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RFC1580 - Guide to Network Resource Tools

王朝other·作者佚名  2008-05-31
窄屏简体版  字體: |||超大  

Network Working Group EARN Staff

Request for Comments: 1580 EARN Association

FYI: 23 March 1994

Category: Informational

Guide to Network Resource Tools

Status of this Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo

does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of

this memo is unlimited.

Table of Contents

1. IntrodUCtion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2. GOPHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.1. What is Gopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2. Who can use Gopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.3. How to get to Gopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.3.1. Local clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.3.2. Remote clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.4. Using Gopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.5. VERONICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.6. Learning more about Gopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3. WORLD-WIDE WEB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.1. What is World-Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.2. Who can use World-Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.3. How to get to World-Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.3.1. Local clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.3.2. Remote clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.3.2.1. E-mail Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.4. Using World-Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.6. Learning more about World-Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4. WAIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.1. What is WAIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.2. Who can use WAIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.3. How to get to WAIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.4. Using WAIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.4.1. E-mail access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.6 Learning more about WAIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

5. ARCHIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5.1. What is ARCHIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5.2. Who can use ARCHIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5.3. How to get to ARCHIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5.4. Using ARCHIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.4.1. Using a local client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.4.1.1. Archie client command and parameters . . . . . . . . . 29

5.4.2. Using Telnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

5.4.3. Using electronic mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

5.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

5.6. Learning more about ARCHIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

6. WHOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

6.1. What is WHOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

6.2. Who can use WHOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

6.3. How to get to WHOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

6.4. Using WHOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

6.4.1. Using a local client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

6.4.2. Using Telnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6.4.3. Using electronic mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

6.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

6.6. Learning more about WHOIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

7. X.500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

7.1. What is X.500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

7.2. Who can use X.500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

7.3. How to get to X.500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

7.4. Using X.500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

7.4.1. Using a local client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

7.4.2. Using Telnet or X.25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

7.4.3. Using electronic mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

7.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

7.6. Learning more about X.500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

8. NETFIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

8.1. What is NETFIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

8.2. Who can use NETFIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

8.3. How to get to NETFIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

8.4. Using NETFIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

8.4.1. Local access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

8.4.2. Remote access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

8.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

8.6. Learning more about NETFIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

9. TRICKLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

9.1. What is TRICKLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

9.2. Who can use TRICKLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

9.3 How to get to TRICKLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

9.4. Using TRICKLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

9.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

9.6. Learning more about TRICKLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

10. BITFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

10.1. What is BITFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

10.2. Who can use BITFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

10.3. How to get to BITFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

10.4. Using BITFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

10.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

10.6. Learning more about BITFTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

11. LISTSERV (Version 1.7f). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

11.1. What is LISTSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

11.2. Who can use LISTSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

11.3. How to get to LISTSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

11.4. Using LISTSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

11.4.1. Commands for LISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

11.4.2. Commands for FILES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

11.4.3. LISTSERV DATABASE Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

11.4.4. Commands for INFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

11.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

11.6. Learning more about LISTSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

12. NETNEWS (USENET) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

12.1. What is NETNEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

12.2. Who can use NETNEWS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

12.3. How to get to NETNEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

12.4. Using NETNEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

12.5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

12.6. Learning more about NETNEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

13. OTHER TOOLS OF INTEREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

13.1. ASTRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

13.1.1. What is ASTRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

13.1.2. How to get to ASTRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

13.1.3. Learning more about ASTRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

13.2. NETSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

13.2.1. What is NETSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

13.2.2. How to get to NETSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

13.2.3. Learning more about NETSERV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

13.3. MAILBASE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

13.3.1. What is MAILBASE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

13.3.2. How to get to MAILBASE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

13.3.3. Learning more about MAILBASE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

13.4. PROSPERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

13.4.1. What is PROSPERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

13.4.2. How to get to PROSPERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

13.4.3. Learning more about PROSPERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

13.5. IRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

13.5.1. What is IRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

13.5.2. How to get to IRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

13.5.3. Learning more about IRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

13.6. RELAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

13.6.1. What is RELAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

13.6.2. How to get to RELAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

13.6.3. Learning more about RELAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

14. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

16. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

17. Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

18. Appendix A - Freely available networking software . . . . . 103

18.1. Gopher clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

18.2. World-Wide Web clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

18.3. WAIS clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

18.4. Netnews - news reader software . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

1. Introduction

As the worldwide academic computer network grows and eXPands far

beyond its previous confines, so the resources and services available

on the network evolve and multiply at a dizzying rate. The typical

user is hardpressed to keep up with this explosive growth.

Fortunately, a number of tools are available to facilitate the task

of locating and retrieving network resources, so that users anywhere

can utilize texts, data, software and information for public access.

Facilities to explore public domain software repositories, to consult

mailing list archives and databases, to retrieve Directory

information and to participate in global group discussions are now

available to all.

The key to exploiting these resources is a server, special software

on a computer somewhere in the network which accepts requests (or

queries or commands) and sends a response automatically. The

requestor does not have to be working on the same computer (or even

in the same part of the world) in order to use the server. Many

servers accept requests via electronic mail, so that often the

requestor needs not even be on the same computer network as the

server. In many cases, servers are interconnected so that once you

have established contact with one server, you can easily communicate

with other servers as well.

Today, many users have powerful computers on the desktop, with

advanced graphical, audio and storage capabilities, which are

connected to the network. This fact has given rise to what is known

as the client-server model. Users can have special software on their

local computer called a client which can utilize the capabilities of

that computer and can also communicate with a server on the network.

These clients provide an easy-to-use, intuitive user interface, allow

use of pointing devices such as a mouse, and exploit other local

features. The client sends the user's requests to a server using a

standardized format (called a protocol) and the server sends its

response in a condensed format which the client displays to the user

in a more readable way.

Several of the tools described herein have several different

functions. However they could be classified in functional areas

according to their main purpose. Sections two and three cover two

services, Gopher and World-Wide Web, which use the client-server

model to explore the network providing a means of moving through a

wide range of network sources and resources in a uniform and

intuitive way. A tool for searching in a wide range of different

databases located throughout the network, WAIS, is documented in

section four. The problem of knowing where to find network resources

(files and programs) is addressed in section five, which deals with

archie. Three tools for finding people, computers and their network

addresses, WHOIS, X.500 and Netfind, are discussed in sections six,

seven and eight. While just about all of these network tools can be

used to get files of one sort or another, there are a few servers

available for getting files easily and efficiently from various

repositories in the network. Two of these servers, TRICKLE and

BITFTP, are covered in sections nine and ten. Sections eleven and

twelve deal with what is perhaps the most popular of all the network

resources, discussion groups on every imaginable topic. The two tools

discussed there are LISTSERV and Netnews (Usenet). Section thirteen

gives brief descriptions and pointers for a number of tools which

were not mainstream enough to get a full description. Some are still

in the developmental stage (Prospero), some are relatively unknown

outside a particular network (ASTRA and Netserv from EARN/Bitnet and

Mailbase from JANET) and some are meant for chatting rather than work

(Relay and IRC).

The purpose of this guide is to supply the basic information that

anyone on the network needs to try out and begin using these tools. A

basic knowledge of networking terminology has been assumed, as well

as familiarity with the basic tools of networking: electronic mail

(often referred to as e-mail or simply mail throughout this guide)

and, for those connected to the Internet, FTP (file transfer

protocol) and Telnet (remote login). It is beyond the scope of this

guide to describe these basic tools. The example in the BITFTP

section of this guide shows how one can use BITFTP to get guides to

these tools over the network.

2. GOPHER

2.1. What is Gopher

The Internet Gopher, or simply Gopher, is a distributed document

delivery service. It allows users to explore, search and retrieve

information residing on different locations in a seamless fashion.

When browsing it, the information appears to the user as a series of

nested menus. This kind of menu structure resembles the organization

of a directory with many subdirectories and files. The subdirectories

and the files may be located either on the local server site or on

remote sites served by other Gopher servers. From the user point of

view, all information items presented on the menus appear to come

from the same place.

The information can be a text or binary file, directory information

(loosely called phone book), image or sound. In addition, Gopher

offers gateways to other information systems (World-Wide Web, WAIS,

archie, WHOIS) and network services (Telnet, FTP). Gopher is often a

more convenient way to navigate in a FTP directory and to download

files.

A Gopher server holds the information and handles the users' queries.

In addition, links to other Gopher servers create a network wide

cooperation to form the global Gopher web (Gopherspace).

2.2. Who can use Gopher

Gopher uses the client-server model to provide access to the Gopher

web. You must be on the international TCP/IP network (the Internet)

in order to use a client on your computer to access Gopher.

2.3. How to get to Gopher

Users explore the Gopher menus using various local clients or

accessing a remote client via an interactive Telnet session.

2.3.1. Local clients

Public domain clients for accessing a Gopher server are available

for: Macintosh, MS-DOS, OS/2, VM/CMS, VMS, NeXT, Unix, X-Windows.

The clients are available for anonymous FTP from many FTP sites

(e.g., boombox.micro.umn.edu in the directory /pub/gopher). See

the list of freely available client software in Appendix A.

2.3.2. Remote clients

Some sites allow public access to a client. To access such a

remote client, telnet to one of these sites:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

info.anu.edu.au Australia (login: info)

tolten.puc.cl Columbia

ecnet.ec Ecuador

gopher.chalmers.se Sweden

consultant.micro.umn.edu USA

gopher.uiuc.edu USA

panda.uiowa.edu USA (login: panda)

sunsite.unc.edu USA

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

At the login: prompt type gopher (unless specified otherwise) and

the top-level Gopher menu for that site will be displayed.

Users are requested to use the site closest to them.

2.4. Using Gopher

The implementations of the Gopher clients on various platforms are

slightly different to take advantage of the platforms'

capabilities (mouse, graphic functions, X-Windows server) and to

offer the popular look and feel. Even with different

implementations, the same set of functions and commands is

available.

When issuing the gopher command, you will be connected

automatically to the default Gopher server specified at the

installation. The format of the command is:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

gopher <hostname>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where hostname is an optional alternative Gopher server you want

to talk to.

When connected to a Gopher server, it is still possible to access

another server by exploring the Other Gopher servers in the rest

of the world branch. To locate them more easily, the Gopher

servers are distributed in geographical regions:

* Africa

* Europe

* Middle East

* North America

* Pacific

* South America

and then by countries.

Access to a Gopher server is identical whether using a local or a

remote client: a simple menu-driven interface which doesn't

require any special training or knowledge from the user.

Here is a sample menu:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Internet Gopher Information Client v1.1

Information About Gopher

1. About Gopher.

2. Search Gopher News <?>

3. Gopher News Archive/

4. comp.infosystems.gopher (Usenet newsgroup)/

5. Gopher Software Distribution/

6. Gopher Protocol Information/

7. University of Minnesota Gopher software licensing policy.

8. Frequently Asked Questions about Gopher.

9. gopher93/

10. Gopher example server/

11. How to get your information into Gopher.

--> 12. New Stuff in Gopher.

13. Reporting Problems or Feedback.

14. big Ann Arbor gopher conference picture.gif <Picture>

Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1

-----------------------------------------------------------------

In the example above, any item can be selected by typing its line

number or by moving the cursor (-->) next to it.

An item could be:

* a subdirectory

* a text file

* a binary file

* a sound file

* an image file

* a phone book (directory information)

* an index-search

* a Telnet session

Items are displayed with an identifying symbol next to them. In

the example above, "<?>" means a full text index-search, "/" means

a subdirectory, "<Picture>" means an image file and no symbol

means a text file.

Some Gopher clients are not able to handle certain file types

(e.g., sound files). Some clients display only files of types they

can handle or files they suppose you are interested in. Others

display all types of files.

Most Gopher clients allow you to create, view and select

bookmarks. A bookmark keeps track of the exact location of a

Gopher item, regardless of where it resides. It is useful when you

often need to reach a file or a service located far from the

top-level directory. A collection of bookmarks is like a

customized Gopher menu.

Some capabilities of a local Gopher client are bound to the

capabilities of your own computer. In fact, for sound files, image

files and Telnet sessions, the Gopher client looks for the

appropriate software on your computer and passes control to it to

perform the requested task. When the task is completed, control is

returned to the Gopher client.

At any time, it is possible to terminate the session (quit

command), to cancel the current processing or to get the on-line

help (help command).

An item is processed according to its type:

a subdirectory

its contents are displayed. To go up one level, use the up

command.

a text file

the file is displayed. Then you can browse it, search for a

particular string, print it on a local printer or copy (save)

it onto your local disk space in a user-specified file (the

last 2 functions may not be available to you).

a binary file

the remote file is simply copied onto your local disk space in

a user-specified file. Binary files are binhexed Macintosh

files, archives (.zip, .tar,...), compressed files, programs,

etc.

a sound file

the remote file is played through your local audio device if it

exists, as well as the appropriate utility. Only one sound file

can be active at a time; you will be warned if you try to play

a sound before a previous one is done.

an image file

the remote file is displayed on your computer screen if an

image viewer exists on your computer.

a phone book

you are prompted for a search string to look up people

information through the selected phone book. Since different

institutions have different directory services, the queries are

not performed in the same fashion.

an index-search

you are prompted for a search string which may be one or more

Words, plus the special operators and, or, and not. The search

is case-insensitive. Usually, an index is created to help users

locate the information in a set of documents quickly. E.g.:

terminal and setting or tset

will find all documents which contain both the words terminal

and setting, or the word tset. or is nonexclusive so the

documents may contain all of the words.

The result of the index-search looks like any Gopher menu, but

each menu item is a file that contains the specified search

string.

a Telnet session

Telnet sessions are normally text-based information services,

for example, access to library catalogs.

2.5. VERONICA

Veronica was designed as a solution to the problem of resource

discovery in the rapidly-expanding Gopher web, providing a keyword

search of more than 500 Gopher menus. Veronica helps you find

Gopher-based information without doing a menu-by-menu, site-by-site

search. It is to the Gopher information space, what archie is to the

FTP archives.

Veronica is accessible from most top-level Gopher menus or from the

Other Gopher servers... branch. There is no need for opening another

connection or another application.

When you choose a veronica search , you will be prompted to enter a

keyword or keywords. The simplest way to search with veronica is to

enter a single word and hit the RETURN key. It does not matter

whether the word is upper-case or lower-case. The veronica server

will return a gopher menu composed of items whose titles match your

keyword specification. Items can be accessed as with any Gopher menu.

E.g.:

eudora

will give you a list of menu titles that contain eudora, such as:

Electronic Mail: Eudora on Macintosh, Micro-08

Modem Setting Eudora Slip.

A UNIX-based Eudora reader for those that ...

Eudora: Popmail for the Macintosh.

Eudora.

etc.

The search string may contain keywords optionally separated by and,

or and not. If there is no operator between 2 keywords, and is

assumed. E.g.:

eudora and macintosh

will give you a list of menu titles that contain both eudora and

macintosh, such as:

Eudora: Popmail for the Macintosh.

v4.1 EUDORA: E-MAIL FOR THE MACINTOSH.

Micro News: Eudora - A Mailer for the Macintosh.

Eudora: Electronic Mail on Your Macintosh.

ACS News - Eudora Mail Reader for Macintosh.

etc.

"*" is the wildcard character. It can replace any other character or

characters at the end of a keyword. E.g.:

desk*

will give you a list of menu titles, such as:

The Help Desk.

Keene State College Press Release COMPUTER ON EVERY DESK.

DESKQview/X... An alternative to Windows???.

Ethernet at Your Desktop/

etc.

2.6. Learning more about Gopher

The Internet Gopher is developed by the Computer and Information

Services Department of the University of Minnesota. Bug reports,

comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to the Gopher

development team at: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu.

Mailing list: gopher-news@boombox.micro.umn.edu

To subscribe send a mail to:

gopher-news-request@boombox.micro.umn.edu

Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.gopher

A comprehensive description of veronica search methods is available

from the veronica menus.

Veronica is being developed by Steve Foster and Fred Barrie at the

University of Nevada. Bug reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should

be addressed to: gophadm@futique.scs.unr.edu

3. WORLD-WIDE WEB

3.1. What is World-Wide Web

World-Wide Web (also called WWW or W3) is an information system based

on hypertext, which offers a means of moving from document to

document (usually called to navigate) within a network of

information.

Hypertext documents are linked to each other through a selected set

of words. For example, when a new word, or a new concept, is

introduced in a text, hypertext makes it possible to point to another

document which gives more details about it. The reader can open the

second document by selecting the unknown word or concept and the

relevant section is displayed. The second document may also contain

links to further details. The reader need not know where the

referenced document is, and there is no need to type a command to

display it, or to browse it to find the right paragraph.

Cross-references may be defined in the same document. A collection of

documents is a database.

If you were reading this document on a hypertext system, instead of

this all too short explanation about hypertext, you would have a

selectable pointer to a complete hypertext information web with

examples and more pointers to other definitions.

For instance, in the first document you might read:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area "hypermedia" information

retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large

universe of documents.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Selecting hypermedia will display the following explanation for you:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

WHAT IS HYPERTEXT

Hypertext is text which is not constrained to be linear.

Hypertext is text which contains "links" to other texts. The term

was coined by "Ted Nelson" around 1965 (see "History").

HyperMedia is a term used for hypertext which is not constrained

to be text: it can include graphics, video and "sound", for

example. Apparently Ted Nelson was the first to use this term too.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Then you can learn more about links and Nelson. Indeed, the links in

WWW are not confined to text only, so the term hypermedia is more

accurate. For example, the link to Nelson might point to a file

containing a picture of Ted Nelson. The picture would be displayed on

your screen if you have a suitable configuration.

Also, special documents (indexes) in the WWW information space can be

search for given keyword(s). The result is a document which contains

links to the documents found.

World-Wide Web uses hypertext over the network: the linked documents

may be located at various sites. WWW can handle different text

formats and various information organizations. WWW also provides

access to many of the other tools described in this guide.

3.2. Who can use World-Wide Web

WWW uses the client-server model to provide access to the information

universe. You must be on the international TCP/IP network (the

Internet) in order to use a client on your computer to access WWW. If

you are on the Internet, but don't have a WWW client on your

computer, you can still enter the World-Wide Web. Several sites offer

public interactive access to WWW clients (see the Remote clients

section under How to get to World-Wide Web below).

If you have e-mail access only, or if you are not on the Internet

then you can not fully exploit the vast potential of WWW. However, a

mail-robot is available at the address: listserv@info.cern.ch which

gives e-mail access to WWW-accessible listserv@info.cern.ch files.

(see E-mail access section under How to get to World-Wide Web below).

3.3. How to get to World-Wide Web

Users access the World-Wide Web facilities via a client called a

browser. This interface provides transparent access to the WWW

servers. If a local WWW client is not available on your computer,

you may use a client at a remote site. Thus, an easy way to start

with WWW is to access a remote client.

3.3.1. Local clients

Usage of a local client is encouraged since it provides better

performance and better response time than a remote client.

Public domain clients for accessing WWW servers are available for:

Macintosh, MS-DOS, VMS, VM/CMS, MVS, NeXT, Unix, X-Windows. The

clients are available for anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch in the

directory /pub/www. All these platforms support a simple line mode

browser. In addition, graphical clients are available for:

Macintosh, Windows, X-Windows, NeXT and Unix. See the list of

freely available client software in Appendix A.

3.3.2. Remote clients

To access a remote WWW client, telnet to the client site. If you

are new to WWW, you should telnet to info.cern.ch. No login is

needed. You will immediately enter the WWW line mode browser. Some

publicly accessible clients feature locally developed clients.

Most remote clients are at sites with WWW servers with information

on specific areas. After you telnet to the client site, at the

login: prompt enter www, no password is needed. The following

remote client sites are available:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Site Country Server Specialization

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

vms.huji.ac.il Israel Environment

info.cern.ch Switzerland (CERN) High-energy physics

fatty.law.cornell.edu USA Law

ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu USA History

www.njit.edu USA

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

CERN is the entry point to find information about WWW itself and

to have an overview of the Web with a catalogue of the databases

sorted by subject.

3.3.2.1. E-mail access

In order to get a file, send mail to listserv@info.cern.ch with

a SEND command. The SEND command returns the document with the

given WWW address, subject to certain restrictions. Hypertext

documents are formatted to 72 character width, with links

numbered. A separate list at the end of the file gives the

document-addresses of the related documents.

If the document is hypertext, its links will be marked by

numbers in brackets, and a list of document addresses by number

will be appended to the message. In this way, you can navigate

through the web, more or less. A good file to start with would

be:

http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.Html

Note that, despite the name listserv in the address of this

mail robot, it is not a LISTSERV server.

A note of caution from the WWW developers and maintainers:

"As the robot gives potential mail access to a *vast* amount of

information, we must emphasise that the service should not be

abused. Examples of appropriate use would be:

* Accessing any information about W3 itself;

* Accessing any CERN and/or physics-related or network

development related information;

Examples of INappropriate use would be:

* Attempting to retrieve binaries or tar files or anything more

than directory listings or short ASCII files from FTP archive

sites;

* Reading Usenet newsgroups which your site doesn't receive;

* Repeated automatic use.

There is currently a 1000 line limit on any returned file. We

don't want to overload other people's mail relays or our

server. We reserve the right to withdraw the service at any

time. We are currently monitoring all use of the server, so

your reading will not initially enjoy privacy.

Enjoy!"

The W3 team at CERN (www-bug@info.cern.ch)

3.4. Using World-Wide Web

When using a graphical interface, you access the WWW functions by

pressing mouse buttons. In particular, references are highlighted or

underlined words. To follow a link, click on the associated

reference.

The line mode browser is a more simple user interface: references are

numbers in square brackets next to words. Type the number and hit the

RETURN key to follow a reference. For example, here is the beginning

of the Subject Catalogue you get on the CERN server:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Subject Catalogue

WWW VIRTUAL LIBRARY

This is the subject catalogue. See also arrangement by service

type[1]. Mail www-request@info.cern.ch to add pointers to this

list.

Aeronautics Mailing list archive index[2]. See also NASA LaRC[3]

Agriculture[4] Separate list, see also Almanac mail servers[5].

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Abstract Indexes[6] at NASA, Astrophysics work at

FNAL[7], Princeton's[8] Sloane Digital Sky

Survey, the STELAR project, Space Telescope

Electronic Information System[9], the Southampton

University Astronomy Group[10], the National

Solar Observatory[11], Astrophysics work at the

AHPCRC[12]. See also: space[13].

Bio Sciences[14] Separate list.

Computing[15] Separate list.

1-81, Back, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The following commands are available within WWW. Some are disabled

when not applicable (e.g., Find is enabled only when the current

document is an index). Angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional

parameter.

Help

gives a list of available commands depending on the context, and

the hypertext address of the current document.

Manual

displays the on-line manual.

Quit

exits WWW.

Up, Down

scrolls up or down one page in the current document.

Top, BOttom

goes to the top or the bottom of the current document.

Back

goes back to the document you were reading before.

HOme

goes back to the first document you were reading.

Next, Previous

goes to the next or previous document in the list of pointers from

the document that led to the current one.

List

gives a numbered list of the links from the current document. To

follow a link, type in the number.

Recall <number>

if number is omitted, gives a numbered list of the documents you

have visited.

To display one specific document, re-issue the command with

number.

<Find> keyword

queries the current index with the supplied keyword(s). A list of

matching entries is displayed with possibly links to further

details. Find can be omitted if the first keyword does not

conflict with another WWW command. Multiple keywords are separated

by blanks.

Go docaddress

goes to the document represented by the given hypertext address,

which is interpreted relatively to the current document.

Extra command available on Unix versions only:

Print

prints the current document, without the numbered document

references. The default print command is lpr, but it may be

defined in your local working environment by the variable

WWW_PRINT_COMMAND.

To access WWW with the line mode browser, type: www. The default

first document will appear on your screen. From this point, you

should be able to navigate through the WWW universe by reading the

text and following the instructions at the bottom of the screen. If

you want to start with a first document other than the default, or if

you want to change some other ASPect of the usual interaction, there

are a number of command line parameters and options available. The

full format of the www command to invoke the line mode browser is:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

www <options> <docaddress <keyword>>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

docaddress

is the hypertext address of the document at which you want to

start browsing.

keyword

queries the index specified by docaddress with the supplied

keyword(s). A list of matching entries is displayed. Multiple

keywords are separated by blanks.

Options are:

-n

non-interactive mode. The document is formatted and displayed to

the screen. Pages are delimited with form feed characters (FF).

-listrefs

adds a list of the addresses of all documents references to the

end. Non-interactive mode only.

-pn

sets the page length to n lines. Without a number, makes the page

length infinite. Default is 24.

-wn

sets the page width to n columns. The default is 78, 79 or 80

depending on the system.

-na

hides references in the text. Useful, when printing out the

document.

-version

displays the version number of the software.

The commands listed above should be available in all clients. They

may be abbreviated (CAPITAL letters indicate acceptable

abbreviation). Case is not significant. Special characteristics of

the line mode browser interface are:

number

type in a number given in [] and hit the RETURN key to follow the

link associated to the reference.

RETURN

hit the RETURN key to display the next page of the current

document (without a reference number).

3.5. Examples

WWW gives you access to an information universe. Let's say you want

to know how many film versions of The Three Musketeers there have

been. You browse the WWW Subject Catalogue and select Movies:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Movie database browser (Cardiff)

A Hypertext movie database browser

Sep 2nd... Your help is needed..[1]

Aug 29th.. Images, sounds, mpegs & reviews[2]

Select the type of search you'd like to perform:-

Movie people[3].....(multi Oscar winners)[4] or

Movie titles[5] .....(multi Oscar winners)[6]

Searches the "rec.arts.movies" movie database system, maintained

by Col Needham et-al.

Here[7] is some information on list maintainers.

If you have a comment or suggestion, it can be recorded here[8]

HERE[9] is a pre-1986 movie information gopher server. (at

Manchester UK)

1-13, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help: 5

-----------------------------------------------------------------

You select Movie titles, and then type three musketeers as keywords:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Movie title queries

MOVIE TITLE QUERY

Enter a movie title or substring.

Example, to search for movies with the word "alien" in their

title, type "alien".

This will return details on several movies, including Aliens[1]

Note: if the title begins with A or The, leave it out. If you're

determined to include it, then put ', A' or ', The' at the end of

the of the substring e.g.

Enforcer, The

Gauntlet, The

Searching is case insensitive.

search menu[2] Fun and Games page[3] COMMA home page[4]

FIND <keywords>, 1-5, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more,

or Help: three musketeers

-----------------------------------------------------------------

You find that there have been six film versions of the story:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Movie Info

Here are the results from the search for "three musketeers"

Three Musketeers, The (1921)[1]

Three Musketeers, The (1933)[2]

Three Musketeers, The (1935)[3]

Three Musketeers, The (1939)[4]

Three Musketeers, The (1948)[5]

Three Musketeers, The (1974)[6]

search menu[7] Fun and Games page[8] COMMA home page[9]

Rob.H[10]

Robert.Hartill@cm.cf.ac.uk

FIND <keywords>, 1-10, Back, Up, Quit, or Help: 1

-----------------------------------------------------------------

You decide to look for more information on the 1921 version:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Movie Info

Here are the results from the search for "Three Musketeers, The (1921)"

THREE MUSKETEERS, THE (1921)

1921

Cast Belcher, Charles[1] ......Bernajoux

De Brulier, Nigel[2] ......Cardinal Richelieu

De La Motte, Marguerite[3] ......Constance Bonacieux

Fairbanks, Douglas[4] ......D'Artagnan

Irwin, Boyd[5] ......Comte de Rochefort

MacLaren, Mary[6] ......Queen Anne of Austria

Menjou, Adolphe[7] ......Louis XIII

Pallette, Eugene[8] ......Aramis

Poff, Lon[9] ......Father Joseph

Siegmann, George[10] ......Porthos

Stevens, Charles[11] ......Planchet

Directed by Niblo, Fred[12]

Music by Gottschalk, Louis F.[13]

1-21, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help: 7

-----------------------------------------------------------------

You're hooked! You decide to look for more information on Adolphe

Menjou, search more titles, find Oscar winners, etc.

3.6. Learning more about World-Wide Web

World-Wide Web is being developed at CERN (European Particle Physics

Laboratory) by the World-Wide Web team leaded by Tim Berners-Lee. Bug

reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to:

www-bug@info.cern.ch

On-line documentation is available from info.cern.ch, for anonymous

FTP or using the remote WWW client.

Mailing lists: www-talk@info.cern.ch

To subscribe send a mail to www-talk-request@info.cern.ch

Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.www

4. WAIS

4.1. What is WAIS

WAIS, Wide Area Information Server, is a distributed information

retrieval system. It helps users search databases over networks using

an easy-to-use interface. The databases (called sources) are mostly

collections of text-based documents, but they may also contain sound,

pictures or video as well. Databases on topics ranging from

Agriculture to Social Science can be searched with WAIS.

The databases may be organized in different ways, using various

database systems, but the user isn't required to learn the query

languages of the different databases. WAIS uses natural language

queries to find relevant documents. The result of the query is a set

of documents which contain the words of the query: no semantic

information is extracted from the query.

4.2. Who can use WAIS

WAIS uses the client-server model to provide access to databases. You

must be on the international TCP/IP network (the Internet) in order

to use a client on your computer to access WAIS.

If you have e-mail access only, or if you are not on the Internet you

can still exploit some of the potential of WAIS. An e-mail interface

is available at the address: waismail@quake.think.com which gives

e-mail access to WAIS databases (see E-mail access section under

Using WAIS below).

4.3. How to get to WAIS

There are many WAIS servers throughout the network. A

directory-of-servers database is available at several sites. You can

address a query to it, e.g., to find out what databases are available

on a particular subject. This database is also available via

anonymous FTP from Think.com in the directory /wais as file

wais-sources.tar.Z.

If you do not have access to a WAIS client, (at least) two

demonstration sites are available to allow you to get acquainted with

WAIS. You can telnet to:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

quake.think.com (login: wais)

sunsite.unc.edu (login: swais)

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

The two demonstration sites above run swais (Screen WAIS), a simple

WAIS client for Unix.

4.4. Using WAIS

There are many freely available client software programs for various

operating systems (Unix, VMS, MVS, MS-DOS, OS/2 and Macintosh) and

for specific environments (GNU Emacs, X-Windows, Openlook, Sunview,

NeXT, and MS-Windows). See the list of freely available client

software in Appendix A.

The client interface differs slightly on different platforms.

However, the queries are performed in the same way, whatever the

interface.

* Step 1: The user selects a set of databases to be searched from

among the available databases.

* Step 2: The user formulates a query by giving keywords to be

searched for.

* Step 3: When the query is run, WAIS asks for information from each

selected database.

* Step 4: Headlines of documents satisfying the query are displayed.

The selected documents contain the requested words and phrases.

Selected documents are ranked according to the number of matches.

* Step 5: To retrieve a document, the user simply selects it from the

resulting list.

* Step 6: If the response is incomplete, the user can state the

question differently or feed back to the system any one or more of

the selected documents he finds relevant.

* Step 7: When the search is run again, the results will be updated

to include documents which are similar to the ones selected,

meaning documents which share a large number of common words.

4.4.1. E-mail access:

You can query WAIS databases and retrieve documents by sending

commands in the body part of an e-mail message to

waismail@quake.think.com. The Subject: line is ignored. The important

commands are (a vertical bar () indicates a choice of parameters):

help

to get the help file

maxres number

to set the maximum number of results to be returned.

search source-name "source-name1 source-name2 ..." keywords

where:

source-name

is a source name as found in the directory-of-servers (with or

without the .src ending). Use double-quotes (") to group

several sources to be searched.

keywords

are the words you would normally type into a query.

You may specify several search requests in a mail message. If you

don't know what sources you can search, just try anything. If the

source name is not recognised, you'll get a list of sources.

retrieve docid

to retrieve a document from a database. docid is a DocID as

returned by a search above. You may put more than one retrieval

request in a mail message, but you must leave a blank line between

requests. The docid must be written exactly as returned by a

search request, including any spaces. You can retrieve non-text

documents as well as text. If the document is of type TEXT or WSRC

you will get the result directly. Other types will be UUENCODED.

DocID: docid

same as retrieve. This form is identical to the form which is

returned by a search request. It makes it easy to use the reply

mail function to retrieve results.

4.5. Examples

When you log in to the demonstration site at quake.think.com, you

have immediate access to the directory-of-servers database via the

swais client software. To find recipes using papaya, you would select

the recipes database and give papaya as the keyword. Here are the

results of the search:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

# Score Source Title Lines

001: 1000 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Dawn's Muffins, Pt III 339

002: 1000 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Muffins 3 632

003: 1000 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Pineapple 678

004: 750 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Pork and Papaya Salad 33

005: 750 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Bread 681

006: 500 (recipes) roder@cco. Re: NONFAT BAKERY COLLECTION 423

007: 500 (recipes) shiva@hoss Re: Juice Recipes 65

008: 250 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Prawn Salad 49

009: 250 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: COLLECTION: Lots of Avoca 447

010: 250 (recipes) mecca@acsu Re: REQUEST: blender-made fru 29

011: 250 (recipes) Ann.Adamci Re: Re: REQUEST: blender-made 38

012: 250 (recipes) patth@Pani Re: Re: REQUEST: blender-made 49

013: 250 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Avocados 459

014: 250 (recipes) red_trek@d Re: VEGAN: red beans and rice 78

-----------------------------------------------------------------

You can then select any of the above documents for viewing, for

example, the Pork and Papaya Salad recipe:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes

From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)

Subject: Pork and Papaya Salad

Message-ID: <5BBP2SB@taronga.com>

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 06:51:47 GMT

Lines: 23

1/4 cup dried currants

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup walnut oil

1/4 cup chicken broth

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 pound cooked boneless pork loin roast

1 head Belgian endive

Bibb lettuce leaves

2 papayas, seeded, peeled and sliced lengthwise

2 avocados, seeded, peeled and sliced lengthwise

1/4 cup broken walnut pieces

In a small bowl pour enough boiling water over currants to cover.

Let stand 5 minutes; drain. For dressing, in a screw-top jar

combine vinegar, oil, chicken broth, honey, and cinnamon. Cover;

shake well. Trim fat from pork; slice thinly. Separate leaves of

Belgian endive. Line 6 salad plates with lettuce leaves. Arrange

pork, endive, papaya, and avocado on plates. Sprinkle with

currants and walnuts. Drizzle dressing over salads.

Stephanie da Silva arielle@taronga.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------

If you give more than one keyword, then all documents containing any

of the keywords will be listed.

4.6. Learning more about WAIS

A bibliography of documents, services and sources for WAIS is

maintained by Barbara Lincoln Brooks of WAIS Inc. The bibliography is

available from ftp.wais.com in the directory /pub/wais-inc-doc along

with many other WAIS documents.

There are currently four main FTP sites for WAIS documentation and

software:

* ftp.cnidr.org

* ftp.wais.com

* quake.think.com

* sunsite.unc.edu

For information on free WAIS software contact freewais@cnidr.org

Mailing list: wais-discussion@wais.com

To subscribe send a mail to wais-discussion-request@wais.com

Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.wais

WAIS was developed at Thinking Machines Corporation.

5. ARCHIE

5.1. What is ARCHIE

Archie is an information system. It offers an electronic directory

service for locating information in the international TCP/IP network

(the Internet).

The best known use of archie is for scanning a database of the

contents of more than 1000 anonymous FTP sites around the world.

Currently, this database contains more than 2,100,000 file names from

anonymous FTP sites. This database is known as the archie database.

The files made available at anonymous FTP sites are software packages

for various systems (Windows, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Unix, etc.),

utilities, information or documentation files, mailing list or Usenet

group discussion archives. At most FTP sites, the resources are

organized hierarchically in directories and subdirectories. The

database tracks both the directory path and the file names.

The archie database is automatically updated, thereby ensuring that

the information is accurate. Using this database, users can easily

find the the location of files they need without logging onto several

machines.

5.2. Who can use ARCHIE

Users on any network can access the archie database by electronic

mail. Other means of access are available to users on the Internet

(see the section Using ARCHIE below for details).

You are requested to respect a few basic rules when you request

information from an archie server:

* avoid connecting during working hours; most of the archie

servers are

not dedicated machines, they have local functions as well.

* make your queries as specific as possible; the response will be

quicker and shorter.

* user interfaces installed on your computer contribute to reduce

the

load on the server sites, please use them.

* use the archie server closest to you and, in particularly, don't

overload the transatlantic lines.

5.3. How to get to ARCHIE

The archie database is maintained in the following locations:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Host Country

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

archie.au Australia

archie.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at Austria

archie.univie.ac.at Austria

archie.uqam.ca Canada

archie.funet.fi Finland

archie.th-darmstadt.de Germany

archie.doc.ic.ac.uk Great-Britain

archie.ac.il Israel

archie.unipi.it Italy

archie.wide.ad.jp Japan

archie.kyoto-u.ac.jp Japan

archie.hana.nm.kr Korea

archie.sogang.ac.kr Korea

archie.nz New Zealand

archie.rediris.es Spain

archie.luth.se Sweden

archie.switch.ch Switzerland

archie.ncu.edu.tw Taiwan

archie.ans.net USA

archie.internic.net USA

archie.rutgers.edu USA

archie.sura.net USA

archie.unl.edu USA

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

There are three ways to access the archie database: via a local

client, interactive Telnet session or electronic mail. Each type of

access is described below in the Using ARCHIE section.

5.4. Using ARCHIE

The format of the parameters is given at the end of this section.

Angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter; a vertical bar

() indicates a choice of parameters.

Note: A new version of the archie server (3.0) is now available. Some

of the commands for interactive access and the e-mail interface are

slightly different from previous versions of the server (2.11 and

before). Command formats marked with a (+) are valid in version 3.0

only, those marked with a (*) are acceptable only in previous

versions. To find out which version is installed at the server you

wish to use, issue the version command.

5.4.1. Using a local client:

Usage of these clients is encouraged since they provide quick and

easy non-interactive access to the archie servers, and thus,

better performance of the servers and better response time for the

user.

Public domain clients for accessing archie servers are available

for: Macintosh, MS-DOS, OS/2, VMS, NeXT, Unix and X-Windows. The

clients are available for anonymous FTP from the archie sites in

the directories /pub/archie/clients or /archie/clients. All these

platforms support a simple command line client. In addition, a

graphical interface (called xarchie) is available for X-Windows.

5.4.1.1. Archie client command and parameters

When using a graphical interface, you access the archie functions

by pressing mousse buttons. The results are displayed with

selectable fields for further explorations.

The basic archie client is a command with parameters that you

enter on your local machine. With most versions of the archie

client, if you type archie with no parameters, you will get a list

of the possible parameters and a short description of each. The

format of the command is:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

archie <-options> string pattern

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where the options are:

o

specifies an output file name to store the results (not

available with all clients).

l

lists the result one match per line. This form is suitable for

parsing by programs.

t

sorts the result inverted by date

m#

specifies maximum number of matches to return (# within the

range 0 to 1000). The default value is 95.

h archie-server

specifies an archie server to send the query to; if this

parameter is not given, then the query will be sent to the

default archie server, if one is defined.

L

lists known servers and current default server.

The following group of options determines the kind of search

performed on the database. They are mutually exclusive.

s

a match occurs if the file/directory name contains string. The

search is case insensitive.

c

as above, but the search is case sensitive.

e

string must EXACTLY match (including case) the file/directory

name in the database. This is the DEFAULT search method.

r

searches the database using pattern. It contains special

characters which must be interpreted before performing the

search.

There may be some slight differences in the options available with

different clients on different platforms.

The result is a list of FTP site addresses with files or

directories matching the argument, the size of the file, its last

modification date and its directory. By default, the list is

sorted by host address. See the Examples section below for an

example of archie output.

5.4.2. Using Telnet:

To access an archie server interactively, telnet to one of the

existing servers (see the list of servers in the section How to

get to ARCHIE above). At the login: prompt enter archie, the login

procedure ends leaving the user at a archie> prompt. The server is

ready for user requests. The following commands are available:

exit, quit, bye

exits archie.

help <command-name>

invokes the on-line help. If issued with commandname, the help

request is restricted to the specified topic. Pressing the

RETURN key exits from the on-line help.

list <pattern>

provides a list of the sites in the database and the time at

which they were last updated. The optional parameter limits the

list to sites matching pattern. The result is a list of site

names, sites IP address and date of the last update in the

database. The command list with no pattern will list all sites

in the database (more than 1000 sites!). E.g.,

list \.de$

will list all German sites

site(*) site-name

lists the directories and, recursively, the subdirectories, of

site-name in the database. The result may be very long.

whatis string

searches the database of software package descriptions for

string. The search is case-insensitive.

prog string pattern

find(+) string pattern

searches the database for string or pattern which represents

the name of the resource to be found in the database. Searches

may be performed in a number of different ways specified in the

variable search (set command) which also decides the

interpretation of the parameter as string or pattern. The

result is a list of FTP site addresses with matching entries,

the size of the resource, its last modification date and the

directory to find it. The number of hits is limited by the

maxhits variable (set command). The result of prog can be

sorted in different ways, depending on the value of the sortby

variable (set command). By default, the variables search,

maxhits and sortby are set to, respectively, exact match search

on string, 1000 hits and unsorted resulting list. Typing the

keyboard interrupt character during a search will abort it. The

results up to that time are displayed. See the Examples section

below for an example of the prog command and its results.

mail <email> <,email2...>

sends the result of the last command in a mail message to the

specified e-mail address(es). If issued with no argument, the

result is sent to the address specified in the variable mailto

(set command).

show <variable>

displays the value of the given variable name. If issued with

no argument, it displays all variables. See the set command

below for the possible variables.

set variable value

sets one of the archie's variables. Values of these variables

affect how archie interacts with the user.

Variables and values are:

compress(+) compress-method

specifies the compression method (none or compress) to be used

before mailing a result with the mail command. The default is

none.

encode(+) encode-method

specifies the encoding method (none or uuencode) to be used

before mailing a result with the mail command. This variable is

ignored if compress is not set. The default is none.

mailto email <,email2 ...>

specifies the e-mail address(es) to mail the result of the last

command when mail is issued with no arguments.

maxhits number

specifies the maximum number of matches prog will generate

(within the range 0 to 1000). The default value is 1000.

search search-value

determines the kind of search performed on the database by the

command: prog string pattern. search-values are:

sub

a parttial and case insensitive search is performed with

string on the database, e.g.:

"is" will match "islington" and "this" and "poison"

subcase

as above but the search is case sensitive, e.g.:

"TeX" will match "LaTeX" but not "Latex"

exact

the parameter of prog (string) must EXACTLY match (including

case) the string in the database. The fastest search method

of all, and the default.

regex

pattern is interpreted before performing a search on the

database.

sortby sort-value

describes how to sort the result of prog. sort-values are:

hostname

on the FTP site address in lexical order.

time

by the modification date, most recent first.

size

by the size of the found files or directories, largest

first.

filename

on file or directory name in lexical order.

none

unsorted (default)

The reverse sorting orders from those described here are

oBTained by prepending r to the sortby value given. (e.g.,

reverse hostname order hostname is rhostname).

term terminal-type <number-of-rows <number-of-columns>>

tells the archie server what type of terminal you are

using, and optionally its size in rows and columns, e.g.:

set term xterm 24 100

5.4.3. Using electronic mail:

Users limited to electronic mail connectivity can access the

archie servers by sending mail to the domain address of one of the

servers listed in the section How to get to ARCHIE (e.g.,

archie@archie.ac.il). The commands are sent in the body part of

the mail.

The electronic mail interface to an archie server recognizes a

subset of the commands described in Using Telnet. Most useful

commands and particularities to the e-mail interface are described

below. If an empty message, or a message containing no valid

requests is received, it will be considered to be a help request.

Command lines begin in the first column. All lines that do not

match a valid command are ignored. The Subject: line is processed

as if it were part of the message body.

help

sends you the help file. The help command is exclusive, ie,

other commands in the same message are ignored.

path return-address

set mailto(+) return-address

specifies a return e-mail address different from that which is

extracted from the message header. If you do not receive a

reply from the archie server within several hours, you might

need to add a path command to your message request.

list pattern <pattern2 ...>

provides a list of the sites in the database that match pattern

and the time at which they were last updated. The result is a

list with site names, sites IP address and date of the last

update in the database.

site(*) site-name

lists the directories and, recursively, the subdirectories, of

site-name in the database.

whatis string <string2 ...>

searches the database of software packages descriptions for

each string. The search is case insensitive.

prog pattern <pattern2 ...>

find(+) pattern <pattern2>

searches the database for each interpretation of pattern which

represents the name of a resource to be found in the database.

If multiple patterns are placed on one line, in that case, the

results will be mailed back in one message. If multiple prog

lines appear, then multiple messages will be returned, one for

each prog line. Results are sorted by FTP site address in

lexical order. If pattern contains spaces, it must be quoted

with single (') or double (") quotes. The search is case

insensitive.

compress(*)

causes the result of the current request to be compressed and

uuencoded. When you receive the reply, you should run it

through uudecode. This will produce a .Z file. You can then run

uncompress on this file and get the result of your request

set compress(+) compress-method

specifies the compression method (none or compress) to be used

before mailing the result of the current request. The default

is none.

set encode(+) encode-method

specifies the encoding method (none or uuencode) to be used

before mailing the result of the current request. This variable

is ignored if compress is not set. The default is none.

Note: set compress compress and set encode uuencode would

produce the same result as the former compress command.

quit

nothing past this point is interpreted. Useful when a signature

is automatically appended at the end of your mail messages.

Description of pattern

A pattern describes a character string including characters which

take a special meaning. The special meaning is lost when "\" is

put before the character. The special characters are:

.

(period) this is the wildcard character that replaces any other

character, e.g., "...." will match any 4 character string.

^

(caret) if "^" appears at the beginning of the pattern, then

the searched string must start with the substring following the

"^". If it occurs anywhere else in the pattern it is regarded

as non-special, e.g.:

"^efghi" will match "efghi" or "efghijlk" but not

"abcefghi"

$

(dollar) if "$" appears at the end of the pattern, then the

searched string must end with the substring preceding the "$".

If occurring anywhere else in the pattern, it is regarded as

non-special, e.g.:

"efghi$" will match "efghi" or "abcdefghi" but not

"efghijkl"

5.5. Examples

If you are using an archie client, and enter the command:

archie -s eudora

or if you send, by e-mail or during a Telnet session, the command:

prog eudora

or

find eudora

then archie will send you the following results:

Host ftp.ascii.co.jp (133.152.1.1)

Last updated 03:38 8 Aug 1993

Location: /pub/MAC

DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 2048 bytes 00:00 6 May 1992 eudora

Host ftp.ascii.co.jp (133.152.1.1)

Last updated 03:38 8 Aug 1993

Location: /pub/MAC/eudora

FILE -r--r--r-- 281139 bytes 00:00 21 Oct 1991 eudora1.2.2.sit.hqx

Host ftp.ci.ua.pt (192.80.21.201)

Last updated 04:53 9 Aug 1993

Location: /pub/NetNews/comp.binaries.mac

FILE -rw-r--r-- 438 bytes 12:04 10 Jul 1993 Eudora1.3.readme

Host ftp.ci.ua.pt (192.80.21.201)

Last updated 04:53 9 Aug 1993

Location: /pub/NetNews/comp.binaries.mac

FILE -rw-r--r-- 278912 bytes 12:04 10 Jul 1993 Eudora1.3.sit.bin

etc.

If you send the command list \.de$ by e-mail or in a Telnet session,

then you will get the following results:

alice.fmi.uni-passau.de 132.231.1.180 12:31 8 Aug 1993

askhp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de 129.13.200.33 12:25 8 Aug 1993

athene.uni-paderborn.de 131.234.2.32 15:21 6 Aug 1993

bseis.eis.cs.tu-bs.de 134.169.33.1 00:18 31 Jul 1993

clio.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de 134.99.128.3 12:10 8 Aug 1993

cns.wtza-berlin.de 141.16.244.4 16:08 31 Jul 1993

etc.

If you send the command whatis compression by e-mail or in a Telnet

session, then you will get the following results:

RFC468

Braden, R.T. FTP data compression 1973 March 8; 5p.

arc PC compression program

deltac Image compression using delta modulation

spl Splay tree compression routines

squeeze A file compression program

uncrunch Uncompression program

unsqueeze Uncompression programs

5.6. Learning more about ARCHIE

However you communicate with the archie server, on-line help is

available.

If you have any questions about archie, write to the Archie Group,

Bunyip Information Systems Inc. at info@bunyip.com.

Bug reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to

archie-group@bunyip.com. In addition, the database administrator at a

particular archie server can be contacted at

archie-admin@address.of.archie.server, e.g.:

archie-admin@archie.ac.il.

Mailing list: archie-people@bunyip.com

To subscribe send a mail to: archie-people-request@bunyip.com

Archie was developed by Alan Emtage, Peter Deutsch, and Bill Heelan

from the McGill University Computing Center, Canada. Now archie is

supported by Bunyip Information System Inc., Canada.

6.1. WHOIS

6.1. What is WHOIS

WHOIS provides directory service to network users. This service is a

way of finding e-mail addresses, postal addresses and telephone

numbers. It may also deliver information about networks, networking

organizations, domains and sites.

The main database of networking-related names (organizations, sites,

networks, people, etc.) is maintained by the Internet Registration

Service (InterNIC). Actually, the names of the administrative and

technical contacts for registered domains are automatically entered

into the database when domain or IP number applications are processed

by the Internet coordination authority. Each entry of the database

has a handle (a unique identifier), a name, a record type, and

various other fields depending on the type of record. This database

will be used as an example in the descriptions below.

Before April 1, 1993, the Network Information Center (NIC) of the

Defense Data Network (DDN) was the Internet coordination authority

and, therefore, maintained the database (known as the NIC database).

The NIC database is now restricted to information about the .mil

domain. Many documents still refer to these names.

Many academic sites maintain their own database to offer information

about their staff members and students.

In its current implementation, WHOIS has some limitations which

prevent it from becoming an efficient directory service for a large

volume of information and numerous requests: the various WHOIS

servers have no knowledge of each other, a database is maintained at

each server site, and, finally, new functionalities have been

implemented locally at various sites and not propagated. A new

extended protocol, WHOIS++, is being specified to improve the current

service. WHOIS++ will include local enhancements to the WHOIS

service, an improved query syntax and its architecture will allow a

real distributed directory service for the entire Internet.

This new protocol for directory services will be made available

shortly.

6.2. Who can use WHOIS

WHOIS is available to users on the international TCP/IP network (the

Internet).

A WHOIS server is accessible across the network from a user program

running on local machines or via an interactive Telnet session to the

site which hosts the server.

In addition, the InterNIC offers an electronic mail interface to the

database it maintains, allowing users not on the Internet or users

with electronic mail only to access this information. This type of

access is described below in the Using WHOIS section.

In general, WHOIS servers should only be used for isolated queries

about specific information. Typically, it is not acceptable to make

an extended series of queries to obtain large sections of the

directory. Such a strategy is unfair both because of excessive

consumption of server resources, and because the directory

information belongs to individuals. In particular, extracting lists

of people for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.

6.3. How to get to WHOIS

There are many WHOIS servers throughout the network and a

comprehensive list would be too long to be included here. A WHOIS

server offers information about the organization to which it belongs:

it doesn't share a common directory with other WHOIS servers and

doesn't know either where to find information about other

institutions.

6.4. Using WHOIS

WHOIS has become the familiar name of the user program for accessing

a WHOIS database, although NICNAME is the original name.

In the following, angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter.

6.4.1. Using a local client:

Unix computers have a native whois command. On non-Unix machines,

ask your system administrator whether your computer has it or not.

This command searches the database on the specified site for entry

which contains identifier. The format is:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

whois <-h site-name> identifier

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

site-name

is the domain address of the site which hosts the database you

want to query (e.g., whois.internic.net). On some

installations, the default value is still set to the old NIC

database site (nic.ddn.mil).

identifier

is a name (person, host, domain or network), an IP number or a

handle.

Special characters may be used in identifier to specify the

search:

.

before identifier will cause a name-only search.

!

before identifier will cause a handle-only search.

... or .

after identifier will cause a partial search: everything

starting with identifier will match.

@

in identifier will cause a search on the e-mail addresses.

*

before identifier will return the entire membership list of the

entry that matches identifier (e.g., a site and its registered

users).

%

before identifier will return only the membership list of the

entry that matches identifier (e.g., the registered users of a

site).

The special characters may be used together.

The results are displayed in one of 2 ways:

* a full detailed display for a single match,

* a list of summary lines for multiple matches.

In both cases, the handle is shown in parentheses after the name.

6.4.2. Using Telnet:

To access the InterNIC database interactively, telnet to the

InterNIC site (whois.internic.net). No login is required.

Other WHOIS databases may have a Telnet access and offer most of

the functions below (e.g., whois.ripe.net which hosts the WHOIS

database of the European IP Networks).

In the following, CAPITAL letters indicate acceptable

abbreviation; angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter.

WHOIS

invokes the information retrieval program.

?

displays a short on-line help.

HElp

accesses the full on-line help.

Q, QUIT, RETURN key

exits WHOIS

<keyword> identifier

searches the database for an entry which contains identifier.

The default action is to do a broad search, looking for matches

in many fields: handle, name, nicknames, hostname, IP number,

etc, and finding all record types. keyword may be used to

narrow the search to a specific record type.

keyword may be one of:

PErson

limits the search to persons.

DOmain

limits the search to domains (e.g., DO EARN.NET).

HOst

limits the search to hosts (e.g., HO PRINCETON).

NEtwork

limits the search to networks (e.g., NE EBONE).

Organization

limits the search to organizations (e.g., O CREN).

NAme

same as leading '.' in identifier.

HAndle

same as '!' in identifier.

PArtial

same as trailing '.' in identifier.

Mailbox

same as '@' in identifier.

EXPand

same as '*' in identifier.

SUBdisplay

same as '%' in identifier.

Full or '='

shows detailed display for each match.

SUMmary or '$'

shows summary always, even if just one match.

Special characters may be used in identifier to specify the

search:

.

before identifier will cause a name-only search.

!

before identifier will cause a handle-only search.

... or .

after identifier will cause a partial search: everything

starting with identifier will match.

@

in identifier will cause a search on the e-mail addresses.

*

before identifier will return the entire membership list of the

entry that match identifier (e.g., a site and its registered

users).

%

before identifier will return only the membership list of the

entry that matches identifier (e.g., the registered users of a

site).

~

before identifier will return the entry that matches identifier

only, no membership list.

The special characters may be used together.

Except if Full or SUMmary are specified, the results are

displayed in one of 2 ways:

* a full detailed display for a single match,

* a list of summary lines for multiple matches.

In all cases, the handle is shown in parenthesis after the name.

6.4.3. Using electronic mail:

Users limited to electronic mail connectivity can send requests to

the database maintained at the InterNIC by sending mail to

mailserv@internic.net. The commands are sent in the Subject:

field. The body part of the mail is ignored except if the Subject:

line is empty. In that case, only the first line is interpreted.

This electronic mail interface recognizes all commands described

in Using Telnet. Requests should be prefixed with the word WHOIS.

Requests are processed automatically once a day.

6.5. Examples

If you are using a local client, and enter the command:

whois \!EARN... (remark: "\" is an escape character)

or if you send by e-mail the command:

whois !EARN...

then you will get the following results:

EARN (EARN-HST) SEINE.EARN.NET 193.52.216.1

European Academic Research Network (EARN-DOM) EARN.NET

To obtain detailed information on the second item, enter or send

the command:

whois EARN-DOM

then you will get the following result:

European Academic Research Network (EARN-DOM)

EARN Office

PSI - Batiment 211

91405 Orsay CEDEX

FRANCE

Domain Name: EARN.NET

Administrative Contact:

Bovio, Daniele (DB355) hi@EARNCC.EARN.NET

+33 1 6941 2426 (FAX) +33 1 6941 6683

Technical Contact, Zone Contact:

Grange, Nadine (NG4) grange@EARNCC.EARN.NET

+33 1 6941 2426 (FAX) +33 1 6941 6683

Record last updated on 15-Dec-93.

Domain servers in listed order:

SEINE.EARN.NET 193.52.216.1

DNS.NIS.GARR.IT 192.12.192.5,131.114.2.5

LUMIERE.CIRCE.FR 130.84.8.14

For a partial search, enter:

whois hi@ear...

then you will get the following result:

Bovio, Daniele (DB355) hi@EARNCC.EARN.NET

EARN

EARN Office

PSI - BP Batiment 211

91405 ORSAY CEDEX, France

FR

+33 1 6941 2426 (FAX) +33 1 6941 6683

6.6. Learning more about WHOIS

The WHOIS service is documented in an Internet Request For Comments

(RFC1400).

If you have any questions about WHOIS write to action@internic.net.

Bug reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to

action@internic.net.

7. X.500

7.1. What is X.500

X.500 is an OSI (Open System Information) based directory services

protocol designed by the CCITT (International Telegraph and Telephone

Consultative Committee).

X.500 provides distributed directory services to network users. The

X.500 directory specifies a model for connecting directory services

to form one distributed global directory. Each directory service

holds a part of the global database and the directory information is

made available via a server (called a Directory System Agent - DSA).

The database is maintained locally. From the user point of view, the

entire directory is accessible from the local server.

While most of the information available today via X.500 is about

people and organizations, the design of the X.500 directory is also

suitable for storing information about other entities (or objects),

such as network resources, applications or hardware. Several projects

are underway which utilize these directory capabilities (e.g., the

Internet RFCs (Request For Comments) are listed in the global

directory).

Each item (entry) in the X.500 directory describes one object (e.g.,

a person, a network resource, an organization) and has a

Distinguished Name - DN (a unique identifier). It consists of a

collection of attributes (e.g., last name, organization name, e-

mail,...- for a person). The information held in the X.500 directory

(or Directory Information Base - DIB) is arranged hierarchically.

This organization is called the Directory Information Tree (DIT). At

the top-level is the root entry (the World), then the country level,

then the organization level, and, eventually, the people, the

resources, etc., at the bottom-level of the hierarchy.

7.2. Who can use X.500

Although X.500 is part of the OSI standard definition, OSI access is

not necessary to use the directory services. Many X.500 services are

available on the Internet. In addition, users on any network can

access the X.500 directory by electronic mail. See the section Using

X.500 below for details.

7.3. How to get to X.500

There are three ways to access the X.500 services: via a local

client, interactive session (Telnet or X.25 access) or electronic

mail. Each type of access is described below in the Using X.500

section.

In addition, other network tools (e.g., WWW and Gopher) provide

access to X.500 directory services through gateways.

Accessing a remote client is an easy way to start querying the X.500

directory. Some sites allow public access via Telnet or X.25 to a

client. Public access user interfaces are available at:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Telnet (login) Public X.25 (login) Country

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

jethro.ucc.su.oz.au (fred) Australia

elem4.vub.ac.be (dua) 222100611 Belgium

login.dkuug.dk (ds) Denmark

nic.funet.fi (dua) Finland

20800603053201 France

(login: dua, password: ucom.x) France

26245050230303 Germany

ashe.cs.tcd.ie (de) Ireland

jolly.nis.garr.it (de or fred) 22225010083212 Italy

zoek.nic.surfnet.nl (zoek) Netherlands

elc1.mat.torun.edu.pl (de or dish) Poland

chico.rediris.es (directorio) 2142160234013 Spain

hypatia.umdc.umu.se (de) 240374810306 Sweden

nic.switch.ch (dua) 22847971014540 Switzerland

paradise.ulcc.ac.uk (dua) 23421920014853 Paradise

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Paradise is a European project to encourage the use of X.500 in

European countries.

To connect to one of these sites, select an access method (Telnet or

X.25) and at the login: prompt type the specified login, if required.

7.4. Using X.500

X.500 supports data management functions (addition, modification and

deletion of entries) and powerful lookup capabilities. The use of

X.500 is primarily for its lookup capabilities, ie, querying a

database for information on a person (postal address, telephone

number, e-mail address, etc.). The basic fields for searching are the

person's name, the name of the person's organization (and department

within the organization) and the country.

In the following, angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter;

a vertical () indicates a choice of parameters.

7.4.1. Using a local client:

In the X.500 world, a local client is called a Directory User

Agent (DUA) Public domain and commercial DUAs are available for

numerous platforms ranging from mainframes to personal computers.

For a comprehensive list of DUAs, their description and where to

find them, consult the Internet document RFC1292 - A Catalog of

Available X.500 Implementations.

Available DUAs range from simple line commands to sophisticated

graphical user interfaces which require a pointing device.

7.4.2. Using Telnet or X.25:

3 categories of user interfaces might be available at the remote

site:

* line-oriented: de, dish, fred

* menu-driven: sd (formerly known as widget)

* X-Windows-based: Xdi, Xlookup (or xlu), pod

Capabilities of these DUAs range from basic search facilities to

full X.500 functionality.

de (directory enquiries) is recommended for novice users since it

is a very simple user-interface. It has been designed to run as a

public access DUA and is accessible from any kind of terminal. It

supports the basic X.500 functions: read, search, list. The Simple

query mode is suitable for those who are new to querying the X.500

directory.

de

invokes the X.500 interrogation user-interface.

q

exits de.

?<topic>

displays the on-line help on the specified topic or general

help.

^C

(Ctrl-C) is the interrupt character. It aborts a search in

progress or resets the current query specification.

*

(asterisk) will list all entries of the specified field. It is

also the wildcard character and can replace any other character

in a name. It can appears anywhere in the name, e.g.: smit* or

*smit* are valid string formats.

-

resets the default value to a blank string.

When de is invoked, the user is requested to fill in 4 fields to

specify a request. In all fields, the value from the previous

request is the default value. Press the RETURN key to accept it,

or enter a new value. All searches are case insensitive.

The four fields to be filled in are:

Person's name

Wildcard characters may be used anywhere in the name. All

matching names will be listed. Typing only "*" will match all

people of the specified department or organization. If this

field is blank, the search will be on department or

organization only.

Department name

the name (or an acronym) of the department in the organization

where the person works. Wildcard characters may be used

anywhere in the name. Typing only "*" will match all

departments. If no person's name has been entered, details on

the department are displayed, otherwise, the search is carried

out with the selected name. If no department name is given, all

departments will be searched. This field could be omitted in

small organizations.

Organization name

the name (or an acronym) of the organization where the

person works. Wildcard characters may be used anywhere in

the name. Typing only "*" will match all organizations. If no

person's name or department name has been entered, details on

the organization are displayed, otherwise, the search is

carried out with the selected name.

Country name

the name of the country where the person works. Typing "*" will

list all countries. The country name could be the 2-letter

country code (e.g., DK stands for Denmark), the name or a part

of it without wildcards (e.g., nether instead of The

Netherlands).

If a large number of matching entries are found, they are listed

so that the user can select one entry to get further details.

7.4.3. Using electronic mail:

The Norwegian networking organization (UNINETT) offers an e-mail

interface to X.500. To use it, send a mail message to:

Directory@UNINETT.NO with the word find in the Subject: field. The

body part contains the search request, one per message.

The format of the search request is:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

find <person-name> <: org-name <; country-name>>

<; country-name>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

If org-name and country-name are omitted, the sender's

organization name and country name are used as default values. The

mail interface guesses these values from the From: field of your

mail, so the results can be surprising if your address ends with

.bitnet!

"*" (asterisk) is the wildcard character and can replace any other

characters in any name. It can appear anywhere in the name.

The result of the query is sent back in a mail message. The search

is case insensitive.

Note: To avoid overloading the directory service, users are not

allowed to search for a person without selecting an organization.

To receive a help file, send the word help instead of a find

command.

7.5. Examples

Using de, you can search for the Anthropoloy department of the

University College of London in United Kingdom, with the following

request:

Person's name, q to quit, * to browse, ? for help

:-

Department name, * to browse, ? for help

:- a*

Organisation name, * to browse, ? for help

:- ucl

Country name, * to browse, ? for help

:- uk

A few entries match the selected department, all are listed for

further selection:

United Kingdom

University College London

Got the following matches. Please select one from the list

by typing the number corresponding to the entry you want.

United Kingdom

University College London

1 A.U.T. Office

2 American Institute for Foreign Study

3 Anatomy and Developmental Biology

4 Anthropology

5 Audio Visual Centre

Department name, * to browse, ? for help

:- 4

United Kingdom

University College London

Anthropology

Telephone Number +44 71-387-7050 x2455

fax +44 71 380 7728

If you are looking for Erik Lawaetz from UNI-C in Denmark, you can

enter the following request (default values come from a previous

request):

Person's name, q to quit, * to browse, ? for help

:- law*

Department name, * to browse, <CR> to search all depts, ?

for help

:-

Organisation name, * to browse, ? for help

:- uni-c

Country name, * to browse, ? for help

:- dk

One entry matches the selected criteria, details are displayed:

Denmark

UNI-C

Erik Lawaetz

postalAddress UNI-C

DTH

Bygning 305

DK-2800 Lyngby

Telephone Number +45 45 93 83 55

+45 42 88 39 99 x2018

fax +45 45 93 02 20

electronic mail Erik.Lawaetz@uni-c.dk

If you send mail to Directory@UNINETT.NO with the request:

find geir ped* : *oslo ; no

you'll get the following result:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This message is in response to your request to the directory to

find

geir ped* : *oslo ; no

This is interpreted as a request to find a person with a name

matching "geir ped*" in an organisation with name matching

"*oslo" in a country with a name matching "no".

There were 8 organisations with a name matching the

organizational name you specified. Within those organisations

there were 7 persons that had a name matching the personal name

you specified. Directory information for the located persons is

shown below.

Geir Pedersen : Universitetet i Oslo ; Norway

Alternate Geir Kenneth Pedersen

Alternate Geir K. Pedersen

E-Mail (RFC) Geir.Pedersen@usit.uio.no

E-Mail (X.400) /G=geir/S=pedersen/OU=usit/O=uio/PRMD=uninett/

ADMD= /C=no/

Postal Address Postboks 1059 - Blindern

0316 Oslo 3

NORWAY

Phone +47-22-852478

Phone +47-22-852470 (front-office)

Fax-phone +47-22-852730

Description Project leader for UNINETTs X.500 projects

User ID geirp

Favorite Drink Farris

Street Address Gaustadalleen 23

Home Address Gaustadveien 17A

0372 Oslo 3

NORWAY

See also Geir Pedersen : UNINETT ; Norway

Entry updated Tue Jun 15 11:51:31 1993

-----------------------------------------------------------------

and 6 other entries.

7.6. Learning more about X.500

Several Internet RFCdocuments deal with X.500:

RFC1292 A Catalog of Available X.500 Implementations.

RFC1308 Executive Introduction to Directory Services Using the

X.500 Protocol,

RFC1309 Technical Overview of Directory Services Using the

X.500 Protocol,

The official source of information on X.500 is the X.500

recommendation published by the CCITT (Blue Book, Volume VIII -

Fascicle VIII.8, Data Communication Networks Directory,

Recommendations X.500-X.521, CCITT, 1988, ISBN 92-61-03731-3). This

document is also available electronically: send the command GET

ITU-5233 to itudoc@itu.ch or consult the ITU document store via

Gopher to gopher.itu.ch. This is not intended for the casual user!

8. NETFIND

8.1. What is NETFIND

NETFIND is an Internet user directory tool. It provides a simple

Internet white pages directory facility.

Given the name of a person on the Internet and a rough description of

where the person works, Netfind attempts to locate telephone and

electronic mailbox information about the person. It does so using a

seed database of domains and hosts in the network.

Netfind finds information about people through the Internet protocols

SMTP and finger. If the person being sought is at a site that is not

directly connected to the Internet (e.g., the site is connected only

through a mail forwarding gateway), Netfind informs the user that the

person can not be found.

Due to the dynamic nature of Netfind's search procedures and

variations in Internet availability, different results can be

obtained for the same search on different occasions.

The Netfind software can only run on Suns running SunOS 4.0 or more

recent.

8.2. Who can use NETFIND

You must be on the international TCP/IP network (the Internet) in

order to use Netfind. Moreover, Netfind can only find information on

users who are on the Internet.

There is no e-mail access to Netfind.

8.3. How to get to NETFIND

You can access Netfind through software at your site (local access),

or you can use Telnet to access it at one of the following hosts

(remote access) and log in as netfind, no password is needed.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Host Country

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

archie.au Australia

netfind.anu.edu.au Australia

netfind.ee.mcgill.ca Canada

malloco.ing.puc.cl Chile

netfind.vslib.cz Czech Republic

monolith.cc.ic.ac.uk England

nic.nm.kr Korea

lincoln.technet.sg Singapore

nic.uakom.sk Slovakia

bruno.cs.colorado.edu USA

ds.internic.net USA

mudhoney.micro.umn.edu USA

netfind.oc.com USA

redmont.cis.uab.edu USA

dino.conicit.ve Venezuela

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

8.4. Using NETFIND

To use Netfind, you give it the name of a person and keywords

indicating where that person works. After you specify a search,

Netfind looks in its seed database to find domains matching the

specified keywords. If there is more than one matching domain,

Netfind displays the list of matching domains, and asks you to select

up to three to search. If the keys you specified match more than 100

domains, Netfind will list some of the matching domains/organizations

and ask you to form a more specific search. You can use any of the

parts of an organization's name (or any of the components of its

domain name) as keys in searches. Using more than one key implies the

logical AND of the keys. Specifying too many keys may cause searches

to fail.

When it completes the search (or when interrupted by <circ>C),

Netfind summarizes the search results. The summary includes problems

searching remote domains, information about the most promising e-mail

address for the person being sought (if available), and information

about when and where the person most recently/is currently logged in

(if available). If more than one person is located by a search, the

summary does not include information about e-mail targets and most

recent/current logins (since only the user can decide which person

was the correct one)

8.4.1. Local access:

The format of the Netfind command is:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

netfind <options> name-keyword place-keywords

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where the options are:

-h

tells Netfind to skip the domain search phase, and immediately

begin searching individual machines found in the seed database.

This option exists for measurement purposes. It is not of much

use to casual users.

-s

will disable usage of the SMTP protocol during searches. This

option is mainly useful for measurement purposes. Without this

protocol, searches will begin producing finger output slightly

sooner, but will often search less useful machines, generate

more Internet load, and fail to find information for users at

sites that do not support finger (such as many companies).

-t

will report how many timeouts occurred. The -T option will set

the timeout interval to the specified number of seconds. It may

be necessary to use this option to increase the timeout value

for intercontinental searches.

-D

sets the maximum number of domains that Netfind will search at

once. The default is 3. While it may seem convenient to set a

high value for this number, we suggest you do not do this. The

search will actually proceed faster (and waste less Internet

bandwidth) if a small number of well chosen domains are

searched.

-H

sets the maximum number of machines that will be searched by

Netfind. The default value is 50. Again, we suggest that you

do not set this value higher.

-m

displays measurement information. If no filename is specified,

measurements are output to stderr. The packet count estimates

are usually exaggerated, because they make pessimistic

assumptions about the state of the Domain Naming System.

-d

allows you to turn on various classes of debugging output (all

of which are output to stderr), using a letter corresponding to

each one. Debugging output is enabled using the -d option with

a list of letters, e.g., -dslf. The following classes/letters

exist:

c:

display control messages (check if the program has reached a

specified point)

f: display finger related messages

h:

list machine names found in the seed database

l:

display lock related messages (when entering monitors)

m:

display messages about mail protocol (SMTP)

n:

display messages about network failures

r:

display hosts matched from the seed database that were

rejected from searches because of search scope selection

s:

display system call related messages

t:

display thread related messages

A:

convert the above flags to mean their complement (example

-dAt means produce all debug output except that for

threads).

The letters that are most likely to be of interest to the

casual user are f, m, and n. By default, these options are

enabled. Specifying any of these three flags with -d on the

command line will disable them (hence, the -d option toggles

the default behavior of each of the flags).

The name keyword specifies the person being sought by first,

last, or login name (only one name can be specified).

The place keywords describe where the person works, by either

the name of the institution or the city/state/country. If you

know the institution's domain name (e.g., cs.colorado.edu,

where there are host names like brazil.cs.colorado.edu) you can

specify it as keys without the dots (e.g., cs colorado edu).

The host parts of domain names (brazil) cannot be used as

keywords. Keys are case insensitive and may be specified in any

order, although using a very common key (like university) first

will cause internal buffers to overflow and some domains to be

missed.

Using more than one key implies the logical and of the keys.

Specifying too many keys may cause searches to fail. If this

happens, try specifying fewer keys.

8.4.2. Remote access:

Telnet to one of the remote Netfind sites (see How to get to

NETFIND, above) and log in as netfind. No password is necessary.

You will get the following menu:

Top level choices:

1. Help

2. Search

3. Seed database lookup

4. Options

5. Quit (exit server)

If you select Search, you will be given an opportunity to enter a

name keyword and place keywords.

8.5. Examples

To find the address of e-mail address of Nadine Grange, who works at

the EARN office at CIRCE in France, you could try the keywords:

nadine circe france

Since there are more than three domains that fit the place keywords,

you are asked to pick a few. The search proceeds, using the domains

of your choice:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Please select at most 3 of the following domains to search:

0. circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, orsay ce

1. ciripa.circe.fr (centre inter-regional de calcul electronique, c

2. dnet.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, ors

3. ibmmail.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique,

4. obspm.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, or

5. oecd.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, ors

6. phy.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, orsa

7. ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, orsa

8. cth.ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique,

9. lure.ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique,

10. lps.cth.ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifi

Enter selection (e.g., 2 0 1) --> 0

( 1) check_name: checking domain circe.fr. Level = 0

Search of domains completed. Proceeding to search of hosts.

( 3) check_name: checking host loire.circe.fr. Level = 0

( 4) check_name: checking host solrt.circe.fr. Level = 0

( 5) check_name: checking host groucho.circe.fr. Level = 0

( 1) check_name: checking host rsovax.circe.fr. Level = 0

( 2) check_name: checking host ventura.circe.fr. Level = 0

( 1) do_connect: Finger service not available on host rsovax.circe.

( 1) check_name: checking host earn-ng.circe.fr. Level = 0

( 4) check_name: checking host luregate.circe.fr. Level = 0

SYSTEM: loire.circe.fr

Login name: nadine In real life: Nadine Grange

Directory: /home/nadine Shell: /bin/csh

On since Sep 7 08:48:05 on ttyp0 4 days 21 hours Idle Time

New mail received Sun Sep 12 00:00:08 1993;

unread since Fri Sep 10 11:53:17 1993

No Plan.

Login name: nadine In real life: Nadine Grange

Directory: /home/nadine Shell: /bin/csh

On since Sep 7 09:17:09 on ttyp6 1 day 12 hours Idle Time

SUMMARY:

- "nadine" is currently logged in from

loire.circe.fr, since Sep 7 09:17:09.

- The most promising email address for "nadine"

based on the above search is

nadine@loire.circe.fr.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Note that Netfind found only an Internet address on a Unix machine.

8.6. Learning more about NETFIND

The remote access version of Netfind has a large Help section. There

is also a set of frequently asked questions available with the

software release, in the Doc directory. These questions cover

Functionality, Methodology, Network and Remote Site Load, Privacy,

Future Directions, and Related Work.

A noteworthy article on Netfind is:

Experience with a Semantically Cognizant Internet White Pages

Directory Tool, by M. F. Schwartz and P. G. Tsirigotis, Journal of

Internetworking Research and Experience, March 1991, pp. 23-50.

This publication discusses the research principles, performance, and

scope measurements of Netfind, and compares it with other white pages

facilities.

There is a mailing list for Netfind users (for software updates and

other discussions). To be added to the list, send an e-mail message

to netfind-users-request@cs.colorado.edu with the body (not subject

line) subscribe netfind-users

9. TRICKLE

9.1. What is TRICKLE

TRICKLE is a service which will send you files on request or by

subscription. TRICKLE works with various anonymous FTP sites

(computers in the Internet network that allow public access and

retrieval of software and files). It provides a quick and easy

alternative to FTP, whether or not you have access to the Internet.

There are several TRICKLE servers throughout the world that cooperate

to distribute the files efficiently. To request files, the user

issues commands to the nearest TRICKLE server, which delivers the

software either from its local cache disk, from the cache of another

TRICKLE server, or from an FTP site that holds the software.

9.2. Who can use TRICKLE

There are currently TRICKLE servers at the following addresses:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Location EARN/BITNET Internet

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Austria TRICKLE@AWIWUW11 TRICKLE@awiwuw11.wu-wien.ac.at

Colombia TRICKLE@UNALCOL TRICKLE@unalcol.unal.edu.co

France TRICKLE@FRMOP11 TRICKLE@frmop11.cnusc.fr

Germany TRICKLE@DEARN TRICKLE@vm.gmd.de

Israel TRICKLE@TAUNIVM TRICKLE@vm.tau.ac.il

Italy TRICKLE@IMIPOLI TRICKLE@imipoli.cdc.polimi.it

Netherlands TRICKLE@HEARN TRICKLE@hearn.nic.surfnet.nl

Poland TRICKLE@PLEARN TRICKLE@plearn.edu.pl

Sweden TRICKLE@SEARN TRICKLE@searn.sunet.se

Turkey TRICKLE@TREARN TRICKLE@ege.edu.tr

Turkey TRICKLE@TRMETU TRICKLE@3090.cc.metu.edu.tr

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

When you send a command to a TRICKLE server, it either executes the

command or sends you a message with the address of the TRICKLE server

for your area.

The files which are available from TRICKLE are organized in main

directories which contain many subdirectories. The main directories

which are currently available are:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Directory Source FTP Site Contents

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

MSDOS oak.oakland.edu Large MS-DOS software archive

MISC oak.oakland.edu Software for VM, VMS, Unix

SIGM oak.oakland.edu SIG/M CP/M archive

PC-BLUE oak.oakland.edu PC-BLUE MS-DOS archive

CPM oak.oakland.edu CP/M software archive

ARCHIVES oak.oakland.edu Various discussion group arc.

UNIX-C oak.oakland.edu Unix and C code software arc.

MACINTOS oak.oakland.edu Apple Macintosh software arc.

OS2 2tp-os2.nmsu.edu Large archive of OS/2 sw

AMIGA nic.funet.fi Large Amiga collection

KERMIT watsun.cc.columbia.edu Kermit network software

TEX rusinfo.rus.uni-stuttgart.de TeX software and fonts

WUARCHIVE wuarchive.wustl.edu MS-DOS and others

EXPO-MIT export.lcs.mit.edu Unix and others

UUNET ftp.uu.net Unix and others

SUMEX-AIM sumex-aim.stanford.edu Macintosh and others

GARFIELD garfield.catt.ncsu.edu Multimedia (pictures/sounds)

X11 export.lcs.mit.edu X-Windows software distrib.

Linux nic.funet.fi Linux system software dist.

VM-CMS ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu VM/CMS utilities

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Not all directories are available at all servers. If your closest

server does not provide the directory of your choice, you can use any

other TRICKLE for the missing directory. If your closest server is

temporarily unavailable, you can use any other TRICKLE instead.

9.3. How to get to TRICKLE

You send commands to TRICKLE by electronic mail. The commands should

be in the body of the mail message, one command per line. Any number

of commands (up to your daily command limit) may be placed in one

message. Users on the EARN/Bitnet network may also send commands to

TRICKLE by interactive message.

9.4. Using TRICKLE

All commands begin with a slash (/). Note that the angle brackets

(<>) are part of the command, not an indication of an optional

parameter.

Use the /PDDIR command to obtain directory listings.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

/PDDIR

/PDDIR <dirname>

/PDDIR <dirname.subdirname>pattern

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

dirname

is the name of a main directory,

subdirname

is the name of a subdirectory,

pattern

is part of a filename.

Use /PDDIR without any parameters to get a listing of the main

directories. With PDDIR <dirname> you will get a listing of the

subdirectories under that directory. If you specify both directory

and subdirectory, it will list the files that are available in that

subdirectory. With pattern, you will get a listing of only those

files that match or begin with that pattern. Wildcards "?" and "*"

may be imbedded into subdirname and pattern ("?" matches any single

character; "*" matches any number of characters).

Use the /PDGET command to get files.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

/PDGET <dirname.subdirname>filename ( delivery-option

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

dirname

is the name of a main directory,

subdirname

is the name of a subdirectory,

filename

is the name of a file.

delivery-option

specifies the format to which the file(s) should be translated

before being sent to you. The possible values are:

EBC80 UUE XXE HEX BTOA

The option EBC80 should be used to get text files if you work on

an IBM mainframe system. The other options are formats for

translating binary files so that they can be sent via electronic

mail. You will need a program to translate the file back to its

original form. The default for EARN/Bitnet users is to send the

file as-is. The default for others is UUE.

Wildcards "?" and "*" may be imbedded into subdirname and filename

("?" matches any single character; "*" matches any number of

characters) to get several files.

The /SUB command is used to subscribe to directories or to individual

files.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

/SUB <dirname>

/SUB <dirname.subdirname>pattern

/SUB QUERY

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

dirname

is the name of a main directory,

subdirname

is the name of a subdirectory,

pattern

is part of a filename.

If you subscribe to a directory, you will get a summary of added

files about once a week, depending on how active the FTP site is.

This listing shows the names, sizes and dates of each file added. If

you subscribe to a file, as soon as TRICKLE is informed that a new

version of the file has been stored at its FTP site, a copy of the

file will be sent to you.

Note that since filenames usually reflect the version number of the

file, it is a good idea to omit the number when specifying a pattern.

For example, it is better to send the command:

/SUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>SCANV

rather than

/SUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>SCANV106

since, as new versions of the file are stored, the name might change

to SCANV107, SCANV108, etc.

Wildcards are not allowed with the /SUB command.

The /SUB QUERY command allows you to get a list of the files you are

subscribed to.

The /UNSUB command may be used to cancel a subscription.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

/UNSUB <dirname>

/UNSUB <dirname.subdirname>pattern

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

dirname

is the name of a main directory,

subdirname

is the name of a subdirectory,

pattern

is part of a filename.

The command /UNSUB * may be used to terminate all your directory and

file subscriptions.

9.5. Examples

For a listing of the files in the VIRUS subdirectory of (the MSDOS

directory, send the command:

/PDDIR <MSDOS.VIRUS>

To get the file 00-INDEX.TXT from <MSDOS.VIRUS> in EBCDIC format,

send the command:

/PDGET <MSDOS.VIRUS>00-INDEX.TXT ( EBC80

If you are not sure of the exact name of the file, you can use

wildcards:

/PDGET <MSDOS.VIR*>*INDEX* ( EBC80

To subscribe to automatically get new versions of the SCANV

software from <MSDOS.VIRUS>, send the command:

/SUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>SCANV

To unsubscribe from all files in the VIRUS subdirectory, send the

command:

/UNSUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>*

9.6. Learning more about TRICKLE

The /HELP command may be sent to any TRICKLE server to obtain a very

detailed help file from the server.

A brief guide to TRICKLE is available from the EARN documentation

filelist. Send mail to LISTSERV@EARNCC.EARN.NET (or

LISTSERV@EARNCC.BITNET). In the body of the message, write:

GET TRICKLE MEMO

10. BITFTP

10.1. What is BITFTP

BITFTP, BITNET FTP Server, allows users of EARN, Bitnet and

associated networks to access FTP sites on the Internet.

The BITFTP server provides a mail interface between a user on the

EARN/Bitnet network to FTP sites on the Internet. BITFTP handles this

task by passing the commands specified in the mail message from the

user to another server that actually makes the connection to the FTP

sites. When the server finishes the interaction with the FTP site,

or fails due to an error, a transcript of the result is sent back to

the user, as well as the requested file(s), if any.

The format of the files sent to the user can be defined within the

mail message. BITFTP can deliver files in netdata and uuencode

formats.

10.2. Who can use BITFTP

BITFTP is currently available only to users on EARN, Bitnet and other

regional NJE networks. BITFTP does not support multiple file requests

via the mget command nor does it support sending files to FTP sites

(the put command).

10.3. How to get to BITFTP

There are BITFTP servers currently running at:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

BITFTP@DEARN.BITNET or BITFTP@VM.GMD.DE Germany

BITFTP@PUCC.BITNET or BITFTP@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU USA

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Users on the EARN/Bitnet international network only may use the US

server. Only users from EARN member countries may use the server in

Germany. Servers at other locations are planned.

BITFTP accepts requests via electronic mail, including IBM NOTE and

PROFS-format messages, as well as by NJE file transfer.

10.4. Using BITFTP

BITFTP implements a large subset of the FTP commands of the IBM's

TCP/IP for VM, using the same syntax. This software is documented in

the IBM manual TCP/IP for VM User's Guide. In the following, angle

brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter.

Use the ftp command to specify which host to connect to. This command

must be the first command in your mail file. You can also specify the

file format that you wish BITFTP to use to deliver files to you.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

ftp hostname <fileformat>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

hostname

is either the IP address or the domain name of the host to connect

to,

fileformat

is the format in which BITFTP should deliver files to you. It can

be either netdata or uuencode.

Use the user command to tell the host the username and the password

to be used for the FTP connection. Note that on many FTP sites, both

username and password are case-sensitive.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

user username password

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

username

is the user-id to use for the FTP connection,

password

is the password for the username you specified. It can be omitted

if you specified anonymous for the userid.

Use the cd command to select a particular directory as current

directory.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

cd directory-name

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

directory-name

is the name of the directory to be selected.

Use the dir command to display a list of the files in the current, or

specified, directory. The file names, and depending on the site, the

file size, file creation date and other information will be listed.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

dir <pattern>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

pattern

is a pattern that defines which file names should be displayed.

Many FTP sites are case-sensitive, thus care must be used with the

pattern. The pattern may contain any number of characters, and the

wildcard character "*" (asterisk) may be used to represent any

characters.

The ls command is similar to the dir command, except that with most

FTP sites, it only displays the filenames, without any other

information. The pattern specification is identical to dir.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

ls <pattern>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the get command to obtain a file from the current host.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

get foreignname <localname>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

where:

foreignname

is the filename of the file, as stored at the FTP site. With many

sites, the case of the filename must be respected.

localname

is an optional local filename. If you specify a localname, it must

be in the form: filename.filetype where neither part is longer

than eight characters.

Use the binary command to set the FTP transfer mode. If this option

is set then no EBCDIC-ASCII translation will take place. This should

be used for non-text files.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

binary

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the quit command to close the connection to the host, and to

terminate the BITFTP session.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

quit

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

10.5. Examples

To get the file how.to.ftp.guide from the directory

/pub/nic/network.service.guides at the anonymous FTP site

nic.sura.net, and to get a listing of the files in that directory,

you could send the following commands by e-mail to BITFTP:

ftp nic.sura.net

user anonymous

cd pub/nic/network.service.guides

get how.to.ftp.guide

dir

quit

In response you will receive an e-mail containing the following lines

(some lines have been removed for brevity):

> ftp nic.sura.net

> user anonymous

>> OPEN NIC.SURA.NET

>> USER anonymous

> cd pub/nic/network.service.guides

>> CD pub/nic/network.service.guides

> get how.to.ftp.guide

>>>> "how.to.ftp.guide" sent as "HOWTO FTPGUIDE".

> dir

total 60

-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 344 Apr 14 1992 README

-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 12759 Oct 30 1992 how.to.email.guide

-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 6327 Mar 24 13:28 how.to.ftp.guide

-rw-rw-r-- 1 root 120 2818 Mar 4 1992 how.to.telnet.guide

-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 6136 Oct 30 1992 how.to.use.vi.guide

-rw-r--r-- 1 1086 120 0 Aug 18 21:23 plane.

The above directory listing is typical of the format of Unix FTP

sites. There is information on file permissions and ownership as

well as the size of the file in bytes, the time and date of its last

change, and the file name.

You could request the first two files by once again sending mail to

BITFTP with the following commands:

ftp nic.sura.net

user anonymous

cd pub/nic/network.service.guides

get README

get how.to.email.guide

quit

10.6. Learning more about BITFTP

A four-page instruction to the BITFTP service can be obtained by

sending a help command in the body of a mail message to either BITFTP

server.

Additional information on BITFTP may be obtained from EARN

(NETHELP@EARNCC.EARN.NET or NETHELP@EARNCC.BITNET). More information

about TCP/IP and FTP in general can be obtained from a wide variety

of sources, such as the documents mentioned in the example above.

11. LISTSERV (Version 1.7f)

11.1. What is LISTSERV

LISTSERV is a distribution list management package. It runs on IBM

VM/CMS systems in the international NJE network (EARN/ Bitnet). It

allows groups of computer users with a common interest to communicate

among themselves, while making efficient use of computer and network

resources. It makes it easy for even novice users to discover, join,

and participate in these interest group mailing lists. LISTSERV also

provides facilities for logging and archiving of mail traffic, file

server functions, and database searches of archives and files.

There are LISTSERV lists on every subject under the sun, with names

ranging from AARPUB-L (AAR Electronic Publication list) to Z3950IW

(Z39.50 Implementors Workshop). LISTSERV lists are international and

eclectic. You will find lists in every imaginable field, for every

audience, in many different countries and in many different

languages. See the description of the List command in the section

Using LISTSERV section for instructions on getting an up-to-date list

of lists.

11.2. Who can use LISTSERV

Anyone who can send electronic mail to an EARN/Bitnet address can

participate in a mailing list and access other LISTSERV facilities,

as long as the e-mail format is valid (according to the RFC822

standard), and has a usable return address. Every day, people use

LISTSERV from HEPnet, Internet, Compuserve, MCIMail and many other

networks throughout the world.

If you don't know how to send electronic mail to EARN/Bitnet, ask

your local support people for help.

11.3. How to get to LISTSERV

To use LISTSERV facilities, send electronic mail with your LISTSERV

commands to: LISTSERV@host-id where host-id is the host computer's

NJE address (for example, TAUNIVM.BITNET) or its Internet domain name

(in this case, VM.TAU.AC.IL). There may be some local variation on

the format needed to send mail to Bitnet or Internet addresses. Check

with your local support personnel.

More than one command can be sent to LISTSERV in the same mail

message. Each command must be on a separate line. LISTSERV will

ignore the Subject: line of the mail header, so ensure that your

commands are in the body of the e-mail.

For EARN/Bitnet users, interactive messages are the fastest and most

convenient way to send commands to LISTSERV, but bear in mind that

interactive messages only work when the links between your computer

and LISTSERV are up; if the message fails, you can always send your

command via mail.

To facilitate communications with the LISTSERV servers on the

EARN/Bitnet network, a special LISTSERV computer node has been

defined. This means that any EARN/Bitnet user can address their

commands to the userid LISTSERV at the special node LISTSERV.

All non-EARN/Bitnet users may address their command mail to the

userid LISTSERV at the special node LISTSERV.NET. Note that if this

node is not yet defined on your network, you may also try

LISTSERV%LISTSERV.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU. For example, if you wanted

to join the 3D-L mailing list that discusses 3D computer graphics but

are not sure of the address of the LISTSERV server hosting this list.

You could send a subscription request to either of the following

addresses:

LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NET

LISTSERV@LISTSERV (on BITNET)

Your subscription request will be automatically forwarded on to the

LISTSERV server hosting the 3D-L mailing list (in this case, at the

computer node ARIZVM1 or ARIZVM1.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU).

You may also utilize the special LISTSERV address to send e-mail to

any LISTSERV mailing list if you are unsure of its address. For

example, if you wanted to send mail to the BITFTP-L mailing list to

request a copy of the BITFTP product, you could do so by addressing

your e-mail to BITFTP-L@LISTSERV.NET. It will automatically be

forwarded to the list's real address (in this case,

BITFTP-L@EARNCC.EARN.NET) when it reaches the LISTSERV node. Once you

know the real address of a list, it should be used for all future

mail sent to that list.

There are more than 250 sites in over 30 countries throughout the

world running LISTSERV as part of the world-wide network. Here are a

few of the LISTSERV sites:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

NJE Domain Site Country

Host Address

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

EARNCC EARNCC.EARN.NET

EARN Office, Paris France

DEARN VM.GMD.DE

GMD, Bonn Germany

HEARN HEARN.NIC.SURFNET.NL

Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen Netherlands

SEARN SEARN.SUNET.SE

Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan, Stockholm Sweden

BITNIC BINTIC.CREN.NET

BITNET Network Information Center USA

PUCC PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU

Princeton University, New Jersey USA

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

11.4. Using LISTSERV

The commands given here are available for everyone and require no

special LISTSERV command privileges. Only the most common commands

are described. For a complete list of non-privileged LISTSERV

commands, retrieve the LISTSERV User Guide in the DOC FILELIST from

LISTSERV@EARNCC.EARN.NET (or LISTSERV@EARNCC.BITNET).

Commands are presented in a particular format: CAPITAL letters

indicate acceptable abbreviation, angle brackets (<>) indicate an

optional parameter, and vertical bar () indicates a choice of

parameters. All parameters are fully explained in each command

description.

There is a standard set of command keywords available for use in some

LISTSERV commands. They may be used with any commands where they

appear as optional parameters in the command description. The

important standard keywords are:

PW= password

This keyword is used to specify a password in a command. If you

have registered a personal password on a LISTSERV server, you will

then have to validate certain commands by using the PW= command

keyword in the command text. This feature is designed to prevent

impostors from issuing commands while using your e-mail address.

The use of passwords is strongly recommended for this reason. See

the PW command for details on registering personal passwords. Once

you have registered a personal password at a LISTSERV server, you

will be obliged to include the PW= command keyword in all commands

where it appears as an option.

F= format

This keyword controls the file format (or internal file structure)

in which files will be sent to you. If you are not a member of the

EARN/Bitnet network, then LISTSERV will always use the default

file format of MAIL. Otherwise, the default file format is

dependent upon the information held in the BITEARN NODES file

regarding your computer. The BITEARN NODES file is a special

network definition file used in the EARN/Bitnet network. Any user

may ask for a file format other than their default by specifying

it in the F= command keyword in the commands where it appears as

an option. Note that this will not permanently change your default

file format, its effect is only for those commands where it is

specified. Following is a list of file formats that are valid for

all users:

XXE UUe MIME/text MIME/Appl MAIL

In addition, EARN/Bitnet users may specify:

Netdata Card Disk Punch LPunch VMSdump

Contact your local support personnel for more information about

the file formats supported on your computer.

11.4.1. Commands for LISTS:

The primary function of LISTSERV is to operate mailing lists (also

referred to as distribution lists). Mailing lists are used to

distribute the e-mail sent to them to a list a recipients. They

provide the means for a group of users to establish an e-mail

forum on any topic or area of common interest. This service

provides an extremely convenient means for the exchange of ideas

and information between list members since LISTSERV (and not the

mail sender) manages the distribution of e-mail to all of its

final recipients. Users need only to remember one list address to

which they send their mail in order to communicate to a

potentially large number of users. Due to the efficiency with

which LISTSERV distributes e-mail to list members, discussions or

debates with a world-wide audience may be conducted.

The following commands are designed for use with LISTSERV mailing

lists. With them you may do things such as finding the names and

addresses of lists, signing on to or off lists, reviewing lists or

changing your personal options for any mailing list to which you

are subscribed.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

SUBscribe list-name <full-name>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the SUBscribe command to join a mailing list. You can also use

this command to alter the name (but not e-mail address) by which

you are known on a mailing list you have already joined. The

list-name parameter is the name of the list to which you want to

subscribe. For example, the EARN User Group list located at the

node IRLEARN has a list name of EARN-UG. Do not confuse this with

the list's address (EARN-UG@IRLEARN) which should not be used. The

optional full-name parameter allows you to give a name by which

you want to be known on a mailing list. If specified, it should be

your full, real name (at least your first name and last name) and

not your e-mail address. If you send this command to LISTSERV via

command mail, the name for the full-name option will be taken from

the name given in the From: mail header should it be omitted from

the command text. If you send a SUBscribe command for a list to

which you already belong, then LISTSERV will interpret the command

as a request to change your full-name on the list.

A request to join a mailing list can be processed in three ways:

subscription to a list may be OPEN, CLOSED, or BY-OWNER. If it is

OPEN, you will be automatically added to the list and sent

notification. If it is CLOSED, you will not be added to the list,

and LISTSERV will send you a message telling you that your request

has been rejected. If it is BY-OWNER, your subscription request

will be forwarded to the list owner(s), who will decide whether or

not to add you to the list (LISTSERV will inform you to whom your

request has been forwarded). To see what kind of subscription a

list has, use the REView command.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

UNSubscribe list-name * <(NETWIDE>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the UNSubscribe command to leave a mailing list. The listname

parameter is the name of a mailing list from which you want to

remove your subscription. You can signoff all the lists to which

you are a member at any particular LISTSERV site by using the "*"

(asterisk) character in the place of a list name. If you want your

UNSubscribe command to be propagated to all LISTSERV servers on

the network, include the (NETWIDE option. Use this option if you

are changing your e-mail address or are leaving your computer for

an extended period.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

List <options> <F= format>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the List command to get a listing of available mailing lists

at a LISTSERV server. The options parameter may be any of the

following:

Short

This option displays a summary of all the lists managed by a

LISTSERV in a brief, one line description. This is the default.

Long

The Long (or Detailed) option will send a file (called

node-name LISTS) to you that contains a comprehensive

description of the lists managed by a LISTSERV server.

Global <pattern>

This option gives a complete list of all known LISTSERV mailing

lists at all servers at the time the command is issued. A file

(called LISTSERV LISTS) will be sent to you containing the

names, titles and e-mail addresses of these lists. This is a

very large file, so make sure you have the necessary disk space

to accommodate its size before you use the Global option. The

optional pattern parameter can be used to match any string in

the list name, list title or list address.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

REView list-name <(> <options>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the REView command to receive a listing of a mailing list. It

will be sent to you as a file called list-name LIST (or list-name

node-name for peered lists). A mailing list is comprised of two

parts: a control section and a subscription section. The control

section holds the definition parameters for a list which includes

information such as who is authorized to review or join a list and

whether or not it is archived. The subscription section holds the

e-mail addresses and names of all list members. The REView command

allows you to receive a listing of either or both of these

sections (the default is both) for any list, provided you are

authorized to do so. Note that at the discretion of the list

owner(s), the REView command can be restricted in use to list

members only. In this case, you will not be authorized to review a

mailing list if you are not a member of that list yourself. Also,

individual list members can restrict the appearance of their

e-mail address and name in response to a REView command if they

have set the CONCEAL mailing list option (see the SET command for

more details). The list-name parameter is the name of the LISTSERV

list you wish to review. The important options are:

Short

This option restricts the information you receive to the

control section of a list (giving its definition parameters)

and does not return the subscription section of a list (giving

the list members).

Countries

If you use this option, the list of members will be by the

nationality given in their e-mail.

LOCal

If the list is peered (that is, it is linked to other mailing

lists of the same name but on different LISTSERV servers), you

will receive listings of all of these mailing lists in response

to a REView command. The LOCal option can be used to suppress

the propagation of the REView command to the LISTSERV servers

hosting these peered mailing lists. In this case, you will

receive a listing only from the server to which you send the

REView command and not the others.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Query list-name *

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

When you join any mailing list, you will be assigned a default set

of list options that control such things as way you received mail

when it is distributed and the type of notification LISTSERV will

give you when it distributes mail you have sent to a list. These

are the personal list options that may be altered on any mailing

list to which you are subscribed to suite your circumstances. See

the SET command for a complete descriptions of these options. The

Query command can be used to review the personal list options you

have in effect at any mailing list. The listname parameter is the

name of a list to which you are subscribed. If you use an "*"

(asterisk) character instead of a list name, you will receive

information about your personal options for all lists to which you

belong at the LISTSERV to which you send the command.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

SET list-name * options

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the SET command to change your personal options for a mailing

list. These options will remain in effect until they are

explicitly changed. The Query command can be used to display your

current optional settings for any list to which you are

subscribed. The list-name parameter is the name of the mailing

list for which you are changing your options. You may change your

options for a specific list or for all the lists you belong to at

a particular LISTSERV by using the "*" (asterisk) character in

place of a list name. After processing your SET command, LISTSERV

will send you conformation of the successful alteration of your

mailing list options via e-mail. The important options are:

Mail DIGests INDex NOMail

These options of the SET command alter the way in which you

receive mail from a mailing list. The Mail option means that

you wish to have list mail distributed to you as mail. This is

the default. The DIGests and INDex options are available only

if a list has had these features enabled by its owner(s).

Digests hold all the mail messages sent to a list over a

certain period of time. Instead of receiving each mail

individually as it is distributed to list members, you will

receive all the mail in one batch for a given day, week or

month. You may then browse through these mail messages at your

leisure. Note that mail is not edited with the DIGests option,

you will receive copies of all the mail messages in their

entirety. The INDex option will provide you with only the date,

time, subject, number of lines and the sender's name and

address for all mail messages sent to a list. The text of the

mail message will not be included. You may then select and

retrieve any mail that interests you from the list archive.

Both the DIGests and INDex options provide a means of listening

in to discussions on mailing lists without having to deal with

large quantities of incoming mail messages. The NOMail option

means that mail sent to the list will not be distributed to

you. This is useful when you are leaving your computer for an

extended period of time and you do not want mail from the list

to fill your mailbox. When you return, you can send the SET

command with the Mail option to restore mail service.

SHORThdr FULLhdr IETFhdr DUALhdr

All mail messages are comprised of header and body sections.

The header section provides details such as the recipients, the

original sender and the date and time a mail message was sent.

The mail body section contains the text of a mail message.

These options of the SET command indicate the type of mail

headers you want to receive in the mail distributed from a

mailing list. SHORThdr means that the mail header will include

only the essential informational headers (for instance the

Date:, To:, From:, Subject:, Sender: and Reply-to: headers).

This is the default. You may change this to FULLhdr, which

means that all (including non-essential) mail headers will be

present in e-mail. The IETFhdr option means that LISTSERV will

not change the headers of a mail message it distributes to you

other than to add a Received: mail header (and also a

Message-id: and Sender: headers if either of these were not

already present). This option is designed specifically for

compatibility with SMTP exploders (as used, for instance, on

the Internet network). Lastly, DUALhdr is very similar to the

SHORThdr option except that LISTSERV will also insert mail

headers at the beginning of the mail body. Therefore, when the

mail is received and read by a recipient using this option, it

will start with this information (for instance, the first three

lines of a mail message may contain the To:, From: and Subject:

mail headers). This option is useful for users of some PC based

mail packages that will not display this information from the

real mail headers.

CONCEAL NOCONCEAL

Indicates whether or not you want your name and mail address to

appear in the display of list members which is given in

response to a REView command. The default is NOCONCEAL. Note

that a complete list of members is always given to list owners

and LISTSERV administrators regardless of this option.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+

CONFIRM list-name

+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the CONFIRM command to renew your subscription to a

list. Some mailing lists require subscription renewal at

regular intervals (usually once a year). A mail message is

automatically sent to list members indicating that they must

send a CONFIRM command within a given number of days or they

will be removed from the list. This command must be sent from

the same e-mail address that received the confirmation notice.

The list-name parameter is the name of the mailing list to

which you are confirming your subscription. LISTSERV will

send a message that your subscription has been confirmed.

11.4.2. Commands for FILES:

LISTSERV also functions as a file server. That is, files can be

stored at a LISTSERV server and made available for retrieval by

users upon their request. These files are stored in LISTSERV under

a hierarchical system of filelists. As the name suggests, a

filelist is a special file that holds a list of files. Each entry

in a filelist describes a file that is available for retrieval and

gives details such as the file's name and size and also a file's

access code (also known as a FAC) which describes who is

authorized to retrieve it. These files may themselves be

filelists, in which case they too will hold information about

available files or further filelists. In this way, filelists are

organized in a hierarchical or tree structure.

There are two basic types of filelists on LISTSERV servers. The

first type holds files that have been specifically placed there by

file owners or LISTSERV administrators. These files may be

documents, maps or diagrams, or even programs. The second type of

filelist is associated with a LISTSERV mailing list. These are

referred to as list filelists and retain copies of all e-mail

distributed on a particular mailing list. They consist of a series

of files, each of which holds a copy of the mail messages

distributed on a list over an interval of time (usually, one

month). These files may then be retrieved to recover any list mail

distributed during a specific period. Note that e-mail distributed

on a mailing list may also be retrieved via the database functions

of LISTSERV. Not all mailing lists have an associated list

filelist; this is enabled at a list owner's discretion.

A further aspect of the file server functions of LISTSERV is the

concept of packages. A package consists of one or more files that

appear in a filelist. These may be, for example, a series of files

that go to make up a software package. A package is declared in a

LISTSERV filelist through a file that has the special name of

package-name $PACKAGE. Within it will be a list of all the files

that comprise the package. This list can be reviewed by sending a

retrieval request for that file. However, all the files that

comprise the package may also be retrieved through a request for

the file: package-name PACKAGE. Note that in this case, the "$"

(dollar) symbol is dropped from the name. The files that go to

make up the package will then automatically be sent to the

requestor. This enables users to retrieve an entire set of files

that belong to a package with only one command, instead of having

to retrieve each of these files individually through a series of

commands.

The following LISTSERV commands enable general users to manipulate

files that are stored at a server. This includes commands to

search for, retrieve and subscribe to files. When sending file

server commands to LISTSERV, you must address them to the server

and not to any mailing lists. Note that where the PW= keyword

appears in a command description, this need only be included in

the command text if you have defined a personal password at the

server to which you are sending file server commands. Otherwise,

it need not be used. The optional F= command keyword may included

as desired.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

INDex <filelist> <F= format>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use the INDex command to get a listing of the files in a

particular filelist. The filelist parameter specifies the name of

the filelist you wish to get. If no name is specified, an index of

the root filelist (called LISTSERV FILELIST) will be sent to you.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

GET filename filetype <filelist> <F= format>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

The GET command is used to retrieve a specific file or package

from a filelist, provided you are authorized to do so. The

filename and filetype parameters identify the file or package you

wish to retrieve. The optional filelist parameter identifies the

filelist within which the file or package resides. If it is not

supplied in the command, LISTSERV will determine the filelist

through a search of its own internal filelist index.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

AFD options

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

AFD is an acronym for Automatic File Distribution. This command

enables you to subscribe to a file or package in a filelist. Every

time this file or package is updated in its filelist, you will

then automatically be sent of copy of it by the LISTSERV server.

You may subscribe to any number of files for packages from any

filelist with the AFD command. You may also review or delete your

subscriptions at any LISTSERV server. The options must be one of

the following:

ADD filename filetype <filelist> <text> <PW= password>

<F=format>

The ADD option allows you to subscribe to a file or package.

This means that a copy will henceforth be sent to you

automatically by LISTSERV when it is updated on its filelist.

The filename and filetype parameters identify a file or package

to which you want to subscribe. The filelist option allows you

to specify the name of the filelist in which it is located. If

this is not specified in the command, LISTSERV will locate the

filelist through a search of its own internal filelist index.

Also, if you wish to have an informational text message

inserted automatically at the top of the file or package when

it is sent to you, you may use the text parameter. Note that if

you omit the filelist option, the text you provide in the text

parameter must be enclosed in double quotes ("). This

parameter is most commonly used by network server applications

that subscribe to files at a LISTSERV on behalf of users. If

you are subscribing to files directly from LISTSERV yourself,

you should not need to use this option.

DELete filename filetype <filelist> <PW= password>

Remove your subscription to a file or package for which you

have an AFD. The filename and filetype parameters identify a

file or package to which you wish to remove an AFD. These names

may also include the "*" (asterisk) wildcard character so that

multiple files or packages may be removed with one DELete

command. The filelist option allows you to specify the name of

the filelist in which it is located. If this is not specified

in the command, LISTSERV will locate the filelist through a

search of its own internal filelist index.

List <(FORMAT>

The List option shows the files or packages to which you are

currently subscribed at a LISTSERV. If you include the (FORMAT

option, then the file format to be used when a file or package

is sent to you will also be displayed.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

FUI options

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

FUI is an acronym for File Update Information. It enables you to

subscribe to a file or package in a filelist. Every time this file

for package is updated in its filelist, you will then

automatically be informed of this by the LISTSERV server. This

command is similar to the AFD command, except you will only be

sent notification of an update rather than the updated file or

package itself. You may subscribe to any number of files for

packages from any filelist with the FUI command. You may also

review or delete your subscriptions at any LISTSERV server. The

options parameter must be one of the following:

ADD filename filetype <filelist> <PW= password>

The ADD option allows you to subscribe to a file or package by

adding an FUI to it. The filename and filetype parameters

identify a file or package to which you want to add an FUI

subscription. The filelist option allows you to specify the

name of the filelist in which it is located. If this is not

given in the command, LISTSERV will locate the filelist through

a search of its own internal filelist index.

DELete filename filetype <filelist> <PW= password>

Remove your subscription from a file or package for which you

have an FUI. The filename and filetype parameters identify a

file or package to which you want to delete an FUI. The

filelist option allows you to specify the name of the filelist

in which it is located. If this is not specified in the

command, LISTSERV will locate the filelist through a search of

its own internal filelist index.

List

The List option shows the files or packages for which you

currently have an FUI subscription at a LISTSERV server.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Query File filename filetype <filelist> <(FLags>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

This command can be used to get update information on various

files. Update information about the file or package specified in

the filename and filetype parameters will be given. Optionally,

you may include a filelist name in the filelist parameter. If it

is omitted, LISTSERV will locate the filelist through a search of

its own internal filelist index. You may also specify the (FLags

option to display additional technical data about the file (which

can be useful when reporting problems to LISTSERV administrators).

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

PW options

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

The PW command enables you to add, change or delete a personal

password on any LISTSERV server. A personal password is designed

to give you added command security on a LISTSERV since it helps

prevent impostors using your e-mail address. The use of personal

passwords is strongly encouraged for this reason. Every server

will accept a password registration request from you at any time.

Passwords are comprised of one to eight alphanumeric characters.

You may change or delete your password at any time. The options

parameter must be one of the following:

ADD new-password

Add a new personal password on the LISTSERV processing your

command. Once you have registered a password on a LISTSERV

server, you will be obliged to use the PW= command keyword in

the commands where it appears as an option.

CHange old-password new-password

Change your personal password on a LISTSERV server where you

already have one.

DELete old-password

Remove your personal password from a LISTSERV where you already

have one. Once you have removed a password from a LISTSERV

server, you will no longer be obliged to use the PW= command

keyword in the commands where it appears as an option.

11.4.3. LISTSERV DATABASE Functions

LISTSERV provides the facility for users to retrieve old mail that

has been distributed on mailing lists. Each mailing list has an

associated database (called a notebook or list archive database)

in which list mail is stored. Note that databases may not be

maintained for every mailing list, this is done at the discretion

of a list owner. The notebook databases are the most commonly used

of the LISTSERV databases. However, every LISTSERV server also has

a database of all the EARN/Bitnet computer nodes (called the

BITEARN database). This is available to all LISTSERV users. The

backbone LISTSERV servers also have a database of all the LISTSERV

computer nodes (called the PEERS database). In addition to these

databases, a LISTSERV server may have any number of different

databases that have been created locally. To find out what

databases are accessible at a particular LISTSERV site, send

following command to that server:

DATABASE LIST

To perform a database search, you can send mail to LISTSERV

containing a batch database job which contains your database

query. In addition, EARN/Bitnet users on VM or VMS systems can

access the database facilities interactively via the LDBASE

program. For more details on the LISTSERV database facilities,

send an Info DATABASE command to your nearest (or any) LISTSERV

server (see the section Commands for INFORMATION) or consult the

LISTSERV DATABASE Functions chapter in the LISTSERV User Guide.

11.4.4. Commands for INFORMATION:

The LISTSERV server can provide a diverse range of information to

the general user. This includes help files, release levels of the

server and important configuration files, statistics and

information pertaining to the EARN/Bitnet network. When sending

these commands to LISTSERV, they must be addressed to the server

and not to any mailing lists it may manage. For those commands

that result in files being sent to the requestor (for example the

Info command), the format of the file can be specified by the

optional command keyword F= in the command text (see the section

LISTSERV Command Keywords for more information).

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Help

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use this command to get a brief description of the most commonly

used LISTSERV commands and also the name and e-mail address of the

server's postmaster.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Info <topic> <F= format>

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Use this command to get an informational (or help) file from a

LISTSERV server. The topic option should specify the topic for

which an informational file will be sent to you. You may get a

list of valid topics by sending the Info command with no

parameters to your nearest (or any) LISTSERV.

11.5. Examples

You wish to subscribe to the EARNEWS list which is located at the

node FRMOP11. Your full name is Mark P. Waugh. Send the following

command to LISTSERV@FRMOP11.CNUSC.FR (or LISTSERV@FRMOP11.BITNET):

SUBSCRIBE EARNEWS Mark P. Waugh

You wish to leave the INFO-MAC mailing list (to which you have

already subscribed) at the node CEARN (or CEARN.CERN.FR). The

command:

UNSUBSCRIBE INFO-MAC

should be sent to the LISTSERV server at CEARN (or CEARN.CERN.FR)

which manages the INFO-MAC list. To leave all the LISTSERV lists you

belong to throughout the network, send the following command to your

nearest (or any) LISTSERV:

UNSUBSCRIBE * (NETWIDE

You wish to receive a listing of all mailing lists that have the text

europe in their name or title. Send the following command to your

nearest (or any) LISTSERV server:

LIST GLOBAL EUROPE

You want to stop receiving mail from all the lists at SEARN (or

SEARN.SUNET.SE) to which you belong. Send the following command to

the LISTSERV server at SEARN (or SEARN.SUNET.SE):

SET * NOMAIL

You have received a message from the LISTSERV server at IRLEARN (or

IRLEARN.UCD.IE) aSKINg you to confirm your subscription to the EARN-

UG list. Send the following command to that server:

CONFIRM EARN-UG

You wish to receive a listing of the files in the DOC FILELIST The

command:

INDEX DOC

should be sent to the LISTSERV server at EARNCC (or EARNCC.EARN.NET)

where this filelist is located. Note that the above command is the

same as issuing a GET DOC FILELIST command.

You wish to retrieve the file PCPROG ZIP from a filelist and have it

sent to you in XXE file format. Send the following command to the

LISTSERV server that holds this file:

GET PCPROG ZIP F=XXE

You want to retrieve all the files that make up a package called

PROGRAM (as listed in a file called PROGRAM $PACKAGE) from a filelist

called SAMPLE. Send the command:

GET PROGRAM PACKAGE SAMPLE

You wish to subscribe to a file called BUGDET MEMO in a filelist

called EXPENSES with an AFD:

AFD ADD BUDGET MEMO EXPENSES

To subscribe to a file called VM EMAIL in the DOC FILELIST with an

FUI, you would send the following command to LISTSERV at node EARNCC

(or EARNCC.EARN.NET):

FUI ADD VM EMAIL DOC

11.6. Learning more about LISTSERV

A standard set of help files are available upon request from each

LISTSERV server. To get a copy of these files, use the INFO command

(see the section Commands for INFORMATION).

Detailed documentation on LISTSERV (and related services) is

available from the DOC FILELIST at LISTSERV@EARNCC.EARN.NET (or

LISTSERV@EARNCC.BITNET). This includes the LISTSERV User Guide which

is available in both postscript and plain text formats. To obtain a

list of available documents use the INDex command (see the section

Commands for FILES).

There are several mailing lists for discussion of technical LISTSERV

issues. They are not intended for casual users, but they should be of

interest to advanced users. They are:

LSTSRV-L Technical forum on LISTSERV

LSTOWN-L LISTSERV list owners' forum

LDBASE-L Forum on LISTSERV database search capabilities

12. NETNEWS (USENET)

12.1. What is NETNEWS

Netnews, or Usenet as it is more commonly called, is a message

sharing system that exchanges messages electronically around the

world in a standard format. Messages exchanged on Usenet are arranged

by topic into categories called newsgroups. Netnews is, thus, a huge

collection of messages, being passed from machine to machine. The

messages may contain both plain text and encoded binary information.

The messages also contain header lines that define who the message

came from, when the message was posted, where it was posted, where it

has passed, and other administrative information.

The major, hierarchical categories of Usenet newsgroups which are

distributed throughout the world are alt, comp, misc, news, rec, sci,

soc, and talk. There are many other major categories which may be

topical (e.g., bionet, biz, vMSNet) and are usually distributed

worldwide as well, or geographical and even organizational (e.g.,

ieee) or commercial (e.g., clari). The latter categories are usually

distributed only with their area of interest. The messages of many

Bitnet LISTSERV mailing lists are also distributed in Usenet under

the major category bit.

The major categories are further broken down into more than 1200

newsgroups on different subjects which range from education for the

disabled to Star Trek and from environmental science to politics in

the former Soviet Union. The quality of the discussion in newsgroups

is not guaranteed to be high. Some newsgroups have a moderator who

scans the messages for the group before they are distributed and

decides which ones are appropriate for distribution.

Usenet was originally developed for Unix systems in 1979. Within a

year, fifty Unix sites were participating. Now, there are thousands

of sites running a number of operating systems on a variety of

hardware platforms communicating via Usenet around the globe.

12.2. Who can use NETNEWS

Usenet newsgroups can be read at thousands of sites around the world.

In addition, there are several sites that provide public dial-up

service so that people who are not at a Usenet site can have access

to newsgroups as well. If you don't know if your site has Usenet

access, check with your local computer support people.

Protocols and software for the distribution of news are in use in

several networks, such as the Internet, UUCP, EARN/Bitnet and

Fidonet.

If you have e-mail service only, then you can not access Usenet.

However, many newsgroups are connected to mailing lists which you

could join. For a list of these newsgroups and their associated

mailing lists, send mail to LISTSERV@AMERICAN.EDU with the line: GET

NETGATE GATELIST. Moreover, many of the documents which appear

periodically in newsgroups are available by e-mail from

mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu. For instructions, send a message with the

subject: HELP.

12.3. How to get to NETNEWS

If your site provides Usenet access, then you just need to use one of

the many software packages available for reading news (at least one

is probably available on your computer). These packages either access

a local news spool, or use the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)

to access the news spool on some other computer in the network.

Within EARN, a network of Netnews distribution has been developed,

providing efficient distribution of Usenet traffic while minimizing

the load on the network for the participating countries.

If Usenet is not available to you and you would like to arrange

access for your site, contact your system administrator. You should

also read the article How to become a USENET site which is posted

periodically to the news.answers newsgroup. It is also available by

anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as

/pub/usenet/news.answers/site-setup or by mail to:

mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the line: send

usenet/news.answers/site-setup.

12.4. Using NETNEWS

There are many software packages available for reading and

distributing Netnews on a variety of operating systems (Unix, VMS,

VM/CMS, MVS, Macintosh, MS-DOS and OS/2) and environments (Emacs,

X-Windows, MS-Windows). See the list of freely available news reader

software packages in Appendix A. Note that the number of software

packages available to run news, especially on PCs, is increasing.

In addition to the software packages specifically designed to be news

readers, many other communications programs, particular mail

interfaces, provide the possibility for Usenet access in addition to

their main function.

Most, if not all, of the news readers provide the same basic

abilities:

* Subscribing to newsgroups: This means that your news reading

software will make these groups immediately accessible, so that

you can choose to read the postings of groups that interest you

quickly and easily.

* Unsubscribing from newsgroups: Removing groups from your easy

access list.

* Reading newsgroup postings: Your news reader presents postings

to you and keeps track of which postings you have and have not

read.

* Threads of discussion: You can follow groups of postings that

deal with the same subject easily.

* Posting to news groups: You can participate in group

discussions; your news reader knows where to send your posting.

* Responding to a posting: You can send a response to the

newsgroup (often called follow-up) or to the author of a posting

(often called reply).

12.5. Examples

When you enter the tin news reader, you get a listing of the

newsgroups to which you are subscribed:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Group Selection (9) h=help

1 30637 bit.listserv.novell local list

2 1106 comp.mail.misc General discussions about compu

3 8031 comp.protocols.tcp-ip TCP and IP network protocols.

4 840 comp.sys.mac

5 8789 news.answers Repository for periodic USENET

-> 6 29 news.lists News-related statistics and lis

7 15056 rec.woodworking Hobbyists interested in woodwor

8 7094 sci.psychology Topics related to psychology.

9 13093 soc.culture.celtic Celtic, Irish, & Welsh culture

*** End of Groups ***

----------------------------------------------------------------

In tin, selecting a newsgroup is done with the arrow keys. When you

select a group, you get a listing of the articles:

----------------------------------------------------------------

comp.mail.misc (41T 64A 0K 0H) h=help

1 + RIPEM Frequently Noted Vulnerabilities Marc VanHeyningen

2 + RIPEM Frequently Asked Questions Marc VanHeyningen

3 + Mail Archive Server software list Jonathan I. Kamen

4 + 1 UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ Chris Lewis

5 + 2 PC Eudora and Trumpet Winsock problem Jim Graham

6 + X11 mail reader Dominique Marant

7 + MIME supporting e-mail Tim Goodwin

8 + 1 IBM User name and Address Server Wes Spears

9 + 5 Newbie needs MHS/SMTP question answered Chris Pearce

10 + FAQ - pine Bruce Lilly

11 + FAQ: International E-mail accessibility Olivier M.J. Crep

-> 12 + PC E-Mail and Dial-in Edward Vielmetti

13 + Prodigy Mail Manager "01/07" an33127@anon.pene

14 + Prodigy Mail Manager "02/07" an33127@anon.pene

15 + Prodigy Mail Manager "03/07" an33127@anon.pene

----------------------------------------------------------------

tins is a threaded news reader: replies to a posting are grouped

together with the original posting, so that the reader can follow a

thread of discussion. Above, you see the threads, the number of

replies in each thread, the subject and the author. The plus sign (+)

indicates that not all postings in the thread have been read. Other

news readers show other details. When you select an item, it appears

on your screen:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Wed, 01 Sep 1993 07:05:49 comp.mail.misc Thread 13 of 41

Lines 27 Re: PC E-Mail and Dial-in No responses

emv@garnet.msen.com Edward Vielmetti at Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor

Sherry H. Lake (slake@mason1.gmu.edu) wrote:

: I am looking for an email package that will allow a user to

: dial-in to his mail machine download any messages to his local

: PC, delete the messages from the server and then automatically

: sign him off. The user can then use his client software (local)

: to read, compose and reply. He then would have to dial-in again

: to so his outgoing mail will be uploaded to the server.

Various POP clients for PCs or Windows Sockets will do roughly

this. You should look at:

- NUPOP (MS-DOS)

- Eudora for Windows (Windows)

- WinQVT/Net (Windows)

- various commercial POP clients listed in the 'alt.winsock'

directory of commercial Windows systems

You'll want to look particularly for dial up IP software (SLIP or

PPP) that makes the process of connecting minimally oNerous, e.g.

by scripting the session so that the users don't have to type

anything, perhaps by automatically dialing for you when you go to

read or otherwise open a network connection, and offering a

reasonable way to disconnect.

Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc.

emv@Msen.com Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI 48103

+1 313 998 4562 (fax: 998 4563)

----------------------------------------------------------------

12.6. Learning more about NETNEWS

News programs communicate with each other according to standard

protocols, some of which are described by Internet Request For

Comments (RFC). Copies of RFCs are often posted to the network and

obtainable from archive sites. Current news-related RFCs include the

following:

RFC977 specifies NNTP, the Network News Transfer Protocol,

RFC1036 specifies the format of Usenet articles.

Some newsgroups carry articles and discussions on the use of Usenet,

notably: news.announce.newusers, news.answers and

news.newusers.questions.

Many of the articles which appear periodically in these newsgroups or

in others are also available from rtfm.mit.edu by anonymous FTP or by

mail to: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu

13. OTHER TOOLS OF INTEREST

13.1. ASTRA

13.1.1. What is ASTRA

The ASTRA service allows users to retrieve documents from databases

known by ASTRA throughout the network. Users can send their queries

to the ASTRA server which in turn forwards the query to the related

database servers. This provides an easy-to-use uniform access method

to a large number of databases.

ASTRA provides the same user interface for all databases it can

access, even if the database servers have different access languages,

such as STAIRS, ISIS or SQL.

Each database defined in ASTRA has an abstract which holds

information about the database: title, name of the maintainers, a

brief description of the database, the main topics of the database

and its language. Users are advised to look at the abstracts before

sending requests, to avoid sending requests to the wrong databases.

Some databases actually combine several different databases that deal

with the same topics. When a user sends a request for such a

database, the request is forwarded to all related databases.

13.1.2. How to get to ASTRA

Anyone who can send electronic mail to EARN/Bitnet can access ASTRA.

Interactive user interfaces (clients) to ASTRA are available for VM

and VMS systems on the EARN/Bitnet network. For all other users,

there is a batch language that permits batch queries using e-mail.

Currently there are five ASTRA servers installed at the following

addresses:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

ASTRADB@ICNUCEVM.BITNET or ASTRADB@VM.CNUCE.CNR.IT

ASTRASQL@ICNUCEVM.BITNET or ASTRASQL@VM.CNUCE.CNR.IT

ASTRADB@IFIBDP.BITNET

ASTRADB@IFIIDG.BITNET or ASTRADB@IDG.FI.CNR.IT

ASTRADB@IRMKANT.BITNET or ASTRADB@IRMKANT.RM.CNR.IT

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

13.1.3. Learning more about ASTRA

An extensive help file is available by sending the command HELP to

ASTRADB@VM.CNUCE.CNR.IT (or ASTRADB@ICNUCEVM.BITNET).

The LISTSERV list ASTRA-UG is used for the distribution of a

newsletter about new databases or new versions of the current

databases. To subscribe, send the command:

SUB ASTRA-UG Your Name

to LISTSERV@VM.CNUCE.CNR.IT (or LISTSERV@ICNUCEVM.BITNET).

An ASTRA newsletter is also available by sending the command NEWS to

ASTRADB@VM.CNUCE.CNR.IT (or ASTRADB@ICNUCEVM.BITNET).

The developers of the ASTRA service may be contacted at:

ASTRA@ICNUCEVM.CNUCE.CNR.IT (or ASTRA@ICNUCEVM.BITNET).

13.2. NETSERV

13.2.1 What is NETSERV

NETSERV is a server, which allows fast access to data files and

programs of interest to the EARN/Bitnet community. NETSERV provides a

file repository consisting of information files and programs. It

allows users to retrieve files, to store files and to subscribe to

the files of their choice. The latter two functions however, require

that the user have a password for NETSERV (this is called a

privileged user).

In order to achieve a balanced load on the network and a faster

response time to users, NETSERV uses a distributed server concept:

this is achieved by the installation of a large number of servers on

the network to ensure that the user can locate a nearby server. All

servers communicate with each other to distribute updated information

and make it available from each copy of the server.

NETSERV's file server functions include retrieving any file present

in its filelists, storing new versions of a file, and subscribing to

files stored on the server. Its file directories are arranged in an

hierarchical method, with NETSERV FILELIST being on top or at the

root of the filelists. This filelist can be obtained by sending a GET

NETSERV FILELIST command to any NETSERV. Filelists contain short

descriptions of the files, and two access codes for each file. These

codes represent the get and put privileges required for that file.

These codes are explained at the beginning of the NETSERV FILELIST

file.

13.2.2 How to get to NETSERV

The server is available in almost every country. To find the closest

server for your area send a QUERY SERVICE command to a server. The

following are examples of NETSERV server addresses:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

NETSERV@FRMOP11.BITNET or NETSERV@FRMOP11.CNUSC.FR

NETSERV@HEARN.BITNET or NETSERV@HEARN.NIC.SURFNET.NL

NETSERV@BITNIC.BITNET or NETSERV@BITNIC.CREN.NET

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

In EARN, there is only one NETSERV permitted for one country.

However, in some limited cases, such as when the country has a large

number of nodes, additional servers may be installed. In any case,

the user is not required to run NETSERV to be able to access and use

the server.

NETSERV accepts e-mail access from users on any network. Commands to

NETSERV should be placed in the body of the mail file, and not in the

Subject: line.

For users in the EARN/Bitnet network, NETSERV is accessible via

interactive message. Commands from privileged users requiring a

password must be sent this way.

NETSERV does not have delivery limitations, except that a file

ordered from NETSERV cannot be ordered again on the same day.

13.2.3. Learning more about NETSERV

The server provides a large helpfile which can be obtained by

sending a GET NETSERV HELPFILE command to any NETSERV.

A list for NETSERV maintainers is available as

NETSRV-M@HEARN.NIC.SURFNET.NL (or NETSRV-M@HEARN.BITNET).

Additional information can be obtained from the NETSERV maintainer,

Ulrich Giese at U001212@HEARN.NIC.SURFNET.NL (or

U001212@HEARN.BITNET).

13.3. MAILBASE

13.3.1. What is MAILBASE

MAILBASE is an electronic information service with much of the same

functionality as LISTSERV. It allows United Kingdom groups to manage

their own discussion topics (Mailbase lists) and associated files.

The Mailbase service is run as part of the JANET Networked

Information Services Project (NISP) based at Newcastle University.

13.3.2. How to get to MAILBASE

Commands should be sent in an electronic mail message to

mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk. More than one command may appear in a

message to Mailbase. Commands may be in any order, in UPPER, lower,

or MiXeD case.

13.3.3 Learning more about MAILBASE

For a summary of Mailbase commands, send the command help in an

e-mail message to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk. For a list of on-line

documentation about Mailbase, send the command: index mailbase.

You can then use the send command to retrieve those documents that

interest you. E.g., to retrieve a file of frequently asked questions,

send the following command: send mailbase user-faq.

User support is also available by sending queries in an e-mail

message to: mailbase-helpline@mailbase.ac.uk

Public files on Mailbase are also available by anonymous FTP to

mailbase.ac.uk

13.4. PROSPERO

13.4.1. What is PROSPERO

PROSPERO is a distributed file system. It differs from traditional

distributed file systems in several ways. In traditional file

systems, the mapping of names to files is the same for all users.

Prospero supports user centered naming: users construct customized

views of the files that are accessible. A virtual system defines this

view and controls the mapping from names to files. Objects may be

organized in multiple ways and the same object may appear in

different virtual systems, or even with multiple names in the same

virtual system.

In Prospero, the global file system consists of a collection of

virtual file systems. Virtual file systems usually start as a copy of

a prototype. The root contains links to files or directories selected

by the user.

The Prospero file system provides tools that make it easier to keep

track of and organize information in large systems. When first

created, your virtual file system is likely to contain links to

directories that organize information in different ways. As the

master copy of each of these directories is updated, you will see the

changes. You may customize these directories. The changes you make to

a customized directory are only seen from within your own virtual

system, but changes made to the master copy will also be visible to

you.

Users are encouraged to organize their own projects and papers in a

manner that will allow them to be easily added to the master

directory. For example, users should consider creating a virtual

directory that contains pointers to copies of each of the papers that

they want made available to the outside world. This virtual directory

may appear anywhere in the user's virtual system. Once set up, a link

may be added to the master author directory. In this manner, others

will be able to find this directory. Once added to the master

directory, any future changes will be immediately available to other

users.

13.4.2. How to get to PROSPERO

In order to use Prospero, you must be on the international TCP/IP

network (the Internet) and you must have Prospero running on your

computer.

Before you can begin using the Prospero file system a virtual system

must be created for you. However, Prospero, as shipped, is configured

so that once you compile the clients you can type: vfsetup guest and

start working right out of the box using a guest virtual system at

the USC Information Sciences Institute.

The latest version of PROSPERO is available as file prospero.tar.Z

for anonymous FTP from prospero.isi.edu in the directory

/pub/prospero.

13.4.3. Learning more about PROSPERO

Prospero is being developed by Clifford Newman. Several documents and

articles describing Prospero by Newman and others are available.

The following files are available via anonymous FTP from

prospero.isi.edu. They are also available through Prospero.

* Anonymous FTP: /pub/papers/prospero/prospero-oir.ps.Z,

* Prospero:

/papers/subjects/operating-systems/prospero/prospero-oir.ps.Z.

This is a useful first paper to read. It gives a good overview of

Prospero and what it does. It also describes a bit about the Virtual

System model, of which Prospero is a prototype implementation. It

describes what Prospero does, not how it does it.

* Anonymous FTP: /pub/papers/prospero/prospero-bii.ps.Z,

* Prospero:

/papers/subjects/operating-systems/prospero/prospero-bii.ps.Z.

This paper describes how Prospero can be used to integrate Internet

information services, including Gopher, WAIS, archie, and World-Wide

Web.

13.5. IRC

13.5.1. What is IRC

IRC, Internet Relay Chat, is a real-time conversational system. It is

similar to the talk command which is available on many machines in

the Internet. IRC does everything talk does, but it allows more than

2 users to talk at once, with access throughout the global Internet.

It also provides many other useful features.

IRC is networked over much of North America, Europe, and Asia. When

you are talking in IRC, everything you type will instantly be

transmitted around the world to other users who are connected at the

time. They can then type something and respond to your messages.

Topics of discussion on IRC are varied. Technical and political

discussions are popular, especially when world events are in

progress. IRC is also a way to expand your horizons, as people from

many countries and cultures are on, 24 hours a day. Most

conversations are in English, but there are always channels in

German, Japanese, and Finnish, and occasionally other languages.

13.5.2. How to get to IRC

Clients and servers for IRC are available via anonymous FTP from

cs.bu.edu. A few sites offer public access to IRC via Telnet. Two

such sites are wbrt.wb.psu.edu and irc.demon.co.uk. At both sites,

you should log in as irc.

The many server hosts of Internet Relay Chat throughout the network

are connected via a tree structure. The various servers relay control

and message data among themselves to advertise the existence of other

servers, users, and the channels and other resources being occupied

by those users.

Fundamental to the operation of IRC is the concept of a channel. All

users are on a channel while inside IRC. You enter the null channel

first. You cannot send any messages until you enter a chatting

channel, unless you have set up a private conversation in some way.

The number of channels is essentially unlimited.

13.5.3. Learning more about IRC

To get help while in IRC, type /help and follow the instructions.

If you have problems, you can contact Christopher Davis (ckd@eff.org)

or Helen Rose (hrose@eff.org) - known on IRC as ckd and Trillian,

respectively. You can also ask for help on some of the operator

channels on IRC, for example #twilight_zone and #eu-opers.

Various documents on IRC, and the archives of IRC-related mailing

lists, are available via anonymous FTP from ftp.kei.com.

13.6. RELAY

13.6.1. What is RELAY

The RELAY server system is a set of servers in the global EARN/Bitnet

network which broadcast interactive messages from one user to other

users signed on to the same channel of the RELAY system. A user

signed on to the closest available RELAY is also virtually signed on

to all RELAYs which are linked to it. Most RELAYs are closed during

peak hours. Only some RELAYs are up 24 hours a day.

Each RELAY server provides service to a specific collection of one or

more nodes designated as a service area. The functions of RELAY are

available to EARN/Bitnet users with access to interactive messages

who have not been expressly excluded from the system by RELAY

management.

RELAY is a program which allows several people to talk at the same

time. In order to start, you must sign on to a RELAY to place your

ID in the current user list. You communicate with RELAY through

messages just as you would send messages to a user. RELAY commands

start with a slash (/) character; anything not beginning with a slash

is considered a message and is sent back out to all other current

users.

13.6.2. How to get to RELAY

RELAY is available at the following EARN/Bitnet addresses, and

others. The nickname of the RELAY machine is in parentheses.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

RELAY@ASUACAD (Sun_Devils) RELAY@PURCCVM (Purdue)

RELAY@AUVM (Wash_DC) RELAY@SEARN (Stockholm)

RELAY@BEARN (Belgium) RELAY@TAMVM1 (Aggieland)

RELAY@BNANDP11 (Namur) RELAY@TAUNIVM (Israel)

RELAY@CEARN (Geneva) RELAY@TECMTYVM (Monterrey)

RLY@CORNELLC (Ithaca_NY) RELAY@TREARN (EgeRelay

RELAY@CZHRZU1A (Zurich) MASRELAY@UBVM (Buffalo)

RELAY@DEARN (Germany) RELAY@UFRJ (RioJaneiro)

RELAY@DKTC11 (Copenhagen) RELAY@UIUCVMD (Urbana_IL)

RELAY@FINHUTC (Finland) RELAY@USCVM (LosAngeles)

RELAY@GITVM1 (Atlanta) RELAY@UTCVM (Tennessee)

RELAY@GREARN (Hellas) RELAY@UWAVM (Seattle)

RELAY@HEARN (Holland) RELAY@VILLVM (Philadelph)

RELAY@ITESMVF1 (Mexico) RELAY@VMTECQRO (Queretaro)

RELAY@JPNSUT00 (Tokyo) RELAY@VTBIT (Va_Tech)

RELAY@NDSUVM1 (No_Dakota) RELAY@WATDCS (Waterloo)

RELAY@NYUCCVM (NYU) RELAY@YALEVM (Yale)

+---------------------------------------------------------------+

RELAY is available to users on the EARN/Bitnet network via

interactive message (e.g., the TELL command of VM or the SEND command

of VMS/JNET). All RELAY server machines are on IBM VM/CMS systems,

but you do not have to be a VM user in order to use RELAY. If you are

not in the EARN/Bitnet network, you can not use RELAY.

CHAT, a full-screen interface to send and receive TELL messages for

VM systems, is particularly useful for users of RELAY. CHAT is

available from any NETSERV.

13.6.3. Learning more about RELAY

Upon registration, the files RELAY INFO and RELAY USERGUIDE are sent

to the user. These two files give a comprehensive description of

RELAY.

A brief guide to RELAY is available from the EARN

documentation filelist. Send mail to LISTSERV@EARNCC.EARN.NET (or

LISTSERV@EARNCC.BITNET). In the body of the message, write: GET RELAY

MEMO.

14. Security Considerations

Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

15. References

Blue Book, Volume VIII - Fascicle VIII.8, Data Communication Networks

Directory, Recommendations X.500-X.521, CCITT, 1988, ISBN 92-61-

03731-3

Schwartz, M., and P. Tsirigotis, "Experience with a Semantically

Cognizant Internet White Pages Directory Tool", Journal of

Internetworking Research and Experience, March 1991, pp. 23-50.

Kantor, B., and P. Lapsley, "Network News Transfer Protocol: A

Proposed Standard for the Stream-Based Transmission of News", RFC

977, UC San Diego & UC Berkeley, February 1986.

Horton, M., and R. Adams, "Standard for interchange of USENET

messages", RFC1036, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Center for Seismic

Studies, December 1987.

Lang, R., and R. Wright, "A Catalog of Available X.500

Implementations", FYI 11, RFC1292, SRI International, Lawrence

Berkeley Laboratory, January 1992.

Weider, C., and J. Reynolds, "Executive Introduction to Directory

Services Using the X.500 Protocol", FYI 13, RFC1308, ANS, ISI, March

1992.

Weider, C., Reynolds, J., and S. Heker, "Technical Overview of

Directory Services Using the X.500 Protocol", FYI 14, RFC1309, ANS,

ISI, JvNC, March 1992.

Williamson, S., "Transition and Modernization of the Internet

Registration Service", RFC1400, Network Solutions, Inc., March 1993.

16. Acknowledgements

The work of many people is reflected here, but we owe our greatest

debt of thanks to the developers and authors of the network tools and

documentation. Their work serves as the basis for this guide.

17. Author's Address

EARN Staff

Daniele Bovio

Ulrich Giese

Nadine Grange

Turgut Kalfaoglu

Greg Lloyd

David Sitman

EARN Office

PSI - Batiment 211

91405 Orsay CEDEX

France

Phone: +33 1 6941 2426

Fax: +33 1 6941 6683

EMail: earndoc@earncc.earn.net

18. Appendix A - Freely available networking software

Below you will find the location of client software for several of

the tools described in this guide (Gopher, WWW, WAIS and Netnews).

This is not a complete listing of available software for any of these

tools.

18.1 Gopher clients

Environment FTP site & directory Comments

Unix boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/Unix

VMS boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/VMS

job.acs.ohio-state.edu

XGOPHER_CLIENT.SHARE for Wollongong or UCX

VM/CMS boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/Rice_CMS

boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/VieGOPHER

MVS boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/mvs

Macintosh boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher

ftp.cc.utah.edu

/pub/gopher/Macintosh requires MacTCP

ftp.bio.indiana.edu

/util/gopher/gopherapp requires MacTCP

OS/2 boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/os2

MS-DOS boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/PC_client requires packet driver

oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu

/public/dos/misc dosgopher, for PC/TCP

bcm.tmc.edu

/nfs/gopher.exe for PC-NFS

lennon.itn.med.umich.edu

/dos/gopher for LAN Workplace for DOS

MS-Windows sunsite.unc.edu

/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps Gopherbook

X-Windows boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/Unix xgopher (Athena widgets)

boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/Unix moog (Motif)

boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/Unix/xvgopher or Xview

NeXT boombox.micro.umn.edu

/pub/gopher/NeXT

18.2. World-Wide Web clients

Environment FTP site & directory Comments

Unix info.cern.ch

/pub/www/src WWW line-mode browser

ftp2.cc.ukans.edu

/pub/WWW/lynx Lynx browser for vt100 terminals

archive.cis.ohio-state.edu

/pub/w3browser tty-based browser written in perl

VMS info.cern.ch

/pub/www/bin/vms port of NCSA Mosaic for X

Macintosh info.cern.src

/pub/www/bin/mac requires MacTCP

MS-Windows fatty.law.cornell.edu Cello

/pub/LII/Cello

Emacs moose.cs.indiana.edu

/pub/elisp/w3

X-Windows info.cern.ch

/pub/www/src tkWWW Browser/Editor

info.cern.ch

/pub/www/src MidasWWW Browser for X/Motif

info.cern.ch

/pub/www/src ViolaWWW Browser for X11

ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu

/Web NCSA Mosaic Browser for X11/Motif

NeXT info.cern.ch

/pub/www/bin/next Browser and Editor

18.3. WAIS clients

Environment FTP site & directory Comments

Unix ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/unix-src swais

VMS ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/vms

MVS ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/ibm-mvs

Macintosh ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/mac

OS/2 ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/os2

MS-DOS sunsite.unc.edu

/pub/wais/DOS

hilbert.wharton.upenn.edu

/pub/tcpip PCWAIS

MS-Windows ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/windows WNWAIS

ftp.cnidr.org

/pub/NIDR.tools/wais/pc/windows

Emacs ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/unix-src gwais

X-Windows ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/unix-src xwais

NeXT ftp.wais.com

/pub/freeware/next

18.4. Netnews - news reader software

Environment FTP site Name & Comments

Unix lib.tmc.edu rn also available via e-mail to:

archive-server@bcn.tmc.edu

ftp.coe.montana.edu trn

dkuug.dk nn

ftp.germany.eu.net tin

VMS kuhub.cc.ukans.edu ANU-NEWS

arizona.edu VMS/VNEWS

VM/CMS psuvm.psu.edu NetNews

also available from LISTSERV@PSUVM

ftp.uni-stuttgart.de NNR

cc1.kuleuven.ac.be VMNNTP

MVS ftp.uni-stuttgart.de NNMVS

Macintosh ftp.apple.com News

MS-DOS ftp.utas.edu.au Trumpet

MS-Windows ftp.utas.edu.au WTrumpet

X-Windows many FTP sites xrn

export.lcs.mit.edu xvnews

Emacs most GNU sites GNUS

for use with GNU Emacs editor

most GNU sites Gnews

for use with GNU Emacs editor

 
 
 
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