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ftpmail - how to
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Welcome to the University of Wollongong MAIL to FTP gateway.
This message is the response the gateway sends when it does
not understand your request.
The gateway is a simple attempt to provide a service to those
people who have electronic mail but no access to Internet
for FTP.
Requests
========
To access the gateway send mail to
ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au
The gateway software will examine the body of your mail item
(headers are ingored) and try to determine what machine you
wish to access and what file you want fetched.
It also implements a interface to the "archie" system
for locating files available for anonymous ftp.
Archie searches a database of files available for
ftp from a list of major archive sites.
For example, you may know of a product called
"amd" but not know where it is available on the
Internet. You could use the "archie" command to find out
where a copy of "amd" is available. Some information on using the
"archie" command is enclosed at the end of this document.
Using FTPMAIL
============
Normally, ftpmail attempts to connect with the target machine as an anonymous
ftp user. It is possible to override the user name ftpmail will use for the
connection as well as specify a password (see below).
If the above step is successful it then attempts the transfer in binary
mode and if successful mails the files to you. All files are sent uuencoded.
If the file is large it is split into smaller pieces and
each piece is sent separately.
Each request for a FTP action must contain a single
line of the form
HOST hostname
to specify the remote host you wish to access. The "hostname" field above
may be a INTERNET style domain name or an IP address in dotted notation.
Wherever possible, names should be used rather than IP numbers.
You may only have a single "HOST" line per FTPMAIL request.
If using dotted decimal notation, do not enclose the address inside
[] style brackets.
To specify the file to transfer your request must contain
a line of the form
GET filename-1 filename-2 ........
Each request can only contain one GET command but each GET command
may specify several file names.
If you wish to list the files available on a remote machine
your request should contain a line of the form
DIR directory-1 directory-2 .......
A request may contain only one of either a GET or a DIR line.
If you have a problem send mail to ftpmail-adm@cs.uow.edu.au
or the postmaster. The system is experimental and probably contains
many bugs. If you find a bug, please notify the above address so
it can be fixed.
Ftpmail normally sends fetched files back to you as a series
of shell archives. If you are not on a UNIX system
(my condolences) you may specify you want the uuencoded segments
"raw" by specifying a line of the form
PLAINMAIL
in your request. In this case you may combine the uuencoded segments
by hand. There is no way to avoid the uuencoding or the
splitting of large files.
Large files are split into small pieces to avoid problems
with mailers that cannot handle large files. The default
chunksize is 60K. Users may override the default chunksize
with the CHUNKSIZE keyword. The number specified with the
CHUNKSIZE keyword is the size in Kilobytes. For example,
CHUNKSIZE 200
included in the mail body will set the chunksize to 200K bytes.
The lower limit on the chunksize is 20K and the upper limit
is 200K. CHUNKSIZE may be specified along with the PLAINMAIL
keyword.
Using a specified user name
===========================
Ftpmail allows the user to specify the user name and password
to use for the connection. If you use this facility remember that
the password you specify appears in the mail item as PLAIN
TEXT. Mail is not secure so sending plain text passwords should be
used with extreme caution. In general, only publicly available
passwords should be sent in this manner.
The commands for specifying a user name and password are
USER username (no spaces allowed)
and
PASSWORD password (no spaces allowed)
Ftpmail will attempt to connect to the specified server
(from the HOST command) and use the specified user name
and password.
Using ARCHIE
============
If your request contains a line of the form
ARCHIE parameters
then ftpmail will invoke the "archie" command with the parameters
specified. For example, if you sent mail containing the line
ARCHIE amd
then ftpmail will invoke "archie" with the argument amd.
The output from the command is mailed back exactly as it
is printed by the "archie" command.
The man page for "archie" follows.
ARCHIE(1) USER COMMANDS ARCHIE(1)
NAME
archie - query the Archie anonymous FTP databases using
Prospero
SYNOPSIS
archie [ -cers ] [ -a ] [ -l ] [ -t ] [ -m hits ] [ -N level ] [ -h hostname ]
[ -o filename ] [ -L ] [ -fB-V ] string
DESCRIPTION
archie queries an archie anonymous FTP database looking for
the specified string using the Prospero protocol. This
client is based on Prospero version Beta.4.2 and is provided
to encourage non-interactive use of the Archie servers (and
subsequently better performance on both sides). This man
page describes version 1.3 of the client.
The general method of use is of the form
% archie string
This will go to the archie server and ask it to look for all
known systems that have a file named `string' in their FTP
area. archie will wait, and print out any matches.
For example,
% archie emacs
will find all anonymous FTP sites in the archie database
that have files named emacs somewhere in their FTP area.
(This particular query would probably return a lot of direc-
tories.) If you want a list of every filename that contains
emacs anywhere in it, you'd use
% archie -c emacs
Regular expressions, such as
% archie -r '[xX][lL]isp'
may also be used for searches. (See the manual of a reason-
ably good editor, like GNU Emacs or vi, for more information
on using regular expressions.)
OPTIONS
The options currently available to this archie client are:
-c Search substrings paying attention to upper &
lower case.
-e Exact string match. (This is the default.)
-r Search using a regular expression.
Archie (Prospero) Last change: 9 January 1992 1
ARCHIE(1) USER COMMANDS ARCHIE(1)
-s Search substrings ignoring the case of the
letters.
-ofilename If specified, place the results of the search in
filename.
-a Output results as Alex filenames.
-l Output results in a form suitable for parsing by
programs.
-t Sort the results inverted by date.
-mhits Specifies the maximum number of hits (matches)
to return (default of 95).
-Nlevel Sets the niceness of a query; by default, it's
set to 0. Without an argument, ``-N'' defaults
to 35765. If you use -N with an argument
between 0 and 35765, it'll adjust itself accord-
ingly. (Note: VMS users will have to put quotes
around this argument, and -L, like "-N45"; VMS
will otherwise convert it to lowercase.)
-h hostname Tells the client to query the Archie server
hostname.
-L Lists the Archie servers known to the program
when it was compiled, as well as the name of the
default Archie server. For an up-to-date list,
write to ``archie@archie.mcgill.ca'' (or any
Archie server) with the single command of
servers.
-V With the verbose option, archie will make some
comments along the way if a search is going to
take some time, to pacify the user.
The three search-modifying arguments (``-c'', ``-r'', and
``-s'') are all mutually exclusive; only the last one
counts. If you specify -e with any of ``-c'', ``-r'', or
``-s'', the server will first check for an exact match, then
fall back to the case-sensitive, case-insensitive, or regu-
lar expression search. This is so if there are matches that
are particularly obvious, it will take a minimal amount of
time to satisfy your request.
If you list a single `-' by itself, any further arguments
will be taken as part of the search string. This is
intended to enable searching for strings that begin with a
`-'; for example:
% archie -s - -old
will search for all filenames that contain the string `-old'
in them.
RESPONSE
Archie servers are set up to respond to a number of requests
in a queued fashion. That is, smaller requests get served
much more quickly than do large requests. As a result, the
Archie (Prospero) Last change: 9 January 1992 2
ARCHIE(1) USER COMMANDS ARCHIE(1)
more often you query the Archie server, or the larger your
requests, the longer the queue will become, resulting in a
longer waiting period for everyone's requests. Please be
frugal when possible, for your benefit as well as for the
other users.
QUERY PRIORITY
Please use the ``-N'' option whenever you don't demand
immediacy, or when you're requesting things that could gen-
erate large responses. Even when using the nice option, you
should still try to avoid big jobs during busy periods.
Here is a list of what we consider to be nice values that
accurately reflect the priority of a job to the server.
Normal 0
Nice 500
Nicer 1000
Very Nice 5000
Extremely Nice 10000
Nicest 32765
The last priority, Nicest, would be used when a job should
wait until the queue is essentially empty before running.
You should pick one of these values to use, possibly modify-
ing it slightly depending on where you think your priority
should land. For example, 32760 would mean wait until the
queue is empty, but jump ahead of other jobs that have
selected Nicest.
There are certain types of things that we suggest using
Nicest for, irregardless. In particular, any searches for
which you would have a hard time justifying the use of any-
thing but extra resources. (We all know what those searches
would be for.)
ENVIRONMENT
ARCHIE_HOST
This will change the host archie will consult when
making queries. (The default value is what's been
compiled in.) The ``-h'' option will override this.
If you're running VMS, create a symbol called
ARCHIE_HOST.
SEE ALSO
For more information on regular expressions, see the manual
pages on:
regex(3), ed(1)
Also read the file archie/doc/whatis.archie on
archie.mcgill.ca for a detailed paper on Archie as a whole.
Archie (Prospero) Last change: 9 January 1992 3
ARCHIE(1) USER COMMANDS ARCHIE(1)
Read the file README.ALEX distributed with this client for
more information on what Alex is and how you can take advan-
tage of it.
AUTHORS
The archie service was conceived and implemented by Alan
Emtage (bajan@cs.mcgill.ca), Peter Deutsch
(peterd@cs.mcgill.ca), and Bill Heelan
(wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca). The entire Internet is in their
debt.
The Prospero system was created by Clifford Neuman
(bcn@isi.edu); write to info-prospero@isi.edu for more
information on the protocol and its use.
This stripped client was put together by Brendan Kehoe
(brendan@cygnus.com), with modifications by Clifford Neuman
and George Ferguson (ferguson@cs.rochester.edu).
BUGS
There are none; only a few unexpected features.
Archie (Prospero) Last change: 9 January 1992 4
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Date: 25 Nov 1993 11:13:03 +1100
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