A Beginner's Guide to the Internet

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16 Apr 1993 01:00:11 -0400 Archive-name: finding-sources Version: $Id: csw_faq,v 1.113 1993/04/05 02:37:47 jik Exp $ I. Table of contents This article contains the following sections. I. Table of contents II. Introduction III. How do you find sources? IV. Things not do do V. Searching techniques in detail 1. Usenet source newsgroups 2. The "archie" database 3. Tom Czarnik's anonymous ftp directory 4. The "ftpable-readmes" WAIS database 5. Comp.archives 6. Comp.sources.wanted 7. Prospero 8. Mail server queries VI. File retrieval techniques in detail 1. By anonymous ftp 2. By anonymous UUCP 3. By mail a. Hrc mail archive b. Uunet mail archive c. BITFTP d. Ftpmail e. AT&T's netlib archive f. Periodic posting archives g. Trickle mail servers h. Other mail servers VII. Credits To find a particular section, search forward for a line beginning with the Roman numeral corresponding to the desired section. For example, search forward for "IV." at the beginning of the line to find the section entitled "Things not to do". Alternatively, if your news reader supports commands to "undigestify" and/or skip to the next section in a digest message, you can use those commands to view this message, since it is in digest format (the section you are reading now is the "preamble" of the digest). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Introduction This posting discusses the resources available to people who are looking for source code. Please read it before posting source code requests to comp.sources.wanted, alt.sources.wanted or any other newsgroup. Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version). Submitting changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting. DO NOT send me private E-mail asking me to help you locate source code. Nearly everything I know about finding sources is documented in this posting. If you can't find something by following the instructions below, then I'm not going to be able to find it either. Furthermore, sending me E-mail asking for help BEFORE following the instructions below is right out. ------------------------------ III. How do you find sources? The method you use for locating sources depends on exactly what you are looking for. Here are several possible routes to follow; pick the one that best suits your needs. The descriptions below mention general techniques (e.g. "Check the Usenet source newsgroup indices.") which are described in detail later in this posting. These descriptions are listed in order from most preferred to least preferred solution. You will notice that "Post in comp.sources.wanted" is listed last. This is because posting a message in comp.sources.wanted should only be used as a last resort when you have exhausted all other alternatives. Once you have located your source code using the instructions below, you can retrieve it via anonymous ftp or E-mail (depending on what is accessible to you and on where the code is archived); this is described in detail later in this posting. Before following *any* of the routes below, the first thing you should do is exhaust the local resources that are available to you. Often, a program that you are looking for will already be accessible somewhere on your system. Since each site has different local resources, it's impossible to give details here about the resources at any specific site. All that can be said is, "Find someone at your site to ask." Nearly every site has someone whose job it is to answer questions from other users, and the sites that don't have someone doing it officially often have someone doing it unofficially. If you cannot find what you want after checking things out locally, or if you can't find anyone to ask, then proceed as follows. 1. "I know the name of the program I want, but I don't know where to get it." a. Check the indices for the various main Usenet source newsgroups. b. Check with archie. c. Check Tom Czarnik's anonymous ftp directory. d. Check comp.archives. e. Check the "ftpable-readmes" WAIS database. f. Post to comp.sources.wanted. g. If you are looking for an MS-DOS program, check pd1:<msdos.filelist>simlist.arc on wsmr-simtel20.army.mil or /pc/INDEX.ZIP on garbo.uwasa.fi, available via anonymous ftp (see the section below about how to retrieve a file via anonymous ftp). 2. "I know the name of the program I want, and I know which newsgroup it was posted in, but didn't save it when it was posted and now I find that I need it." DO NOT post a message to comp.sources.wanted saying, "I didn't save all of this when it was archived, could someone please send it to me?" If the code was posted in a source newsgroup, then it is archived somewhere. Follow the instructions below for retrieving code from Usenet source newsgroup archives. 3. "Some parts of the <x> package in source newsgroup <y> didn't arrive here. Did anybody else have this problem? Could someone send me the parts I'm missing?" If you did not receive part of a package, and you think that the problem that caused you not to receive it is more widespread than just your site, send a message to the poster of the package and let him know that you think it may not have propagated everywhere. He will act as a clearinghouse for problem reports and, if there are enough of them, repost the missing parts. If you want to get the missing parts, asking for them in a posting is a bad idea for two reasons. First of all, you may very well get lots of people mailing you the missing parts, enough to swamp your mailbox or your mail feed (You can avoid this, to some extent, by saying, "Please write to me if you have it -- don't send me the whole thing unless I respond and ask you to!" but you still may end up getting many more responses than you need). Second, since you can get the missing parts from the Usenet source newsgroup archives using the instructions below, it is a waste of the Usenet's resources to post a message asking for them. 4. "I am looking for source code that does <x>." Follow the same process as (1) above, but instead of searching for the name of the program, search for keywords in your description of what you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for graphical clocks that run under the X window system, you might search for the word "clock" in the index for comp.sources.x. 5. "I am looking for source code that does <x>," where <x> is something algorithmic or mathematical that is commonly solved with computers. Check AT&T's "netlib" archive (which is accessible via E-mail as described below, or via anonymous ftp to research.att.com {username "netlib" instead of "anonymous"}), and if that doesn't work, proceed as in (3) above. Alternatively, if you don't mind doing some typing and/or programming, several reference books provide detailed descriptions, pseudocode, and sometimes even code for for numerous popular (and obscure) algorithms. Several good books to check are: Comer, Douglas E. and David L. Stevens. "Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume II: Design, Implementation, and Internals", Prentice Hall, 1991, ISBN 0-13-472242-6. Foley, J. D. et al. "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice", Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-12210-7. Knuth, Donald E. "The Art of Computer Programming" (3 volumes), Addison-Wesley, 1973. Plauger, P. J. "The Standard C Library", Prentice Hall, 1992, ISBN 0-13-131509-9. Press, William H. et al. "Numerical Recipes, The Art of Scientific Computing", Cambridge University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-521-38330-7. (Fortran code) Press, William H. et al. "Numerical Recipes in C, The Art of Scientific Computing", Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-521-35465-X. (C Code) Sedgewick, Robert. "Algorithms", Addison-Wesley, 1988. (Pascal code) Sedgewick, Robert. "Algorithms in C", Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-51425-7. (C code) The publishers of several of these books also make available floppy disks containing machine-readable source code. Furthermore, Turbo Pascal Numerical Recipes code is available for anonymous ftp in /pc/turbopas/nrpas13.zip on garbo.uwasa.fi. 6. "I am looking for source code that does <x> under the X window system." As in (3), but after checking the Usenet source newsgroup indices (most importantly, that of comp.sources.x), check the anonymous ftp archive on export.lcs.mit.edu. See also the postings entitled "Frequently Asked Questions about X with Answers," posted monthly in comp.windows.x and various other X-related newsgroups. Those postings discuss in detail how to get X sources of various sorts. If these postings have expired at your site, see the documentation below about retrieving postings from the periodic posting archive. 7. "I'm looking for neat programs to run on my <x> machine." Don't post questions like this. The amount of source code available on the Usenet is incredible; you are essentially asking for a summary of all of it. Browse through the various archives mentioned in this posting if you want to find something like this. 8. "I'm looking for NetNews software <x>." See the posting entitled "USENET Software: History and Sources," posted periodically in news.admin and news.announce.newusers. If it has expired at your site, see the documentation below about retrieving postings from the periodic posting archive. 9. "I'm looking for the source code for Unix." Most implementations of Unix contain source code that is, at least to some extent, proprietary and not freely redistributable. If you are looking for the source code to a particular Unix utility, you may have better luck looking for a public-domain reimplementation of that utility, using (1) or (3) above. Furthermore, the Free Software Foundation (which is dedicated to the goal of making high quality free software, including a complete Unix-compatible software system called GNU, available for everyone) may distribute a freely redistributable version of the utility, protected by the GNU Public License (Tom Czarnik's list mentions many anonymous ftp archive sites for FSF software; furthermore, the hrc mail server archives some FSF software). Also, if the utility was written by the folks who do the BSD variant of Unix, then it might be available in the various BSD source archives (the best one is probably gatekeeper.dec.com; ftp.uu.net has a bsd-sources directory too, and it contains some sources that are not in the gatekeeper archive, but the sources there are for 4.3reno BSD and might be difficult to compile under other types of Unix) on the net (see Tom Czarnik's list to find them). There are two freely redistributable implementations of Unix. The first is 386BSD, which is based on BSD Unix sources, and the second is Linux. Both of these run on 386-class machines. For more information about them, see the comp.unix.bsd and comp.os.linux newsgroups, or look for 386BSD and Linux in the source archives using the instructions above. 10. "I'm looking for a dictionary/thesaurus/encyclopedia." There are few, if any, freely redistributable full dictionary or thesaurus databases. There are, however, some freely available word lists and/or synonym lists. One archive of such files (including word lists in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and possibly others) is the anonymous ftp directory /pub/dictionaries on ftp.cs.vu.nl. Another archive is the anonymous ftp directory /dict on ftp.gmd.de [129.26.8.90]. There also appears to be a package called "thesplus" for the PC, that may or may not contain a thesaurus database and software (I don't know anything about it). One archive site for it is the file /ux1/pc/exec-pc/thesplus.zip on the anonymous ftp machine mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu. I think this package may be shareware and therefore not freely redistributable in the strictest sense of the term. Also, Project Gutenberg has an old (but relatively good) thesaurus available on-line. It's accessible via anonymous ftp in /pub/etext on the machine mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu. it's also accessible via WAIS (ask the WAIS directory of servers for "thesaurus" in order to locate it). If you've already got the database (e.g. on a NeXT machine), you may be able to find sources for code to manipulate it; see (3) above. If you really need to find a dictionary or thesaurus for on-line use, and the ones already mentioned won't help you, then you're probably going to have to pay somebody for it. Any reasonably-sized software catalog for your type of computer is probably going to mention dictionary software, and if not, then calling the computer stores around your town should help you to locate some. You are even less likely to find a freely redistributable encyclopedia than you are to find a dictionary or thesaurus. Encyclopedias cost a lot of money to put together, and the companies that do so therefore tend to be very protective about their copyrights. Although some encyclopedia publishers have made their work available on-line on commercial services (e.g. Prodigy), none have made them freely redistributable. If you want an electronic encyclopedia, you're going to have to pay someone for it (by looking in a software catalog, as mentioned above). ------------------------------ IV. Things not to do 1. Don't post messages to source newsgroups (e.g. comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.misc, etc.) asking for sources. There are newsgroups specifically for source requests. If you post a request to a moderated source newsgroup, then the moderator has to deal with it (and he probably doesn't want to have to deal with source requests from all over the Usenet), and if you post a request to an unmoderated source newsgroup, then archives of that newsgroup end up with cruft (i.e. your request) in them. 2. Unless you have a particularly special request that is likely to be intrinsically interesting to the readers of a "topic" newsgroup, don't post requests in such newsgroups. Just because you're looking for Unix software doesn't mean your request belongs on comp.unix.questions. Just because the software you're looking for is likely to be written in C doesn't mean your request belongs on comp.lang.c. Source requests belong in the "wanted" newsgroups; that's what they're there for. ------------------------------ V. Searching techniques in detail 1. Usenet source newsgroups There are many Usenet newsgroups in which source code is posted, and most of them are archived. They include: alt.sources comp.sources.3b1 comp.sources.acorn comp.sources.amiga comp.sources.apple2 comp.sources.atari.st comp.sources.games comp.sources.mac comp.sources.misc comp.sources.reviewed comp.sources.sun comp.sources.unix comp.sources.x vmsnet.sources vmsnet.sources.games If you're looking for software for a particular machine or operating system, you should check the source archives that are appropriate (e.g. checking "comp.sources.mac" if you're looking for programs to run under SunOS probably wouldn't be very profitable), as well as the general archives such as alt.sources or comp.sources.misc. Sites that archive Usenet source newsgroups usually provide some method of getting an index of the files in each newsgroup's archive. If you are accessing an anonymous ftp archive, then this index will usually appear as a file called "index" or "Index" in the top-level archive of the newsgroup, or in each volume of the newsgroup's archive. If you are accessing a mail archive, then the instructions for using that archive should explain how to get indices of the newsgroups that are archived. If you are accessing an anonymous UUCP archive (see below), you are usually told when you are given the phone number and password for the archive how to get the top-level index for the archive, which will tell you how to get other indices and files. To find anonymous ftp archives of Usenet newsgroups, check Tom Czarnik's anonymous ftp directory (see below). The most well-known Usenet newsgroup archive is probably ftp.uu.net, which archives comp.sources.3b1, comp.sources.amiga, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.reviewed, comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.unix, and comp.sources.x, among other things. Another large Usenet archive site is wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4), which archives alt.sources, comp.sources.mac, and comp.sources.apple2, in addition to most of the newsgroups archived on ftp.uu.net. A very large European anonymous ftp site is nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100), which archives Usenet newsgroups and mirrors several foreign specialized ftp servers. Other large European archive sites are mcsun.eu.net (192.16.202.1) and ftp.inria.fr (192.93.2.54). If you are in Europe, you should look on one of these sites for things you need before trying sites elsewhere. The vmsnet newsgroups are archived on black.cerritos.edu and acfcluster.nyu.edu. See also the posting "Monthly info posting: vmsnet.sources archive sites" in vmsnet.sources.d and comp.os.vms; if it has expired at your site, see the documentation below about retrieving postings from the periodic posting archive. The mail archive server on hrc.UUCP (see below) archives alt.sources, comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.x, and comp.sources.sun, among other things. 2. The "archie" database "Archie" is a database of anonymous ftp sites and their contents. The software for it was written by the "Archie Group" (Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Mike Parker) at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and they maintain the database as well. "Archie" keeps track of the entire contents of a very large number of anonymous ftp sites, and allows you to search for files on those sites using various different kinds of filename searches. Archie also has a software description database (with contents similar to the output of the "whatis" command under Unix), on which you can do keyword searches. The following machines are currently running and advertising the archie service: Host name Internet address Country ------------------- ---------------- -------------- archie.ans.net 147.225.1.2 United States archie.au 139.130.4.6 Australia New Zealand archie.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.11.3 United Kingdom archie.funet.fi 128.214.109.110 Finland archie.mcgill.ca 132.206.2.3 Canada archie.ncu.edu.tw 140.115.19.24 Taiwan archie.rutgers.edu 128.6.18.15 North America archie.sura.net 128.167.254.179 United States archie.unl.edu 129.93.1.14 North America archie.wide.ad.jp 133.4.3.6 Japan cs.huji.ac.il 132.65.6.5 Israel Archie sites may soon be available elsewhere as well. You can access archie at most of these machines in one of three different ways: 1. Telnet or rlogin to the machine with username "archie" and no password. 2. Send mail to archie@machine (e.g. archie@archie.au). Send a message with "help" in the body to find out more. 3. Use one of the Prospero-based archie clients. The site in Japan, archie.wide.ad.jp, supports only the third method. The third method listed is the preferred one, because it puts less of a load on the archie servers and is faster than the other two methods (its one drawback is that it does not yet provide an interface to the archie "whatis" database). If you already have Prospero installed at your site (see below), then you can search archie by vcd'ing to the directory /archive-sites/archie/regex and using "vls" with the regular expression for which you want to search. Alternatively, you can get one of the stand-alone archie clients that does not require all of Prospero in order to run. The clients currently available include a C version with a text interface, a C version with an X interface, and a perl version with a text interface. They are available for anonymous ftp in /archie/clients or /pub/archie/clients at each of the archie sites listed above. When using archie, you should connect to the site from the list above that is closest to you, network-wise. If you would like more information about archie, you can write to archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca. (Note to Janet/PSS users -- the United Kingdom archie site is accessible on the Janet host doc.ic.ac.uk [000005102000]. Connect to it and specify "archie" as the host name and "archie" as the username.) 3. Tom Czarnik's anonymous ftp directory Tom Czarnik maintains an extensive list of anonymous ftp sites and overviews of their contents. The list is posted monthly to comp.misc, comp.sources.wanted and alt.sources.wanted. If it has expired at your site, see the documentation below about retrieving postings from the periodic posting archive. 4. The "ftpable-readmes" WAIS database Vincent Cate maintains a WAIS database of README files for various packages on anonymous ftp sites all over the Internet. The database is called "readmes", on port 210 of the host alex.sp.cs.cmu.edu [128.2.209.13]. For more information, connect to the WAIS server on that host and search for README in the "INFO" database in order to retrieve the entire source for the ftpable-readmes database, or retrieve it from think.com's directory-of-servers WAIS database. For more information about WAIS, retrieve the file /wais/README from the anonymous ftp server think.com. 5. Comp.archives The comp.archives newsgroup, moderated by Adam J. Richter <adam@soda.berkeley.edu>, contains announcements of archive sites and their contents. If you cannot find what you're looking for in the comp.archives postings available at your site at any given time, then you can read the newsgroup for a while and watch for new postings that are of interest to you, or you can try to find an archive site that archives the postings in comp.archives (e.g. wuarchive.wustl.edu, cs.dal.ca). Furthermore, comp.archives is accessible via WAIS, in the database named "comp.archives" on port 9000 on talon.ucs.orst.edu. If you don't know what WAIS is, don't worry about it. 6. Comp.sources.wanted When you post a message to comp.sources.wanted or alt.sources.wanted, the important thing to remember is to BE SPECIFIC. If you're working under Unix, make sure to mention that; possibly, mention even what type of Unix. If you're not working under Unix, make sure to mention what operating system and machine type you *are* working under. Remember to choose a meaningful Subject line for your message; something like, "Can you help me?" is very unhelpful to people who ARE willing to help, and may just cause some of them to not bother reading your posting. Try to summarize what you're looking for meaningfully in your Subject line. Also, it is usually a good idea to ask for people to send you E-mail rather than posting responses. Say that if enough people write to you and ask for copies of whatever responses you get, then you'll summarize the responses in a later posting to the newsgroup, and if that happens, then DO post the summary. Finally, don't say, "Would someone please mail me <x>?" Say, "Would someone please tell me where I can get <x>, or what's available that does <x>? If you can mail it to me, please let me know, and I'll let you know if I want you to." This avoids the problem of several people mailing you what you requested and overflowing your mailbox. 7. Prospero If you are a Unix site on the Internet, you can use the Prospero system (whose author is Clifford Neuman) to search through archives of various sorts all over the Internet, and to retrieve files once you have found them. Prospero uses a virtual filesystem which allows you to transparently view directories and retrieve files. There is some overlap between Prospero and other resources mentioned in this document; for example, both archie and the periodic posting archives on pit-manager.mit.edu are accessible via Prospero. The Prospero software is available in /pub/prospero.tar.Z on cs.washington.edu; the user software may already be installed at your site, and if not, you can get it and install it yourself. For more information about Prospero, send mail to info-prospero@isi.edu. 8. Mail server queries Anonymous ftp is most effectively used only for retrieving files and not for searching for them, since it is a file transfer protocol and not much more than that. However, many (if not all) of the mail archive servers which allow file retrieval by electronic mail provide a more functional (albeit slower) interface than ftp which allows you to query the servers to find out what they have available on them. Therefore, if you find it necessary to use mail archive servers to get files, take advantage of the indexing and search features available on the servers. The features of individual servers can not be documented here, because there are too many different servers running too many different kinds of software, but the instructions below do explain how to ask the servers for help and find out what commands they support. ------------------------------ VI. File retrieval techniques in detail 1. By anonymous ftp If you are on a site that is connected to the Internet and allows its users to ftp out to other Internet sites, then you have anonymous ftp access. The usual procedure for using anonymous ftp is to type the command "ftp machine-name", where "machine-name" is the name of the machine to which you want to connect, and then to use "anonymous" as the username and "user@host" (i.e. your E-mail address) as the password when you are prompted for it by ftp. Type "help" inside ftp to get a list of commands, and/or read the man page for ftp, or any other documentation about it available at your site for more information. If they don't answer your question, then ask someone at your site for help. If you don't have Internet and ftp access, then you can use an ftp-mail server such as Princeton's BITFTP or ftpmail to retrieve files from anonymous ftp archives. However, you should only use an ftp-mail server when the same files are not available from a dedicated mail archive server. See the BITFTP and ftpmail instructions below. 2. By anonymous UUCP There are various UUCP sites on the net that publish their modem telephone numbers and a public username and password that can be used to transfer files from the sites via UUCP. For more information about doing this, see the documentation for the "uucp" command on your system. One place to find information about anonymous UUCP archives is the Nixpub listing of public access Unix sites, maintained by Phil Eschallier and posted in comp.misc and alt.bbs. If that posting has expired at your site, you can get copies of it from the Periodic posting archive described below. 3. By mail a. Hrc mail archive As mentioned above, the UUCP host "hrc" maintains an archive of Usenet source newsgroups and other things. To find out how to use it, send mail to "hrc!archives", or "archives@hrc.UUCP", or whatever format your site uses to send mail to the user "archives" on the machine "hrc", and include the following commands in the body of the message: send path <address> send help You should replace <address> with a path from hrc to you. If you know a prominent UUCP site that has you in its path, then your path can start at that site, e.g. "uunet!mit-athena!jik" (PLEASE don't use that address, or I'll get the responses to your requests!). If you're on a site that has a name registered with the Internet name servers, you can use "uunet!athena.mit.edu!jik". b. Uunet mail archive Uunet.uu.net provides E-mail access to the sources it archives (see the discussion about ftp.uu.net above for some idea of what is available). The address to which to send requests is "netlib@uunet.uu.net". You can send a message containing "help" in its body for more information. Note, however, that this service does not provide access to all of UUNET's archived files, so you may have to use an ftp-by-mail service instead to get to some of them. c. BITFTP The BITFTP server, run by Princeton University, allows people on the BITNET to retrieve via E-mail files at anonymous ftp archive sites. To find out how to use it, send mail to "bitftp@pucc.bitnet" with "help" in the body. The BITFTP server will reject requests from non-BITNET addresses, so if you're not on the BITNET and you need to do anonymous ftp retrieval via E-mail, you should use ftpmail (see below). d. Ftpmail Ftpmail servers allow you to retrieve via E-mail files at anonymous ftp archive sites. Four ftpmail servers currently available are "ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com", "ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk", "ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au", and "ftpmail@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr". To find out how to use an ftpmail server, send mail to it with "help" in the body. If you're on the BITNET, please use the BITFTP server (see above) rather than ftpmail. NOTE: Don't do something bogus like send your requests both to BITFTP and ftpmail, or to multiple ftpmail servers, hoping that one of them will get back to you first. Choose one server for your request, and use it. e. AT&T's netlib archive AT&T's "netlib" archive is the repository for a large body of source code and other material, much of it mathematical, algorithmic or scientific in nature. The archive is accessible via anonymous ftp to research.att.com, or via electronic mail. To find out how to use the mail server, send mail to "netlib@research.att.com" with "help" in the body of the message. f. Periodic posting archive As mentioned above, The machine pit-manager.mit.edu (18.172.1.27) maintains an archive of periodic Usenet postings. You can access it via anonymous ftp, or via mail server. To find out how to use the mail server, send a message to "mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu" with Subject "help". The archive on pit-manager is also accessible via WAIS. If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it; if you do know what it is, you can search through periodic Usenet postings by connecting to the "usenet" WAIS database on pit-manager.mit.edu. g. Trickle mail servers A BITnet mail server package called "Trickle" is supported at a number of different BITnet sites all over the world: Austria: trickle@awiwuw11.bitnet Denmark: trickle@dktc11.bitnet Belgium: trickle@banufs11.bitnet France: trickle@frmop11.bitnet Germany: trickle@dtuzdv1.bitnet Italy: trickle@imipoli.bitnet Netherlands: trickle@hearn.bitnet Spain: trickle@eb0ub011.bitnet Turkey: trickle@trearn.bitnet Israel: trickle@taunivm.bitnet These archives contain files of all sorts from a number of different major anonymous ftp archive sites, including wsmr-simtel20.army.mil, ftp.uu.net, export.lcs.mit.edu and sauna.hut.fi. They are a good way for people on the BITnet to get access to archives. To find out how to use Trickle send a mail message to the Trickle server closest to you with "/HELP" in the body of the message and an empty Subject: line. h. Other mail servers There are other mail servers besides the ones listed above. If you want to find out more about a server, send a message to it with "help" in the body and see what it sends back. The following is a list of some of the available services. Others are listed in Scott Yanoff's "Updated Internet Services list" posting, which appears regularly in alt.internet.services, comp.misc, biz.comp.services, alt.bbs.internet, and news.answers. archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov Space archives (also accessible via anonymous ftp to ames.arc.nasa.gov) archive-server@athena-dist.mit.edu MIT Project Athena papers and source code (also accessible via anonymous ftp to athena-dist.mit.edu) archive-server@bcm.tmc.edu UUCP maps, source-code for BCM WHOIS database, NFS and PC-NFS information and source-code, Unisys U-series information and source code, other stuff archive-server@cc.purdue.edu NeXT stuff (also accessible via anonymous ftp to sonta.cc.purdue.edu or nova.cc.purdue.edu) archive-server@chsun1.uchicago.edu Computer Underground Digest and references archive-server@cs.leidenuniv.nl IPX, "patch" for MS-DOS, "sps" diffs for SunOS 4.1 archive-server@dsi.com Datacomp Systems, Inc. Elm and Elm-related stuff archive-server@eclectic.com Mac-security digest, information about Eclectic, other stuff archive-server@germany.eu.net Archives of MS-DOS, Amiga, and Apple newsgroups, Internet RFCs, other stuff archive-server@ics.uci.edu TeX, GNU, MH, other stuff archive-server@joshua.atherton.com Archives of Atherton Technology mailing lists and other files; Sun RPC sources and files; other sources and files archive-server@ncsa.uiuc.edu NCSA stuff, especially telnet and tcp for mac/pc archive-server@rice.edu Sun-spots, sun-source and sun-icons, plus other software written or influenced by people at Rice (also accessible via anonymous ftp to titan.rice.edu) archive-server@st.cs.uiuc.edu Ralph Johnson's UIUC smalltalk archive (also accessible via anonymous ftp to st.cs.uiuc.edu) archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu IBM and other good stuff (also accessible via anonymous ftp to sun.soe.clarkson.edu) archive-server@wdl1.wdl.loral.com WDL archive server: snfs, tsig stuff clinton-wins@mail.cinton-gore.org Information about the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign cubelib@gmuvax2.gmu.edu iPSC User's Group doc-server@prl.dec.com Paris Research Lab (PRL) technical reports, articles, and notes; bignum package fileserv@shsu.bitnet General and VMS-specific TeX/LaTeX sources, sty files, extensions, etc.; mailing list archives; sources for VMS packages of various sorts ftp@opcom.canada.sun.com Solaris 2.0 Migration Support archives -- programs that have been ported to Solaris 2.0, and utilities for making the migration to 2.0 easier ftp-mailer@ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de comp.sources.x, comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.atart.st, comp.binaries.ibm.pc, alt.sources archives, eunet.sources, and sub.sources archives, GNU, selected BSD, minix, selected X.V11R4 and X.V11R3, X.V11R5, comm tools (ie. kermit), various documents (ie. the Internet worm, rfcs, mach), TeX, and various other sources (also accessible via anonymous ftp) gene-server@bchs.uh.edu Genbank gene database server goodies-lib@cs.man.ac.uk Manchester smalltalk goodies archive graf-bib-server@decwrl.dec.com Graphix bibliography server; put keywords in mail Subject (also accessible via anonymous ftp to gatekeeper.dec.com) info-server@doc.ic.ac.uk Usenet source newsgroups, GNU, X11, news software, other stuff info-server@Germany.EU.net Lots of stuff, including GNU software, benchmarks, games, graphics utilities, etc. (also accessible via anonymous ftp) info-server@hp4nl.nluug.nl Macintosh, Sun, IBM-PC, Unix sources, some documents, GNU, graphics, Usenet archives (or lots of newsgroups), X window system, TeX, programming languages (lisp, icon, abc, others), news sources, network sources, other stuff info-server@sh.cs.net Internet community calendar, E-mail ftp server (currently unavailable), CSNET general information documents, CREN information, NSFNET information, Some Internet RFCs, a small amount of source code librarian@cse.ucsc.edu UCSC Technical Reports, Amoeba papers, UCSC bibliography archive, IEEE TCOS, other stuff (also accessible via anonymous ftp to ftp.cse.ucsc.edu) library@cme.nist.gov Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) archive lido@cs.uni-sb.de AI bibliographical server; put "lidosearch help" in mail Subject listserv@dhdurz1.bitnet listserv@orion.bitnet Erotica listserv@ubvm.bitnet Russian TeX listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Same as listserv@ubvm.bitnet listserv@vm1.nodak.edu Lots of stuff from simtel-20; put "get pdget help" in mail body mail-server@cs.ruu.nl GIFs, Atari ST software, random documentation, ELM sources, Usenet FAQ postings, GNU software, HP-UX software, NN sources, SGI software, TeX software and TeXhax and TeXmag archives, random UNIX software, X11 software, other stuff (also accessible via anonymous ftp to ftp.cs.ruu.nl) mail-server@nluug.nl Mostly UNIX-related files, from the Netherlands UNIX Users' Group mail-server@rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de German TeX archives; benchmarks, journal indices, RFCs, network info, unix info; X, mac, pc, sun, aix, vax, and other software (also accessible via anonymous ftp to rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de) mailserv@garbo.uwasa.fi PC software archives, frequently asked questions in various areas, some Usenet source archives netlib@draci.cs.uow.edu.au Australian Netlib (also accessible via anonymous ftp to draci.cs.uow.edu.au) netlib@mthvax.cs.miami.edu Various sources, digests and other miscellaneous stuff (also accessible via anonymous ftp to mthvax.cs.miami.edu) netlib@nac.no Mirror of AT&T netlib archive for use by European (non-UK) sites netlib@ornl.gov Similar to the AT&T netlib archive netlib@peregrine.com Rec.puzzles-related archives netlib@uunet.uu.net A large subset of what is available from uunet via anonymous ftp or anonymous uucp netlib@ukc.ac.uk UK netlib server (mostly same contents as AT&T's netlib) (some files also accessible via anonymous ftp to harrier.ukc.ac.uk {username "guest"}) next-archive@cc.purdue.edu NeXT stuff (also accessible via anonymous ftp to sonta.cc.purdue.edu or nova.cc.purdue.edu) nistlib@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov Benchmarks, GOSIP nptserver@cme.nist.gov NIST Cals server (also accessible via anonymous ftp to durer.cme.nist.gov) object-archive-server@decwrl.dec.com OFF format (?) objects ps-file-server@adobe.COM PostScript stuff reduce-netlib@rand.org Sources related to REDUCE (A SAM system with emphasis on nuclear physics) reports@midgard.ucsc.edu Comp.os.research tech reports (also accessible via anonymous ftp to midgard.ucsc.edu) request@legato.com NFS benchmarking for determining if Legato board will help your server search@genbank.bio.net FASTA program for nucleic acid sequence service@nic.ddn.mil Internet RFCs and FYIs, NIC database registration, WHOIS database lookup source@ureview.com Programs and files from the magazine "Unix Review" statlib@lib.stat.cmu.edu Lots of statistical software (also accessible via anonymous ftp to lib.stat.cmu.edu -- username statlib) tech-reports@cs.columbia.edu Experimental server (?) address might point to a human telecom-archive-request@letni.lonestar.org Comp.dcom.telecom archive vax-pro@wkuvx1.bitnet Programs and files from the journal "VAX Professional: A Technical Journal for VMS Systems" wrl-techreports@decwrl.dec.com DEC WRL technical reports and abstracts wscott@ecn.purdue.edu HP 48 programs; put HP-MAIL-SERVER in mail Subject xstuff@expo.lcs.mit.edu MIT X Consortium files, mainly patches ------------------------------ VII. Credits Bill Wohler <wohler@sap-ag.de> provided many of the addresses in the "Other mail servers" section above, and provided suggestions for several other sections. Andrew Purshottam <andyp@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> also provided many mail archive server addresses. Bjorn P. Brox <brox@dms.corena.no> provided information about Trickle. These people provided feedback and corrections: Denis.Buffenoir@inria.fr Tom Cunningham <tomc@bouwsma.sps.mot.com> Eric Gross <ehg@research.att.com> Dan Jacobson <Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM> Peter Deutsch <peterd@opus.cs.mcgill.ca> <FACN320@saupm00.bitnet> Charles Geyer <charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu> Edwin Kremer <edwin@cs.ruu.nl> Rene Lampe <yzrnur!rene@sq.uucp> Kent Landfield <kent@IMD.Sterling.COM> Jonathan Leech <leech@cs.unc.edu> Lee McLoughlin <L.McLoughlin@doc.ic.ac.uk> Allen McAuley <s3007588@mackay.mpce.mq.edu.au> Mark Maimone <mwm@cmu.edu> Michael Meyer <mikem+@andrew.cmu.edu> Petri Ojala <ojala@funet.fi> Douglas Quist <quist@thing1.sim.es.com> George V. Reilly <gvr@cs.brown.edu> John_Rouillard@dl5000.bc.edu Timo Salmi <ts@uwasa.fi> Rich Salz <rsalz@bbn.com> Heribert Schuetz <schuetz@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> Dan Shearer <ccdps@lux.levels.unisa.edu.au> Richard S. Smith <RSS%CALSTATE.bitnet@VM.USC.EDU> Mike Stump <mrs@charlie.secs.csun.edu> Steve Sullivan <sullivan@teal.csn.org> Steve Summit <scs@adam.mit.edu> Sydney S. Weinstein <syd@DSI.COM> Joe Wells <jbw@bigbird.bu.edu> Jon Whellams <mgjmw@cc.flinders.edu.au> George Wilson <gwilson@mrj.com> Bill Wohler <wohler@sap-ag.de> Christophe Wolfhugel <wolf@frwolf.gna.tfd.com> Adri Verhoef <a3@rivm39.rivm.nl> Ed Vielmetti <emv@msen.com> ------------------------------ -- Jonathan Kamens Geer Zolot Associates jik@GZA.COM .