Phtui is TUI client that connects to CCSO Nameserver Ph/Qi protocol (RFC 2378) servers and facilitates searching, retrieving, and editing of database records.

The CCSO Nameserver protocol, also known as the Ph protocol, was an early network database search system, dating to the early 1990s. It was primarily used to store data such as telephone numbers and email addresses within and between organizations. Ph servers were accessed by Ph clients, typically from a command line on a UNIX or VMS host. It originated at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, in the Computing and Communications Services Office (CCSO).

Today, this functionality is commonly implemented with LDAP, but the CCSO Nameserver protocol is a good design and can still be useful.

phtui builds and runs on recent Linux and MacOS distributions. Download the source code using the button below.

This package is at revision 1.0.