HARPER@CSC.FI ("Robert Harper Finland", CSC) (12/20/90)
So basically you want me to reinvent the wheel:-) OK some background
information for novices: This is going to be REAL SIMPLE.
If you are studying at a University your mainframe computer might
either be on BITNET, INTERNET or both. Generally E-mail addresses for
BITNET take the form USER@NODE and in most cases the USER and the @NODE
are limited to EIGHT characters. (See BioBit9 for naming conventions).
For example my BITNET address is HARPER@FINFUN. For INTERNET the E-mail
addresses take the form USER@DOMAIN.SUBDOMAIN.COUNTRY and my INTERNET
address is HARPER@CSC.FI. Both addresses are equivilent and point to the
same machine.
So look at you OWN address and determine if you are on BITNET or
INTERNET. If you are on BITNET forget about TELNET and FTP you just
can't utilize those utilities. However if you are on INTERNET then it
means that you should have access to TCP/IP protocols... namely TELNET
and FTP.
You use TELNET to establish a REMOTE session with a foreign computer.
Usually you would need a USERID or a PASSWORD to get into the foreign
machine but some folks set things up so you can log in with the
USERNAME ANONYMOUS and the PASSWORD GUEST. This is the case with the
free library service. I have already given a TELNET example a few weeks
back so I will deal with an FTP session now.
You use FTP (File Trnasfer Protocol) to upload or download files from a
remote host. In BIONEWS there was a recent posting regarding anonymous
FTP sites for Molecular biology by Mike Gribskov. In it he mentions
@NIC.FUNET.FI (What do you know an INTERNET ADDRESS)
@NIC National Information Centre
.FUNET Finnish Universities Network
.FI Finland
Since you want an example of a FTP session here is one to NIC.FUNET.FI
I know something about this one since I set up the molbio areas. I put
!comments after the commands
$ ftp nic.funet.fi ! command to call the remote host
220 nic.funet.fi FTP server
(Version 4.461 +mea@nic.funet.fi Tue Dec 11 12:24:0.
Remote User Name:anonymous !Anonymous is the userid
Remote Password: !give your USER@NODE... it is polite
ftp> dir !command to see what is available
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 7072 Nov 27 13:10 README
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1965 Nov 27 13:05 README.UPLOADER
drwxr-sr-x 2 root wheel 512 Dec 13 00:55 bin
drwxr-sr-x 2 root wheel 512 Dec 9 17:18 etc
drwxrwxr-x 2 root ftp 1024 Dec 15 21:32 files
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1080 Apr 12 1990 ls-FORMATS
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 963921 Dec 18 22:17 ls-ZGR.Z
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 686711 Dec 18 22:14 ls-ZRlag.Z
drwxr-xr-x 9 root funstaff 512 Dec 12 11:10 pub
drwxr-sr-x 2 mea wheel 512 Sep 26 06:30 staff-docs
ftp> cd \pub\misc\molbio ! change directory to the molbio stuff.
ftp> dir !look at the directories
drwxr-xr-x 2 harper guests 512 Sep 27 06:38 biobit
drwxr-xr-x 2 harper guests 1536 Oct 26 13:31 mac
drwxr-xr-x 2 harper guests 1024 Sep 19 13:51 msdos
drwxr-xr-x 2 harper guests 512 Sep 17 08:58 unix
drwxr-xr-x 2 harper guests 512 Sep 13 09:11 vax
ftp> cd biobit ! change directory to biobit
ftp> dir
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 47212 Sep 21 11:39 biobit1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 9655 Sep 21 11:39 biobit10.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 13289 Sep 21 11:39 biobit11.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 12166 Sep 21 11:39 biobit12.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 14155 Sep 21 11:39 biobit13.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 15947 Sep 21 11:39 biobit14.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 11737 Sep 21 11:39 biobit15.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 12350 Sep 21 11:39 biobit16.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 24777 Sep 21 11:39 biobit2.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 22138 Sep 21 11:39 biobit3.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 19191 Sep 21 11:39 biobit4.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 10831 Sep 21 11:39 biobit5.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 9331 Sep 21 11:39 biobit6.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 11977 Sep 21 11:39 biobit7.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 11671 Sep 21 11:39 biobit8.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 8435 Sep 21 11:39 biobit9.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 951 Sep 21 11:39 index
-rw-r--r-- 1 harper guests 232 Sep 21 11:40 read.me
ftp> get index - ! read the index file online
BIOBIT1.TXT Computer Viruses
BIOBIT2.TXT BIONET (What is it?)
BIOBIT3.TXT RED TRICKLE SERVER (How does it work?)
BIOBIT4.TXT Using Relay from LifeSci
BIOBIT5.TXT Using FTP
BIOBIT6.TXT ARCHIVING and ENCODING
BIOBIT7.TXT Comparison of archiving programmes
BIOBIT8.TXT Review of Current Contents on Disk
BIOBIT9.TXT Naming conventions on EARN
BIOBIT10.TXT Guide to mail gateways
BIOBIT11.TXT Using the EMBL netserver
BIOBIT12.TXT LDBASE and its use with LISTSERV
BIOBIT13.TXT Mistakes you can make on the network :-)
BIOBIT14.TXT International Center for Genetic engineering and Biotech.
BIOBIT15.TXT Introduction to GOS (Genbank On-line Service)
BIOBIT16.TXT Newsreader software ANU NEWS
**************************************************************
And we find that we have indeed reinvented the wheel cos
BioBit5 deals with using FTP:-)
ftp> bye ! finnish the remote session
I have only touched some of the things you can do with FTP...
guess you will have to FTP BioBit5.txt to find out how to do
the rest.
Rob "the righteous man prefers honour over wealth" Harper
Socrates said that and he died on a point of honour and broke:-)