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... formation about Internet.
Most mail servers work pretty much the same -- you send an e-mail
message that tells them what file you want and how you want it sent to
you. The most important command is "send," which tells the computer you
want it to send you a particular file.
First, though, you'll need to know where the mail server stores
that file, because you have to tell it which directory or sub-
directory it's in. There are a couple richmond webmaster minnesota webmaster of ways to do this. You can
send an e-mail message to the archive-server that consists of one
line:
index
The server will then send you a directory listing of its main, or
root directory. You'll then have to send a second message to the
archive server with one line:
index directory/subdirectory
where directory/subdirectory is the directory path for which you want a
listing. An alternative is to send an e-mail message to our old friend
archie, which should send you back the file's exact location on the
archive-server (along with minnesota webmaster similar listings for all the other sites that
may have the file, however)
Once you have the file name and its directory path, compose a
message to the archive server like this:
send directory/subdirectory/file
Send off the message and, anywhere from a few minutes to a couple
of days later, you'll find a new message in your mailbox: a copy of the
file you requested. The exact time it will take a file to get to you
depends on a variety of factors, including how many minnesota webmaster requests are in line
before yours (mail servers can only process so many requests at a time)
and the state of the connections between the server and you.
Seems simple enough. It gets a little more complicated when you
request a program rather than a document. Programs or other files that
contain unusual characters or lines longer than 130 characters (graphics
files, for example) require special processing by the mail server to
ensure they are transmitted via e-mail. Then you'll have to run them
through at least one minnesota webmaster converter program to put them in a form you can
actually use. To ensure that a program or other "non-mailable" file
actually gets to you, include another line in your e-mail message to the
server:
encoder
This converts the file into an encoded form. To decode it, you'll
first have to transfer the file message into a file in your home
directory.
One further complication comes when you request a particularly
long file. Many Net sites can only handle so much mail at a time. To
make sure you get the entire file, tell the mail server to break it up
into smaller pieces, with another line in your e-mail request like
this:
size 100000
This gives the mail server the maximum size, in bytes, of each
file segment.
This particular size is good for UUCP sites. Internet
and Bitnet sites can generally go up to 300000. When you get all of
these files in mail, transfer them to your home directory. Exit mail
and call up each file in your host system's text processor and delete
each one's entire header and footer (or "signature" at the end).
When
done with this, at your host system's command line, type
cat file1 file2 > bigfile
where file1 is the first file, file2 the second file, and so on. The >
tells your host system to combine them into a new megafile called
bigfile (or whatever you want to call it).
After you save the file to
your home directory (see section 9.2 above), you can then run uudecode,
tar, etc.
One minnesota webmaster word of caution, though: if the file you want is long
enough that it has to be broken into pieces, think of how much time it's
going to take you to download the whole thing -- especially if you're
using a 2400-baud modem!
There are a number of other mail servers.
To get a list, send an
e-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu:
send usenet/comp.sources.wanted/How_to_find_sources_(READ_THIS_BEFORE_POSTING)
You'll have to spell it exactly as listed above. Some mail
servers use different software, which will require slightly different
commands than the ones listed here. In general, if you send a message
to a mail server that says only
help
you should get back a file detailing all of its commands.
But what if the file you want is not on one of these mail
servers? That's where ftpmail comes in. Run by Digital Equipment
Corp. in California, this service can connect to almost any ftp site
in the world, get the file you want and then mail it to you.
Using it
is fairly simple -- you send an e-mail message to ftpmail that
includes a series of commands telling the system where to find the
file you want and how to format it to mail to you.
Compose an e-mail message to
ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
Leave the "subject:" line blank. Inside the message, there are
several commands you can give. The first line should be
minnesota webmaster reply address
where "address" is your e-mail address. The next line should be
connect host
where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example:
wuarchive.wustl.edu). Other commands you should consider using are
"binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file
size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file
so you can do something with it when it arrives). The last line of
your message should be the word "quit".
Let's say you want a copy of the U.S. constitution. Using archie,
you've found a file called, surprise, constitution, at the ftp site minnesota webmaster
archive.cis.ohio-state.edu, in the /pub/fi ... |
