jmd@ursa.UUCP (Josh Diamond) (08/31/89)
Greetings all --
All requests I send to xstuf@expo.lcs.mit.edu seem to be falling into
a black hole. I neither get bounced mail nor any response from the
archive server. Could someone please send me new info on xstuff, or
inform me concerning its status?
Thanks in advance...
Josh Diamond
AKA Spidey!!!
--
/\ \ / /\ Josh Diamond {philabs.phillips.com, sun.com}!gotham!ursa!jmd
//\\ .. //\\ AKA Spidey!!! ...!{sun, pwcmrd, philabs, pyrnj}!gotham!ursa!jmd
//\(( ))/\\
/ < `' > \ Beauty is the purgation of superfluities. -- Michaelangelorws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (08/31/89)
xstuff works as far as I know. If this gets to you, then you should be able
to put
path philmtl!philabs!gotham!ursa!jmd@uunet.uu.net
in your stuff requests, to get things back.
Subject: How to use the Xstuff server
The xstuff server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail it a
request, and it mails back the response.
The xstuff server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will just
answer "I don't understand you".
The xstuff server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word on a
line. The xstuff server reads your entire message before it does anything,
so you can have several different commands in a single message. The xstuff
server treats the "Subject:" header line just like any other line of the
message. You can use any combination of upper and lower case letters in the
commands.
The archives are organized into a series of directories and subdirectories.
Each directory has an index, and each subdirectory has an index. The
top-level index gives you an overview of what is in the subdirectories, and
the index for each subdirectory tells you what is in it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try something,
then send the server a message containing the line
send index fixes
When you get the index back, it will contain the numbers of all of the fixes
and batches of fixes in the archive; send the server another message asking
it to send you the fixes that you want:
send fixes 1 5 9 11-20
etc.
If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
xstuff@expo.lcs.mit.edu. If your mailer deals in "!" notation, try
sending to {someplace}!eddie!expo.lcs.mit.edu!xstuff. For other mailers,
you're on your own.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is some more documentation. The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course, because
you are reading the help file. No other commands are honored in a
message that asks for help (the server figures that you had better
read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is "index",
then the server will send you the top-level index of the contents of
the archive. If there are other words on that line that match
the name of subdirectories, then the indexes for those subdirectories
are sent instead of the top-level index. For example, you can say
index
or
index fixes
You can then send back another message to the xstuff server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the files
whose name you learned from that list.
(Footnote: "index fixes" and "send index fixes" mean the
same thing: you can use the "send" command instead of the "index"
command, if you want, for getting an index.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then all
other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you cannot
get an index and data in the same request. This is so that index
requests can be given high priority.)
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is "send",
then the xstuff server will send you the item(s) named on the
rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory and its
name. For example
send fixes 1-10
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send fixes 1-10 11-20 21-30
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get one fix and one of something else, you must use two
"send" commands.
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail
to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes
in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it
will send as much as it can and ignore the rest.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming path.
There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if you are a
true wizard, you already know what those reasons are. If you are an
apprentice wizard, you might not know all the reasons but you might
know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. The server host expo.lcs.mit.edu
does not have a direct uucp connection to anywhere; you must go
through eddie or somewhere else.
NOTES:
The xstuff server acknowledges every request by return mail. If you don't
get a message back in a day or two you should assume that something is going
wrong, and perhaps try a "path" command.
The xstuff server does not respond to requests from users named "root",
"system", "daemon", or "mailer". This is to prevent mail loops. If your name
is "Bruce Root" or "Joe Daemon", and you can document this, I will happily
rewrite the server to remove this restriction. Yes, I know about Norman
Mailer and Waverley Root. Norman doesn't use netmail and Waverley is dead.
FAIRNESS:
The xstuff server contains many safeguards to ensure that it is not
monopolized by people asking for large amounts of data. The mailer is set up
so that it will send no more than a fixed amount of data each day. If the
work queue contains more requests than the day's quota, then the unsent files
will not be processed until the next day. Whenever the mailer is run to send
its day's quota, it sends the requests out shortest-first.
If you have a request waiting in the work queue and you send in another
request, the new request is added to the old one (thereby increasing its
size) rather than being filed anew. This prevents you from being able to
send in a large number of small requests as a way of beating the system.
The reason for all of these quotas and limitations is that the delivery
resources are finite, and there are many tens of thousands of people who
would like to make use of the archive.