Using Mosaic as a hypertext browser to monitor system or network properties in real time brings new quality to the work of network manager. On a network like ours with more than 600 active accounts, using only finger for user identification is mostly unsatisfactory. That is the reason why we introduced a finger service on our LAN combined with user pictures. A script on the http server answers an ISINDEX query, returning textual information using the Berkeley Unix finger program and an anchor for a picture of the given user. Such an answer is combined together by the hypertext browser and brought to the user on the screen.
Another aspect of on-line real-time data is the technical characteristics of the computer systems and network processes. The characteristics of the computer system change often (additional memory, new peripheral etc.). To get information on the fly we use Mosaic as sysinfo-service (Fig. 6b) based on the sysinfo program [7].
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