w3.org/pub/WWW/


And write the following in PICS.gen

ratings=(age 10)

The set of attributes for this label can include any of the attributes defined by the PICS labels specification. Our ratings attribute here, state that the reader should be at least 10 to be able the PICS specification (this will prevent kids from understanding PICS, so that they can't hack it ;-). All these attributes will be send as is (in the appropriate syntax, though) to any clients requesting the http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS generic label.

Setting up a labeled space (serving labels with documents)

Here, we focus on providing labels (by our www.rating.com service) for part of our exported space. Let's say we export a labeled-space in our top directory root/WWW, that contains stuff to be labeled. To handle PICS in this space, we will need to set it up through the PICS filter. Use Jigadmin to hook this filter on labeled-space.

Our labeled-space is all set, we now need to install some documents in it, and label them. Let's say we have a hello.html document in this directory that we want to label with a specific label. The label will conform to our fake www.rating.com service, we want the reader to be at least 1 year:

create root/labels/http/www.rating.com/http/host/port/labeled-space


And write the following in hello.html

ratings=(age 1)

We can now ask for the labeled document, and we will get the appropriate labels.

Serving labels

Now let's turn Jigsaw into a label bureau. You will first need to define the label bureau database, as stated above. The label bureau is implemented as a special resource whose class is org.w3c.jigsaw.pics.LabelBureauResource. The first thing you will need to do is to hook up an instance of this resource in the appropriate place of your exported space. You can do this with JigAdmin by adding a LabelBureau call it LabelBureau (for example). Then go and edit its bureau parameter, you're all set.


Now, the http://host:port/LabelBureau will handle the incoming queries for label.