peterd@cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) (12/22/90)
Because of brain-deadedness in our newsreader, I don't have the name, but _somebody_ just wrote: > I will soon be getting my next slab and will be loosing access to the net > other than a few news groups and a mail feed. Does anyone know of a way > to get binaries and source from ftp sites if you don't have ftp access. Is > it possible through mail and if so how. Thanks.... Well, there is at least one email-based ftp-server out there, operated by the good folks at Purdue University. This allows users to send email requests, and receive back the ftp-able files as email. I understand it was created to allow BITnet people to fetch stuff from the "real world". ;-) For those who know where to go for what they want, the email ftp site is: bitftp@pucc.purdue.edu I'm not a user of the purdue service, so I can't say how reliable it works, but I understand you can send email to that address with "help" in the message and get back the help blurb. In addition, there is an ftp archive _directory_ service, currently offered by the School of Computer Science at McGill, alias SOCS (that's us). This later service, which we call "archie", maintains a directory of over 500 archive sites and a listing of everything available from each. Archie can be used interactively from any site with internet access. As of this week, archie also has an email interface, for those without direct network access. For direct access, you can telnet or rlogin to quiche.cs.mcgill.ca [132.206.2.3 or 132.206.51.1] as user "archie". There is no password. You will get a brief banner page which explains the rudiments of the system. You can search for program names, list the full contents of any site and ask for a brief help. Extensions are being added all the time. The newly inaugurated email interface is fairly simple to use. Send your requests to "archie@cs.mcgill.ca" with the various commands in the body of the message. archie will execute the commands and send the results back. There are several options, including the option to compress and uuencode the result. More details, including help is given below. There is a mailing list, "archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca" for bug reports, comments and flames. This is read by the humans who are involved in building and maintaining archie. Final, "Kudos were they belong" department. Alan Emtage is the principle implementor of archie. He is a systems programmer and masters student here at SOCS and is building archie as his masters' project. He has been assisted in the user interface code (among other things) by Bill Heelan, another systems programmer at SOCS. The original idea for a user interface came from work I am doing for my master thesis on distributed electronic publishing (coming soon to a theatre near you) and I still chip in silly suggestions and comments when they can't escape me. The email code was mostly the work of Mike Parker (mouse) of the McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines (McRcim). Mouse is perhaps best known to this group for his X11 R4 NeXT port. So there we are. I think this answers fairly completely the original query, hope I haven't put anyone to sleep. Feedback on archie is welcome and should be sent to the above list. - peterd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [* Alan Emtage's archie email announcement *] Hi All, Well the email interface seems to be working. (I said _seems_ to :-). Before I release it to the world at large, I'd like some help with it for a day or two of testing. For those of you who don't have direct internet access, I've included the address of the ftp-mail server. We've changed the address of the bug reports/suggestions/comments mailing list FROM: archie@cs.mcgill.ca TO: archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca The mail server will now use the top address. As always, we're interested in your comments, suggestions and constructive critisism so please don't hesitate to write to us (at our new address). If you get a chance, please take it out for a test drive. I'll need to know that it at least works 90% of the time before I put it into general release. We may or may not have a new,improved version of archie out before the holiday season begins. I will be away from Dec 22 until Jan 14, and so Bill will be holding down the fort. He can be contacted through the above address. Here is the help page for the email interface. Enjoy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ARCHIE Mail Server HELP for the archie mail server, as of 18 December, 1990 (modified from the KISS help file) Requests to this server should be addressed to archie@cs.mcgill.ca To contact us humans, mail to archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca For your information, anonymous FTP may be performed through the mail by the ftp-mail server. Send a message with the word 'help' in it to: bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu for an explanation on how to use it. NOTE: The Subject: line is processed as if it were part of the main message body. No special keywords are required. Note that the "help" command is exclusive. All other commands in the same message are ignored. This server recognizes six commands. If an message not containing any valid requests or an empty message is received, it will be considered to be a 'help' message. path <path> This lets the requestor override the address that would normally be extracted from the header. If you do not hear from the archiver server within oh, about 2 days, you might consider adding a "path" command to your request. The path describes how to mail a message from cs.mcgill.ca to your address. cs.mcgill.ca is fully connected to the Internet. help Will send you this message. prog <reg expr1> [<reg exp2> ...] A search of the "archie" database is performed with each <reg exp> (a regular expression as defined by ed(1)) in turn, and any matches found are returned to the requestor. Note that multiple <reg exp> may be placed on one line, in which case the results will be mailed back to you in one message. If you have multiple "prog" lines, then multiple messages will be returned, one for each line. Any regular expression containing spaces must be quoted with single (') or double (") quotes. ALL OTHER ed(1) rules must be followed. NOTE: The searches are CASE SENSITIVE. The ability to change this will hopefully be added soon. site <site name> | <site IP address> A listing of the given <site name> will be returned. The fully qualified domain name or IP address may be used. compress ALL of your files in the current mail message will be "compressed" and "uuencoded". When you receive the reply, remove everything before the "begin" line and run it through "uudecode". This will produce a .Z file. You can then run "uncompress" on this file and get the results of your request. quit Nothing past this point is interpreted. This is provided so that the occasional lost soul whose signature contains a line that looks like a command can still use the server without getting a bogus response. -Alan
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (12/22/90)
In article <1990Dec21.212715.2496@cs.mcgill.ca> peterd@cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Deutsch) writes: >Well, there is at least one email-based ftp-server out >there, operated by the good folks at Purdue University. >This allows users to send email requests, and receive >back the ftp-able files as email. I understand it was >created to allow BITnet people to fetch stuff from the >"real world". ;-) Given that BITNET is probably the *smallest* wide-area network you hear about on a regular basis, I seriously doubt this. BITFTP was created specifically for BITNET users, it honors BITNET's "absurdly low" transfer limits, makes a reasonable attempt to bash ASCII into EBCDIC, etc. Non-BITNET users shouldn't bother with it. Instead, mail to archive-server@cc.purdue.edu with a Subject: of help and it should return more detailed instructions. -=EPS=-