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Mingle Introduction

Mingle is a secure distributed search system for personal computing. Mingle precomputes an inverted index of local files on each participating host. A query can be processed by the local host, or routed through the participating hosts using peer-to-peer communication to locate all of the desired data.

Here are some general features of the Mingle system:

Indexing

Mingle precomputes an inverted index table of local files on each participating host for fast search. Mingle will then update the index table regularly.

Searching

Mingle supports keyword search at one or more participating Mingle hosts. A query can be processed by the local host, or routed through remote hosts to locate all of the desired data.

Advanced search options include:

1. Search in file names and file contents
2. Support logic operations "OR", "AND" in a query
3. Support wildcard matching (e.g., use "a*" as a keyword).

Security

Mingle allows file owners to grant search permissions to other Mingle users on a file-by-file basis. Mingle servers authenticate each user request to protect data from being accessed by unauthorized users.