Guide to Network Resource Tools
EARN Association
September 15, 1993
Document Number: 2.0
Guide to Network Resource Tools
Notice
This document has been compiled and produced by the EARN
Association. Permission to copy all or part of this document
without fee is granted provided the copies are not used for
commercial advantage and that the EARN Association is cited as
the source of the document.
This document is available in electronic format from:
[email protected]
Send the command: GET filename where the filename is either:
NETTOOLS PS (Postscript)
NETTOOLS MEMO (plain text)
Document version: 2.0
ISBN 2-910286-03-7
(ISBN 2-910286-01-0 Version 1.0)
(c) EARN Association, 1993
Preface to the Second Edition
When the first version of the Guide to Network Resource Tools was
released, we had no idea how popular it would become, and how
quickly it would spread beyond the EARN community. While much had
already been written on these tools, a booklet with brief expla-
nations and instructions struck a responsive chord.
In this second edition, we have tried to expand the scope, both
in terms of the number of networking tools covered and the size
of the audience at which it is aimed. While the Internet contin-
ues to grow at an explosive rate, there is still a large communi-
ty of users, within EARN and beyond, with only electronic mail
connectivity to the world-wide network. We have tried to show how
they too can utilize these networking tools.
The work of many people is reflected here, but we owe our great-
est debt of thanks to the developers and authors of the network
tools and documentation. Their work serves as the basis for this
guide.
We also wish to thank all those who have provided comments, crit-
icisms and suggestions for the guide. Many of the improvements in
the second edition are the result of their feedback and encour-
agement. In particular, we have benefitted from the cooperation
of the RARE Working Group on Information Services and User Sup-
port. We look forward to close collaboration with them on future
editions of this guide as well as on other projects.
The Guide to Network Resource Tools has been produced by the
staff of the EARN Association, under the direction of the EARN
Group on Information Services. Any errors or inaccuracies in this
guide are the sole responsibility of the EARN staff. We welcome
and encourage your feedback. Please send comments, criticisms,
corrections, suggestions for future editions and even praise to
the electronic mail address:
[email protected]
If you have any questions or queries on the use of these tools or
on other aspects of networking, and you are in an EARN member
country, you can get help and advice by sending your questions by
electronic mail to the EARN consulting service at:
[email protected]
The EARN Staff
Introduction
As the worldwide academic computer network grows and expands far
beyond its previous confines, so the resources and services
available on the network evolve and multiply at a dizzying rate.
The typical user is hardpressed to keep up with this explosive
growth. Fortunately, a number of tools are available to facili-
tate the task of locating and retrieving network resources, so
that users anywhere can utilize texts, data, software and infor-
mation for public access. Facilities to explore public domain
software repositories, to consult mailing list archives and data-
bases, to retrieve directory information and to participate in
global group discussions are now available to all.
The key to exploiting these resources is a server, special soft-
ware on a computer somewhere in the network which accepts
requests (or queries or commands) and sends a response automati-
cally. The requestor does not have to be working on the same com-
puter (or even in the same part of the world) in order to use the
server. Many servers accept requests via electronic mail, so that
often the requestor needs not even be on the same computer net-
work as the server. In many cases, servers are interconnected so
that once you have established contact with one server, you can
easily communicate with other servers as well.
Today, many users have powerful computers on the desktop, with
advanced graphical, audio and storage capabilities, which are
connected to the network. This fact has given rise to what is
known as the client-server model. Users can have special software
on their local computer called a client which can utilize the
capabilities of that computer and can also communicate with a
server on the network. These clients provide an easy-to-use,
intuitive user interface, allow use of pointing devices such as a
mouse, and exploit other local features. The client sends the
user's requests to a server using a standardized format (called a
protocol) and the server sends its response in a condensed format
which the client displays to the user in a more readable way.
The tools described in this guide have been divided into six
functional areas. Actually, several of the tools have several
different functions, and have been classified according to their
main purpose. The first section, Exploring the network, covers
two services, Gopher and World-Wide Web, which use the client-
server model to provide a means of moving through a wide range of
network sources and resources in a uniform and intuitive way. A
tool for searching in a wide range of different databases located
throughout the network, WAIS, is documented in the section
Searching databases. The problem of knowing where to find files
and programs in the network is addressed in the third section,
Finding network resources, which deals with archie. Three tools
for finding people, computers and their network addresses, WHOIS,
X.500 and Netfind, are discussed in section four, Finding people
and computers. While just about all of these network tools can be
used to get files of one sort or another, there are a few servers
available for getting files easily and efficiently from various
repositories in the network. Two of these servers, TRICKLE and
BITFTP, are covered in section five on Getting files. The sixth
section deals with what is perhaps the most popular of all the
network resources, discussion groups on every imaginable topic.
The two tools discussed in this section are LISTSERV and Netnews
(Usenet). The final section gives brief descriptions and pointers
for a number of tools which were not mainstream enough to get a
full description. Some are still in the developmental stage
(Prospero), some are relatively unknown outside a particular net-
work (ASTRA and Netserv from EARN/Bitnet and Mailbase from JANET)
and some are meant for chatting rather than work (Relay and IRC).
The purpose of this guide is to supply the basic information that
anyone on the network needs to try out and begin using these
tools. A basic knowledge of networking terminology has been
assumed, as well as familiarity with the basic tools of network-
ing: electronic mail (often referred to as e-mail or simply mail
throughout this guide) and, for those connected to the Internet,
FTP (file transfer protocol) and Telnet (remote login). It is
beyond the scope of this guide to describe these basic tools. The
example in the BITFTP section of this guide shows how one can use
BITFTP to get guides to these tools over the network.
Part 1
EXPLORING THE NETWORK
GOPHER
What is Gopher
The Internet Gopher, or simply Gopher, is a distributed document
delivery service. It allows users to explore, search and retrieve
information residing on different locations in a seamless fash-
ion.
When browsing it, the information appears to the user as a series
of nested menus. This kind of menu structure resembles the organ-
ization of a directory with many subdirectories and files. The
subdirectories and the files may be located either on the local
server site or on remote sites served by other Gopher servers.
From the user point of view, all information items presented on
the menus appear to come from the same place.
The information can be a text or binary file, directory informa-
tion (loosely called phone book), image or sound. In addition,
Gopher offers gateways to other information systems (World-Wide
Web, WAIS, archie, WHOIS) and network services (Telnet, FTP).
Gopher is often a more convenient way to navigate in a FTP direc-
tory and to download files.
A Gopher server holds the information and handles the users'
queries. In addition, links to other Gopher servers create a net-
work wide cooperation to form the global Gopher web (Gopher-
space).
Who can use Gopher
Gopher uses the client-server model to provide access to the
Gopher web. You must be on the international TCP/IP network (the
Internet) in order to use a client on your computer to access
Gopher.
How to get to Gopher
Users explore the Gopher menus using various local clients or
accessing a remote client via an interactive Telnet session.
Local clients
Public domain clients for accessing a Gopher server are available
for: Macintosh, MS-DOS, OS/2, VM/CMS, VMS, NeXT, Unix,
X-Windows. The clients are available for anonymous FTP from
many FTP sites (eg, boombox.micro.umn.edu in the directory
/pub/gopher). See the list of freely available client software
in Appendix A.
Remote clients
Some sites allow public access to a client. To access such a
remote client, telnet to one of these sites:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| info.anu.edu.au Australia (login: info) |
| tolten.puc.cl Columbia |
| ecnet.ec Ecuador |
| gopher.chalmers.se Sweden |
| consultant.micro.umn.edu USA |
| gopher.uiuc.edu USA |
| panda.uiowa.edu USA (login: panda) |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
At the login: prompt type gopher (unless specified otherwise) and
the top-level Gopher menu for that site will be displayed.
Users are requested to use the site closest to them.
Using Gopher
The implementations of the Gopher clients on various platforms
are slightly different to take advantage of the platforms' capa-
bilities (mouse, graphic functions, X-Windows server) and to
offer the popular look and feel. Even with different implementa-
tions, the same set of functions and commands is available.
When issuing the gopher command, you will be connected automati-
cally to the default Gopher server specified at the installation.
The format of the command is:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| gopher <hostname> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where hostname is an optional alternative Gopher server you want
to talk to.
When connected to a Gopher server, it is still possible to access
another server by exploring the Other Gopher servers in the rest
of the world branch. To locate them more easily, the Gopher ser-
vers are distributed in geographical regions:
* Africa
* Europe
* Middle East
* North America
* Pacific
* South America
and then by countries.
Access to a Gopher server is identical whether using a local or a
remote client: a simple menu-driven interface which doesn't
require any special training or knowledge from the user.
Here is a sample menu:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Internet Gopher Information Client v1.1
Information About Gopher
1. About Gopher.
2. Search Gopher News <?>
3. Gopher News Archive/
4. comp.infosystems.gopher (Usenet newsgroup)/
5. Gopher Software Distribution/
6. Gopher Protocol Information/
7. University of Minnesota Gopher software licensing policy.
8. Frequently Asked Questions about Gopher.
9. gopher93/
10. Gopher| example server/
11. How to get your information into Gopher.
--> 12. New Stuff in Gopher.
13. Reporting Problems or Feedback.
14. big Ann Arbor gopher conference picture.gif <Picture>
Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1
-----------------------------------------------------------------
In the example above, any item can be selected by typing its line
number or by moving the cursor (-->) next to it.
An item could be:
* a subdirectory
* a text file
* a binary file
* a sound file
* an image file
* a phone book (directory information)
* an index-search
* a Telnet session
Items are displayed with an identifying symbol next to them. In
the example above, "<?>" means a full text index-search, "/"
means a subdirectory, "<Picture>" means an image file and no sym-
bol means a text file.
Some Gopher clients are not able to handle certain file types
(eg, sound files). Some clients display only files of types they
can handle or files they suppose you are interested in. Others
display all types of files.
Most Gopher clients allow you to create, view and select book-
marks. A bookmark keeps track of the exact location of a Gopher
item, regardless of where it resides. It is useful when you often
need to reach a file or a service located far from the top-level
directory. A collection of bookmarks is like a customized Gopher
menu.
Some capabilities of a local Gopher client are bound to the capa-
bilities of your own computer. In fact, for sound files, image
files and Telnet sessions, the Gopher client looks for the appro-
priate software on your computer and passes control to it to per-
form the requested task. When the task is completed, control is
returned to the Gopher client.
At any time, it is possible to terminate the session (quit com-
mand), to cancel the current processing or to get the on-line
help (help command).
An item is processed according to its type:
a subdirectory
its contents are displayed. To go up one level, use
the up command.
a text file the file is displayed. Then you can browse it,
search for a particular string, print it on a local
printer or copy (save) it onto your local disk space
in a user-specified file (the last 2 functions may
not be available to you).
a binary file
the remote file is simply copied onto your local
disk space in a user-specified file. Binary files
are binhexed Macintosh files, archives (.zip,
.tar,...), compressed files, programs, etc.
a sound file the remote file is played through your local audio
device if it exists, as well as the appropriate
utility. Only one sound file can be active at a
time; you will be warned if you try to play a sound
before a previous one is done.
an image file
the remote file is displayed on your computer screen
if an image viewer exists on your computer.
a phone book you are prompted for a search string to look up peo-
ple information through the selected phone book.
Since different institutions have different directo-
ry services, the queries are not performed in the
same fashion.
an index-search
you are prompted for a search string which may be
one or more words, plus the special operators and,
or, and not. The search is case-insensitive. Usual-
ly, an index is created to help users locate the
information in a set of documents quickly. Eg:
terminal and setting or tset
will find all documents which contain both the words
terminal and setting, or the word tset. or is non-
exclusive so the documents may contain all of the
words.
The result of the index-search looks like any Gopher
menu, but each menu item is a file that contains the
specified search string.
a Telnet session
Telnet sessions are normally text-based information
services, for example, access to library catalogs.
VERONICA
Veronica was designed as a solution to the problem of resource
discovery in the rapidly-expanding Gopher web, providing a key-
word search of more than 500 Gopher menus. Veronica helps you
find Gopher-based information without doing a menu-by-menu, site-
by-site search. It is to the Gopher information space, what
archie is to the FTP archives
Veronica is accessible from most top-level Gopher menus or from
the Other Gopher servers... branch. There is no need for opening
another connection or another application.
When you choose a veronica search , you will be prompted to enter
a keyword or keywords. The simplest way to search with veronica
is to enter a single word and hit the RETURN key. It does not
matter whether the word is upper-case or lower-case. The veronica
server will return a gopher menu composed of items whose titles
match your keyword specification. Items can be accessed as with
any Gopher menu. Eg:
eudora
will give you a list of menu titles that contain eudora, such as:
Electronic Mail: Eudora on Macintosh, Micro-08
Modem Setting Eudora Slip.
A UNIX-based Eudora reader for those that ...
Eudora: Popmail for the Macintosh.
Eudora.
etc.
The search string may contain keywords optionally separated by
and, or and not. If there is no operator between 2 keywords, and
is assumed. Eg:
eudora and macintosh
will give you a list of menu titles that contain both eudora and
macintosh, such as:
Eudora: Popmail for the Macintosh.
v4.1 EUDORA: E-MAIL FOR THE MACINTOSH.
Micro News: Eudora - A Mailer for the Macintosh.
Eudora: Electronic Mail on Your Macintosh.
ACS News - Eudora Mail Reader for Macintosh.
etc.
"*" is the wildcard character. It can replace any other character
or characters at the end of a keyword. Eg:
desk*
will give you a list of menu titles, such as:
The Help Desk.
Keene State College Press Release COMPUTER ON EVERY DESK.
DESKQview/X... An alternative to Windows???.
Ethernet at Your Desktop/
etc.
Learning more about Gopher
The Internet Gopher is developed by the Computer and Information
Services Department of the University of Minnesota. Bug reports,
comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to the Gopher devel-
opment team at:
[email protected].
Mailing list:
[email protected]
To subscribe send a mail to:
[email protected]
Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.gopher
A comprehensive description of veronica search methods is avail-
able from the veronica menus.
Veronica is being developed by Steve Foster and Fred Barrie at
the University of Nevada. Bug reports, comments, suggestions,
etc. should be addressed to:
[email protected]
WORLD-WIDE WEB
What is World-Wide Web
World-Wide Web (also called WWW or W3) is an information system
based on hypertext, which offers a means of moving from document
to document (usually called to navigate) within a network of
information.
Hypertext documents are linked to each other through a selected
set of words. For example, when a new word, or a new concept, is
introduced in a text, hypertext makes it possible to point to
another document which gives more details about it. The reader
can open the second document by selecting the unknown word or
concept and the relevant section is displayed. The second docu-
ment may also contain links to further details. The reader need
not know where the referenced document is, and there is no need
to type a command to display it, or to browse it to find the
right paragraph. Cross-references may be defined in the same doc-
ument. A collection of documents is a database.
If you were reading this document on a hypertext system, instead
of this all too short explanation about hypertext, you would have
a selectable pointer to a complete hypertext information web with
examples and more pointers to other definitions.
For instance, in the first document you might read:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area "hypermedia" information
retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large
universe of documents.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Selecting hypermedia will display the following explanation for
you:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS HYPERTEXT
Hypertext is text which is not constraied to be linear.
Hypertext is text which contains "links" to other texts. The term
was coined by "Ted Nelson" around 1965 (see "History").
HyperMedia is a term used for hypertext which is not constrained
to be text: it can include graphics, video and "sound", for
example. Apparently Ted Nelson was the first to use this term too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Then you can learn more about links and Nelson. Indeed, the
links in WWW are not confined to text only, so the term hyperme-
dia is more accurate. For example, the link to Nelson might point
to a file containing a picture of Ted Nelson. The picture would
be displayed on your screen if you have a suitable configuration.
Also, special documents (indexes) in the WWW information space
can be search for given keyword(s). The result is a document
which contains links to the documents found.
World-Wide Web uses hypertext over the network: the linked docu-
ments may be located at various sites. WWW can handle different
text formats and various information organizations. WWW also pro-
vides access to many of the other tools described in this guide.
Who can use World-Wide Web
WWW uses the client-server model to provide access to the infor-
mation universe. You must be on the international TCP/IP network
(the Internet) in order to use a client on your computer to
access WWW. If you are on the Internet, but don't have a WWW
client on your computer, you can still enter the World-Wide Web.
Several sites offer public interactive access to WWW clients (see
the Remote clients section under How to get to World-Wide Web
below).
If you have e-mail access only, or if you are not on the Internet
then you can not fully exploit the vast potential of WWW.
However, a mail-robot is available at the address:
[email protected] which gives e-mail access to WWW-accessible
[email protected]
files. (see E-mail access section under How to get to World-Wide
Web below).
How to get to World-Wide Web
Users access the World-Wide Web facilities via a client called a
browser. This interface provides transparent access to the WWW
servers. If a local WWW client is not available on your computer,
you may use a client at a remote site. Thus, an easy way to start
with WWW is to access a remote client.
Local clients
Usage of a local client is encouraged since it provides better
performance and better response time than a remote client.
Public domain clients for accessing WWW servers are available
for: Macintosh, MS-DOS, VMS, VM/CMS, MVS, NeXT, Unix, X-Windows.
The clients are available for anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch in
the directory /pub/www. All these platforms support a simple line
mode browser. In addition, graphical clients are available for:
Macintosh, Windows, X-Windows, NeXT and Unix. See the list of
freely available client software in Appendix A.
Remote clients
To access a remote WWW client, telnet to the client site. If you
are new to WWW, you should telnet to info.cern.ch No login is
needed. You will immediately enter the WWW line mode browser.
Some publicly accessible clients feature locally developed
clients. Most remote clients are at sites with WWW servers with
information on specific areas. After you telnet to the client
site, at the login:prompt enter www, no password is needed. The
following remote client sites are available:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Site Country Server Specialization
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| vms.huji.ac.il Israel Environment |
| info.cern.ch Switzerland (CERN) High-energy physics
| fatty.law.cornell.edu USA Law |
| ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu USA History |
| www.njit.edu USA |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
CERN is the entry point to find information about WWW itself and
to have an overview of the Web with a catalogue of the databases
sorted by subject.
E-mail access
In order to get a file, send mail to
[email protected] with a
SEND command. The SEND command returns the document with the giv-
en WWW address, subject to certain restrictions. Hypertext docu-
ments are formatted to 72 character width, with links numbered. A
separate list at the end of the file gives the document-addresses
of the related documents.
If the document is hypertext, its links will be marked by numbers
in brackets, and a list of document addresses by number will be
appended to the message. In this way, you can navigate through
the web, more or less. A good file to start with would be:
http://info.cern.ch./hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/Overview.html
Note that, despite the name listserv in the address of this mail
robot, it is not a LISTSERV server.
A note of caution from the WWW developers and maintainers:
As the robot gives potential mail access to a *vast* amount of
information, we must emphasise that the service should not be
abused. Examples of appropriate use would be:
* Accessing any information about W3 itself;
* Accessing any CERN and/or physics-related or network develop-
ment related information;
Examples of INappropriate use would be:
* Attempting to retrieve binaries or tar files or anything more
than directory listings or short ASCII files from FTP archive
sites;
* Reading Usenet newsgroups which your site doesn't receive;
* Repeated automatic use.
There is currently a 1000 line limit on any returned file. We
don't want to overload other people's mail relays or our server.
We reserve the right to withdraw the service at any time. We are
currently monitoring all use of the server, so your reading will
not initially enjoy privacy.
Enjoy!
The W3 team at CERN (
[email protected])
Using World-Wide Web
When using a graphical interface, you access the WWW functions by
pressing mouse buttons. In particular, references are highlighted
or underlined words. To follow a link, click on the associated
reference.
The line mode browser is a more simple user interface: references
are numbers in square brackets next to words. Type the number and
hit the RETURN key to follow a reference. For example, here is
the beginning of the Subject Catalogue you get on the CERN ser-
ver:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Subject Catalogue
WWW VIRTUAL LIBRARY
This is the subject catalogue. See also arrangement by service
type[1]. Mail
[email protected] to add pointers to this
list.
Aeronautics Mailing list archive index[2]. See also NASA LaRC[3]
Agriculture[4] Separate list, see also Almanac mail servers[5].
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Abstract Indexes[6] at NASA, Astrophysics work at
FNAL[7], Princeton's[8] Sloane Digital Sky
Survey, the STELAR project, Space Telescope
Electronic Information System[9], the Southampton
University Astronomy Group[10], the National
Solar Observatory[11], Astrophysics work at the
AHPCRC[12]. See also: space[13].
Bio Sciences[14] Separate list.
Computing[15] Separate list.
1-81, Back, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The following commands are available within WWW. Some are disa-
bled when not applicable (eg, Find is enabled only when the cur-
rent document is an index). Angle brackets (<>) indicate an
optional parameter.
Help gives a list of available commands depending on
the context, and the hypertext address of the cur-
rent document.
Manual displays the on-line manual.
Quit exits WWW.
Up, Down scrolls up or down one page in the current docu-
ment.
Top, BOttom goes to the top or the bottom of the current docu-
ment.
Back goes back to the document you were reading before.
HOme goes back to the first document you were reading.
Next, Previous goes to the next or previous document in the list
of pointers from the document that led to the cur-
rent one.
List gives a numbered list of the links from the cur-
rent document. To follow a link, type in the num-
ber.
Recall <number>
if number is omitted, gives a numbered list of
the documents you have visited.
To display one specific document, re-issue the
command with number.
<Find> keyword queries the current index with the supplied key-
word(s). A list of matching entries is displayed
with possibly links to further details. Find can
Find
be omitted if the first keyword does not conflict
with another WWW command. Multiple keywords are
separated by blanks.
Go docaddress goes to the document represented by the given
hypertext address, which is interpreted relatively
to the current document.
Extra command available on Unix versions only:
Print prints the current document, without the numbered
document references. The default print command is
lpr, but it may be defined in your local working
environment by the variable WWW_PRINT_COMMAND.
To access WWW with the line mode browser, type: www. The default
first document will appear on your screen. From this point, you
should be able to navigate through the WWW universe by reading
the text and following the instructions at the bottom of the
screen. If you want to start with a first document other than the
default, or if you want to change some other aspect of the usual
interaction, there are a number of command line parameters and
options available. The full format of the www command to invoke
the line mode browser is:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| www <options> <docaddress <keyword>> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
docaddress
is the hypertext address of the document at which you
want to start browsing.
keyword queries the index specified by docaddress with the sup-
plied keyword(s). A list of matching entries is dis-
played. Multiple keywords are separated by blanks.
Options are:
-n non-interactive mode. The document is formatted and
displayed to the screen. Pages are delimited with form
feed characters (FF).
-listrefs adds a list of the addresses of all documents referenc-
es to the end. Non-interactive mode only.
-pn sets the page length to n lines. Without a number,
makes the page length infinite. Default is 24.
-wn sets the page width to n columns. The default is 78, 79
or 80 depending on the system.
-na hides references in the text. Useful, when printing out
the document.
-version displays the version number of the software.
The commands listed above should be available in all clients.
They may be abbreviated (CAPITAL letters indicate acceptable
abbreviation). Case is not significant. Special characteristics
of the line mode browser interface are:
number type in a number given in [] and hit the RETURN key to
follow the link associated to the reference.
RETURN hit the RETURN key to display the next page of the cur-
rent document (without a reference number).
Examples
WWW gives you access to an information universe. Let's say you
want to know how many film versions of The Three Musketeers there
have been. You browse the WWW Subject Catalogue and select Mov-
ies:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Movie database browser (Cardiff)
A Hypertext movie database browser
Sep 2nd... Your help is needed..[1]
Aug 29th.. Images, sounds, mpegs & reviews[2]
Select the type of search you'd like to perform:-
Movie people[3].....(multi Oscar winners)[4] or
Movie titles[5] .....(multi Oscar winners)[6]
Searches the "rec.arts.movies" movie database system, maintained
by Col Needham et-al.
Here[7] is some information on list maintainers.
If you have a comment or suggestion, it can be recorded here[8]
HERE[9] is a pre-1986 movie information gopher server. (at
Manchester UK)
1-13, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help: 5
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You select Movie titles, and then type three musketeers as key-
words:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Movie title queries
MOVIE TITLE QUERY
Enter a movie title or substring.
Example, to search for movies with the word "alien" in their
title, type "alien".
This will return details on several movies, including Aliens[1]
Note: if the title begins with A or The, leave it out. If you're
determined to include it, then put ', A' or ', The' at the end of
the of the substring e.g.
Enforcer, The
Gauntlet, The
Searching is case insensitive.
search menu[2] Fun and Games page[3] COMMA home page[4]
FIND <keywords>, 1-5, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more,
or Help: three musketeers
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You find that there have been six film versions of the story:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Movie Info
Here are the results from the search for "three musketeers"
Three Musketeers, The (1921)[1]
Three Musketeers, The (1933)[2]
Three Musketeers, The (1935)[3]
Three Musketeers, The (1939)[4]
Three Musketeers, The (1948)[5]
Three Musketeers, The (1974)[6]
search menu[7] Fun and Games page[8] COMMA home page[9]
Rob.H[10]
[email protected]
FIND <keywords>, 1-10, Back, Up, Quit, or Help: 1
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You decide to look for more information on the 1921 version:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Movie Info
Here are the results from the search for "Three Musketeers, The (1921)"
THREE MUSKETEERS, THE (1921)
1921
Cast Belcher, Charles[1] ......Bernajoux
De Brulier, Nigel[2] ......Cardinal Richelieu
De La Motte, Marguerite[3] ......Constance Bonacieux
Fairbanks, Douglas[4] ......D'Artagnan
Irwin, Boyd[5] ......Comte de Rochefort
MacLaren, Mary[6] ......Queen Anne of Austria
Menjou, Adolphe[7] ......Louis XIII
Pallette, Eugene[8] ......Aramis
Poff, Lon[9] ......Father Joseph
Siegmann, George[10] ......Porthos
Stevens, Charles[11] ......Planchet
Directed by Niblo, Fred[12]
Music by Gottschalk, Louis F.[13]
1-21, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help: 7
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You're hooked! You decide to look for more information on Adolphe
Menjou, search more titles, find Oscar winners, etc.
Learning more about World-Wide Web
World-Wide Web is being developed at CERN (European Particle
Physics Laboratory) by the World-Wide Web team leaded by Tim
Berners-Lee. Bug reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should be
mailed to:
[email protected]
On-line documentation is available from info.cern.ch, for anony-
info.cern.ch
mous FTP or using the remote WWW client.
Mailing lists:
[email protected]
To subscribe send a mail to
[email protected]
Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.www
Part 2
SEARCHING DATABASES
WAIS
What is WAIS
WAIS, Wide Area Information Server, is a distributed information
retrieval system. It helps users search databases over networks
using an easy-to-use interface. The databases (called sources)
are mostly collections of text-based documents, but they may also
contain sound, pictures or video as well. Databases on topics
ranging from Agriculture to Social Science can be searched with
WAIS.
The databases may be organized in different ways, using various
database systems, but the user isn't required to learn the query
languages of the different databases. WAIS uses natural language
queries to find relevant documents. The result of the query is a
set of documents which contain the words of the query: no seman-
tic information is extracted from the query.
Who can use WAIS
WAIS uses the client-server model to provide access to databases.
You must be on the international TCP/IP network (the Internet) in
order to use a client on your computer to access WAIS.
If you have e-mail access only, or if you are not on the Internet
you can still exploit some of the potential of WAIS. An e-mail
interface is available at the address:
[email protected]
which gives e-mail access to WAIS databases (see E-mail access
section under Using WAIS below).
How to get to WAIS
There are many WAIS servers throughout the network. A directory-
of-servers database is available at several sites. You can
address a query to it, eg, to find out what databases are avail-
able on a particular subject. This database is also available via
anonymous FTP from Think.com in the directory /wais as file wais-
sources.tar.Z.
If you do not have access to a WAIS client, (at least) two demon-
stration sites are available to allow you to get acquainted with
WAIS. You can telnet to:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| quake.think.com (login: wais) |
| sunsite.unc.edu (login: swais) |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
The two demonstration sites above run swais (Screen WAIS), a sim-
ple WAIS client for Unix.
Using WAIS
There are many freely available client software programs for var-
ious operating systems (Unix, VMS, MVS, MS-DOS, OS/2 and Macin-
tosh) and for specific environments (GNU Emacs, X-Windows, Open-
look, Sunview, NeXT, and MS-Windows). See the list of freely
available client software in Appendix A.
The client interface differs slightly on different platforms.
However, the queries are performed in the same way, whatever the
interface.
* Step 1: The user selects a set of databases to be searched
from among the available databases.
* Step 2: The user formulates a query by giving keywords to be
searched for.
* Step 3: When the query is run, WAIS asks for information from
each selected database.
* Step 4: Headlines of documents satisfying the query are dis-
played. The selected documents contain the requested words
and phrases. Selected documents are ranked according to the
number of matches.
* Step 5: To retrieve a document, the user simply selects it
from the resulting list.
* Step 6: If the response is incomplete, the user can state the
question differently or feed back to the system any one or
more of the selected documents he finds relevant.
* Step 7: When the search is run again, the results will be
updated to include documents which are similar to the ones
selected, meaning documents which share a large number of
common words.
E-mail access:
You can query WAIS databases and retrieve documents by sending
commands in the body part of an e-mail message to wais-
wais
[email protected]. The Subject: line is ignored. The impor-
tant commands are (a vertical bar (|) indicates a choice of
parameters):
help to get the help file
maxres number
to set the maximum number of results to be returned.
search source-name | "source-name1 source-name2 ..." keywords
where:
source-name
is a source name as found in the
directory-of-servers (with or without the
.src ending). Use double-quotes (") to
group several sources to be searched.
keywords are the words you would normally type into
a query.
You may specify several search requests in a mail
message. If you don't know what sources you can
search, just try anything. If the source name is not
recognised, you'll get a list of sources.
retrieve docid
to retrieve a document from a database. docid is a
DocID as returned by a search above. You may put
more than one retrieval request in a mail message,
but you must leave a blank line between requests.
The docid must be written exactly as returned by a
search request, including any spaces. You can
retrieve non-text documents as well as text. If the
document is of type TEXT or WSRC you will get the
result directly. Other types will be UUENCODED.
DocID: docid same as retrieve. This form is identical to the form
which is returned by a search request. It makes it
easy to use the reply mail function to retrieve
results.
Examples
When you log in to the demonstration site at quake.think.com, you
have immediate access to the directory-of-servers database via
the swais client software. To find recipes using papaya, you
would select the recipes database and give papaya as the keyword.
Here are the results of the search:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
# Score Source Title Lines
001: 1000 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Dawn's Muffins, Pt III 339
002: 1000 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Muffins 3 632
003: 1000 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Pineapple 678
004: 750 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Pork and Papaya Salad 33
005: 750 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Bread 681
006: 500 (recipes) roder@cco. Re: NONFAT BAKERY COLLECTION 423
007: 500 (recipes) shiva@hoss Re: Juice Recipes 65
008: 250 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Prawn Salad 49
009: 250 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: COLLECTION: Lots of Avoca 447
010: 250 (recipes) mecca@acsu Re: REQUEST: blender-made fru 29
011: 250 (recipes) Ann.Adamci Re: Re: REQUEST: blender-made 38
012: 250 (recipes) patth@Pani Re: Re: REQUEST: blender-made 49
013: 250 (recipes) arielle@ta Re: Avocados 459
014: 250 (recipes) red_trek@d Re: VEGAN: red beans and rice 78
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You can then select any of the above documents for viewing, for
example, the Pork and Papaya Salad recipe:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes
From:
[email protected] (Stephanie da Silva)
Subject: Pork and Papaya Salad
Message-ID: <
[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 06:51:47 GMT
Lines: 23
1/4 cup dried currants
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup walnut oil
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pound cooked boneless pork loin roast
1 head Belgian endive
Bibb lettuce leaves
2 papayas, seeded, peeled and sliced lengthwise
2 avocados, seeded, peeled and sliced lengthwise
1/4 cup broken walnut pieces
In a small bowl pour enough boiling water over currants to cover.
Let stand 5 minutes; drain. For dressing, in a screw-top jar
combine vinegar, oil, chicken broth, honey, and cinnamon. Cover;
shake well. Trim fat from pork; slice thinly. Separate leaves of
Belgian endive. Line 6 salad plates with lettuce leaves. Arrange
pork, endive, papaya, and avocado on plates. Sprinkle with
currants and walnuts. Drizzle dressing over salads.
Stephanie da Silva
[email protected]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
If you give more than one keyword, then all documents containing
any of the keywords will be listed.
Learning more about WAIS
A bibliography of documents, services and sources for WAIS is
maintained by Barbara Lincoln Brooks of WAIS Inc. The
bibliography is available from ftp.wais.com in the directory
/pub/wais-inc-doc along with many other WAIS documents.
There are currently four main FTP sites for WAIS documentation
and software:
* ftp.cnidr.org
* ftp.wais.com
* quake.think.com
* sunsite.unc.edu
For information on free WAIS software contact
[email protected]
Mailing list:
[email protected]
To subscribe send a mail to
[email protected]
Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.wais
WAIS was developed at Thinking Machines Corporation.
Part 3
FINDING NETWORK RESOURCES
ARCHIE
What is ARCHIE
Archie is an information system. It offers an electronic directo-
ry service for locating information in the international TCP/IP
network (the Internet).
The best known use of archie is for scanning a database of the
contents of more than 1000 anonymous FTP sites around the world.
Currently, this database contains more than 2,100,000 file names
from anonymous FTP sites. This database is known as the archie
database.
The files made available at anonymous FTP sites are software
packages for various systems (Windows, MS-DOS, Macintosh, Unix,
etc.), utilities, information or documentation files, mailing
list or Usenet group discussion archives. At most FTP sites, the
resources are organized hierarchically in directories and subdi-
rectories. The database tracks both the directory path and the
file names.
The archie database is automatically updated, thereby ensuring
that the information is accurate. Using this database, users can
easily find the the location of files they need without logging
onto several machines.
Who can use ARCHIE
Users on any network can access the archie database by electronic
mail. Other means of access are available to users on the Inter-
net (see the section Using ARCHIE below for details).
You are requested to respect a few basic rules when you request
information from an archie server:
* avoid connecting during working hours; most of the archie
servers are not dedicated machines, they have local functions
as well.
* make your queries as specific as possible; the response will
be quicker and shorter.
* user interfaces installed on your computer contribute to
reduce the load on the server sites, please use them.
* use the archie server closest to you and, in particularly,
don't overload the transatlantic lines.
How to get to ARCHIE
The archie database is maintained in the following locations:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Host Country Host | Country
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| archie.au Australia archie.kr | Korea
| archie.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at Austria archie.sogang.ac.kr| Korea
| archie.univie.ac.at Austria archie.nz | New Zealand
| archie.uqam.ca Canada archie.rediris.es | Spain
| archie.funet.fi Finland archie.luth.se | Sweden
| archie.th-darmstadt.de Germany archie.switch.ch | Switzerland
| archie.doc.ic.ac.uk Great-Britain archie.ncu.edu.tw | Taiwan
| archie.ac.il Israel archie.ans.net | USA
| archie.unipi.it Italy archie.internic.net| USA
| archie.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp Japan archie.rutgers.edu | USA
| archie.wide.ad.jp Japan archie.sura.net | USA
| archie.unl.edu USA |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
There are three ways to access the archie database: via a local
client, interactive Telnet session or electronic mail. Each type
of access is described below in the Using ARCHIE section.
Using ARCHIE
The format of the parameters is given at the end of this section.
Angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter; a vertical
bar (|) indicates a choice of parameters.
Note: A new version of the archie server (3.0) is now avail-
able. Some of the commands for interactive access and the e-mail
interface are slightly different from previous versions of the
server (2.11 and before). Command formats marked with a (+) are
valid in version 3.0 only, those marked with a (*) are acceptable
only in previous versions. To find out which version is installed
at the server you wish to use, issue the version command.
Using a local client:
Usage of these clients is encouraged since they provide quick and
easy non-interactive access to the archie servers, and thus, bet-
ter performance of the servers and better response time for the
user.
Public domain clients for accessing archie servers are available
for: Macintosh, MS-DOS, OS/2, VMS, NeXT, Unix and X-Windows.
The clients are available for anonymous FTP from the archie sites
in the directories /pub/archie/clients or /archie/clients. All
these platforms support a simple command line client. In
addition, a graphical interface (called xarchie) is available for
X-Windows.
Archie client command and parameters
When using a graphical interface, you access the archie functions
by pressing mousse buttons. The results are displayed with selec-
table fields for further explorations.
The basic archie client is a command with parameters that you
enter on your local machine. With most versions of the archie
client, if you type archie with no parameters, you will get a
list of the possible parameters and a short description of each.
The format of the command is:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| archie <-options> string | pattern |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where the options are:
o specifies an output file name to store the results (not
available with all clients).
l lists the result one match per line. This form is suit-
able for parsing by programs.
t sorts the result inverted by date
m# specifies maximum number of matches to return (# within
the range 0 to 1000). The default value is 95.
h archie-server
specifies an archie server to send the query to; if
this parameter is not given, then the query will be
sent to the default archie server, if one is defined.
L lists known servers and current default server.
The following group of options determines the kind of search per-
formed on the database. They are mutually exclusive.
s a match occurs if the file/directory name contains
string. The search is case insensitive.
c as above, but the search is case sensitive.
e string must EXACTLY match (including case) the file/
directory name in the database. This is the
DEFAULT search method.
r searches the database using pattern. It contains spe-
cial characters which must be interpreted before per-
forming the search.
There may be some slight differences in the options available
with different clients on different platforms.
The result is a list of FTP site addresses with files or directo-
ries matching the argument, the size of the file, its last modi-
fication date and its directory. By default, the list is sorted
by host address. See the Examples section below for an example of
archie output.
Using Telnet:
To access an archie server interactively, telnet to one of the
existing servers (see the list of servers in the section How to
How to
get to ARCHIE above). At the login: prompt enter archie, the
login procedure ends leaving the user at a archie> prompt. The
server is ready for user requests. The following commands are
available:
exit, quit, bye
exits archie.
help <command-name>
invokes the on-line help. If issued with command-
name, the help request is restricted to the speci-
fied topic. Pressing the RETURN key exits from
the on-line help.
list <pattern>
provides a list of the sites in the database and
the time at which they were last updated. The
optional parameter limits the list to sites match-
ing pattern. The result is a list of site names,
sites IP address and date of the last update in
the database. The command list with no pattern
will list all sites in the database (more than
1000 sites!). Eg,
list \.de$
will list all German sites
site(*) site-name
lists the directories and, recursively, the subdi-
rectories, of site-name in the database. The
result may be very long.
whatis string searches the database of software package descrip-
tions for string. The search is case-insensitive.
prog string | pattern
find(+) string | pattern
searches the database for string or pattern which
represents the name of the resource to be found in
the database. Searches may be performed in a num-
ber of different ways specified in the variable
search (set command) which also decides the inter-
pretation of the parameter as string or pattern.
The result is a list of FTP site addresses with
matching entries, the size of the resource, its
last modification date and the directory to find
it. The number of hits is limited by the maxhits
variable (set command). The result of prog can be
sorted in different ways, depending on the value
of the sortby variable (set command). By default,
the variables search, maxhits and sortby are set
to, respectively, exact match search on string,
1000 hits and unsorted resulting list. Typing the
keyboard interrupt character during a search will
abort it. The results up to that time are dis-
played. See the Examples section below for an
example of the prog command and its results.
mail <email> <,email2...>
sends the result of the last command in a mail
message to the specified e-mail address(es). If
issued with no argument, the result is sent to the
address specified in the variable mailto (set com-
mand).
show <variable>
displays the value of the given variable name. If
issued with no argument, it displays all vari-
ables. See the set command below for the possible
variables.
set variable value
sets one of the archie's variables. Values of
these variables affect how archie interacts with
the user.
Variables and values are:
compress(+) compress-method
specifies the compression method (none or com-
press) to be used before mailing a result with the
mail command. The default is none.
encode(+) encode-method
specifies the encoding method (none or uuencode)
to be used before mailing a result with the mail
command. This variable is ignored if compress is
not set. The default is none.
mailto email <,email2 ...>
specifies the e-mail address(es) to mail the
result of the last command when mail is issued
with no arguments.
maxhits number
specifies the maximum number of matches prog will
generate (within the range 0 to 1000). The default
value is 1000.
search search-value
determines the kind of search performed on the
database by the command: prog string | pattern.
search-values are:
sub a partial and case insensitive search is
performed with string on the database, eg:
"is" will match "islington" and "this"
and "poison"
subcase
as above but the search is case sensitive,
eg:
"TeX" will match "LaTeX" but not
"Latex"
exact the parameter of prog (string) must EXACTLY
match (including case) the string in the
database. The fastest search method of all,
and the default.
regex pattern is interpreted before performing a
search on the database.
sortby sort-value
describes how to sort the result of prog.
sort-values are:
hostname on the FTP site address in lexical
order.
time by the modification date, most
recent first.
size by the size of the found files or
directories, largest first.
filename on file or directory name in lexi-
cal order.
none unsorted (default)
The reverse sorting orders from those
described here are obtained by prepending r
to the sortby value given. (eg, reverse
hostname order hostname is rhostname).
term terminal-type <number-of-rows <number-of-
columns>>
tells the archie server what type of termi-
nal you are using, and optionally its size
in rows and columns, eg:
set term xterm 24 100
Using electronic mail:
Users limited to electronic mail connectivity can access the
archie servers by sending mail to the domain address of one of
the servers listed in the section How to get to ARCHIE (eg,
[email protected]). The commands are sent in the body part of
the mail.
The electronic mail interface to an archie server recognizes a
subset of the commands described in Using Telnet. Most useful
commands and particularities to the e-mail interface are
described below. If an empty message, or a message containing no
valid requests is received, it will be considered to be a help
request.
Command lines begin in the first column. All lines that do not
match a valid command are ignored. The Subject: line is processed
as if it were part of the message body.
help sends you the help file. The help command is exclusive,
ie, other commands in the same message are ignored.
path return-address
set mailto(+) return-address
specifies a return e-mail address different from that
which is extracted from the message header. If you do
not receive a reply from the archie server within sev-
eral hours, you might need to add a path command to
your message request.
list pattern <pattern2 ...>
provides a list of the sites in the database that match
pattern and the time at which they were last updated.
The result is a list with site names, sites IP address
and date of the last update in the database.
site(*) site-name
lists the directories and, recursively, the subdirecto-
ries, of site-name in the database.
whatis string <string2 ...>
searches the database of software packages descriptions
for each string. The search is case insensitive.
prog pattern <pattern2 ...>
find(+) pattern <pattern2>
searches the database for each interpretation of pat-
tern which represents the name of a resource to be
found in the database. If multiple patterns are placed
on one line, in that case, the results will be mailed
back in one message. If multiple prog lines appear,
then multiple messages will be returned, one for each
prog line. Results are sorted by FTP site address in
prog
lexical order. If pattern contains spaces, it must be
quoted with single (') or double (") quotes. The search
is case insensitive.
compress(*)
causes the result of the current request to be com-
pressed and uuencoded. When you receive the reply, you
should run it through uudecode. This will produce a .Z
file. You can then run uncompress on this file and get
the result of your request
set compress(+) compress-method
specifies the compression method (none or compress) to
be used before mailing the result of the current
request. The default is none.
set encode(+) encode-method
specifies the encoding method (none or uuencode) to be
used before mailing the result of the current request.
This variable is ignored if compress is not set. The
default is none.
Note: set compress compress and set encode uuencode
would produce the same result as the former compress
command.
quit nothing past this point is interpreted. Useful when a
signature is automatically appended at the end of your
mail messages.
Description of pattern
A pattern describes a character string including characters which
take a special meaning. The special meaning is lost when "\" is
put before the character. The special characters are:
. (period) this is the wildcard character that
replaces any other character, eg, "...." will match any
4 character string.
<circ> (caret) if "<circ>" appears at the beginning of the
pattern, then the searched string must start with the
substring following the "<circ>". If it occurs anywhere
else in the pattern it is regarded as non-special, eg:
"<circ>efghi" will match "efghi" or "efghijlk" but
not "abcefghi"
$ (dollar) if "$" appears at the end of the pattern, then
the searched string must end with the substring preced-
ing the "$". If occurring anywhere else in the pattern,
it is regarded as non-special, eg:
"efghi$" will match "efghi" or "abcdefghi" but not
"efghijkl"
Examples
If you are using an archie client, and enter the command:
archie -s eudora
or if you send, by e-mail or during a Telnet session, the com-
mand:
prog eudora
or
find eudora
then archie will send you the following results:
Host ftp.ascii.co.jp (133.152.1.1)
Last updated 03:38 8 Aug 1993
Location: /pub/MAC
DIRECTORY drwxrwxr-x 2048 bytes 00:00 6 May 1992 eudora
Host ftp.ascii.co.jp (133.152.1.1)
Last updated 03:38 8 Aug 1993
Location: /pub/MAC/eudora
FILE -r--r--r-- 281139 bytes 00:00 21 Oct 1991 eudo-
ra1.2.2.sit.hqx
Host ftp.ci.ua.pt (192.80.21.201)
Last updated 04:53 9 Aug 1993
Location: /pub/NetNews/comp.binaries.mac
FILE -rw-r--r-- 438 bytes 12:04 10 Jul 1993 Eudora1.3.readme
Host ftp.ci.ua.pt (192.80.21.201)
Last updated 04:53 9 Aug 1993
Location: /pub/NetNews/comp.binaries.mac
FILE -rw-r--r-- 278912 bytes 12:04 10 Jul 1993 Eudo-
ra1.3.sit.bin
etc.
If you send the command list \.de$ by e-mail or in a Telnet ses-
sion, then you will get the following results:
alice.fmi.uni-passau.de 132.231.1.180 12:31 8 Aug 1993
askhp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de 129.13.200.33 12:25 8 Aug 1993
athene.uni-paderborn.de 131.234.2.32 15:21 6 Aug 1993
bseis.eis.cs.tu-bs.de 134.169.33.1 00:18 31 Jul 1993
clio.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de 134.99.128.3 12:10 8 Aug 1993
cns.wtza-berlin.de 141.16.244.4 16:08 31 Jul 1993
etc.
If you send the command whatis compression by e-mail or in a Tel-
net session, then you will get the following results:
RFC 468 Braden, R.T. FTP data compression 1973 March 8; 5p.
arc PC compression program
deltac Image compression using delta modulation
spl Splay tree compression routines
squeeze A file compression program
uncrunch Uncompression program
unsqueeze Uncompression programs
Learning more about ARCHIE
However you communicate with the archie server, on-line help is
available.
If you have any questions about archie, write to the Archie
Group, Bunyip Information Systems Inc. at
[email protected].
Bug reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to
[email protected]. In addition, the database administrator
at a particular archie server can be contacted at
[email protected], eg:
[email protected].
Mailing list:
[email protected]
To subscribe send a mail to:
[email protected]
Archie was developed by Alan Emtage, Peter Deutsch, and Bill Hee-
lan from the McGill University Computing Center, Canada. Now
archie is supported by Bunyip Information System Inc., Canada.
Part 4
FINDING PEOPLE AND COMPUTERS
WHOIS
What is WHOIS
WHOIS provides directory service to network users. This service
is a way of finding e-mail addresses, postal addresses and tele-
phone numbers. It may also deliver information about networks,
networking organizations, domains and sites.
The main database of networking-related names (organizations,
sites, networks, people, etc.) is maintained by the Internet Reg-
istration Service (InterNIC). Actually, the names of the adminis-
trative and technical contacts for registered domains are auto-
matically entered into the database when domain or IP number
applications are processed by the Internet coordination authori-
ty. Each entry of the database has a handle (a unique identifi-
er), a name, a record type, and various other fields depending on
the type of record. This database will be used as an example in
the descriptions below.
Before April 1, 1993, the Network Information Center (NIC) of the
Defense Data Network (DDN) was the Internet coordination authori-
ty and, therefore, maintained the database (known as the NIC
database). The NIC database is now restricted to information
about the .mil domain. Many documents still refer to these names.
Many academic sites maintain their own database to offer informa-
tion about their staff members and students.
In its current implementation, WHOIS has some limitations which
prevent it from becoming an efficient directory service for a
large volume of information and numerous requests: the various
WHOIS servers have no knowledge of each other, a database is
maintained at each server site, and, finally, new functionalities
have been implemented locally at various sites and not propagat-
ed. A new extended protocol, WHOIS++, is being specified to
improve the current service. WHOIS++ will include local enhance-
ments to the WHOIS service, an improved query syntax and its
architecture will allow a real distributed directory service for
the entire Internet.
This new protocol for directory services will be made available
shortly.
Who can use WHOIS
WHOIS is available to users on the international TCP/IP network
(the Internet).
A WHOIS server is accessible across the network from a user pro-
gram running on local machines or via an interactive Telnet ses-
sion to the site which hosts the server.
In addition, the InterNIC offers an electronic mail interface to
the database it maintains, allowing users not on the Internet or
users with electronic mail only to access this information. This
type of access is described below in the Using WHOIS section.
In general, WHOIS servers should only be used for isolated quer-
ies about specific information. Typically, it is not acceptable
to make an extended series of queries to obtain large sections of
the directory. Such a strategy is unfair both because of exces-
sive consumption of server resources, and because the directory
information belongs to individuals. In particular, extracting
lists of people for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.
How to get to WHOIS
There are many WHOIS servers throughout the network and a com-
prehensive list would be too long to be included here. A
WHOIS server offers information about the organization to which
it belongs: it doesn't share a common directory with other
WHOIS servers and doesn't know either where to find information
about other institutions.
Using WHOIS
WHOIS has become the familiar name of the user program for
accessing a WHOIS database, although NICNAME is the original
name.
In the following, angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional param-
eter.
Using a local client:
Unix computers have a native whois command. On non-Unix machines,
ask your system administrator whether your computer has it or
not. This command searches the database on the specified site for
entry which contains identifier. The format is:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| whois <-h site-name> identifier |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
site-name is the domain address of the site which hosts the data-
base you want to query (eg, whois.internic.net). On
some installations, the default value is still set to
the old NIC database site (nic.ddn.mil).
identifier
is a name (person, host, domain or network), an IP num-
ber or a handle.
Special characters may be used in identifier to specify the
search:
. before identifier will cause a name-only search.
! before identifier will cause a handle-only search.
... or . after identifier will cause a partial search: every-
thing starting with identifier will match.
@ in identifier will cause a search on the e-mail
addresses.
* before identifier will return the entire membership
list of the entry that matches identifier (eg, a site
and its registered users).
% before identifier will return only the membership list
of the entry that matches identifier (eg, the regis-
tered users of a site).
The special characters may be used together.
The results are displayed in one of 2 ways:
* a full detailed display for a single match,
* a list of summary lines for multiple matches.
In both cases, the handle is shown in parentheses after the name.
Using Telnet:
To access the InterNIC database interactively, telnet to the
InterNIC site (whois.internic.net). No login is required.
Other WHOIS databases may have a Telnet access and offer most of
the functions below (eg, whois.ripe.net which hosts the WHOIS
database of the European IP Networks).
In the following, CAPITAL letters indicate acceptable abbrevia-
tion; angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter.
WHOIS invokes the information retrieval program.
? displays a short on-line help.
?
HElp accesses the full on-line help.
Q, QUIT, RETURN key
exits WHOIS
<keyword> identifier
searches the database for an entry which contains
identifier. The default action is to do a broad
search, looking for matches in many fields: handle,
name, nicknames, hostname, IP number, etc, and find-
ing all record types. keyword may be used to narrow
the search to a specific record type.
keyword may be one of:
PErson limits the search to persons.
DOmain limits the search to domains (eg, DO EARN.NET).
HOst limits the search to hosts (eg, HO PRINCETON).
NEtwork limits the search to networks (eg, NE EBONE).
Organization limits the search to organizations (eg, O CREN).
NAme same as leading '.' in identifier.
HAndle same as '!' in identifier.
PArtial same as trailing '.' in identifier.
Mailbox same as '@' in identifier.
EXPand same as '*' in identifier.
SUBdisplay same as '%' in identifier.
Full or '=' shows detailed display for each match.
SUMmary or '$'
shows summary always, even if just one match.
Special characters may be used in identifier to specify the
search:
. before identifier will cause a name-only search.
! before identifier will cause a handle-only search.
... or . after identifier will cause a partial search:
everything starting with identifier will match.
@ in identifier will cause a search on the e-mail
addresses.
* before identifier will return the entire membership
list of the entry that match identifier (eg, a site
and its registered users).
% before identifier will return only the membership
list of the entry that matches identifier (eg, the
registered users of a site).
~ before identifier will return the entry that matches
identifier only, no membership list.
The special characters may be used together. Except if Full or
SUMmary are specified, the results are displayed in one of 2
ways:
* a full detailed display for a single match,
* a list of summary lines for multiple matches.
In all cases, the handle is shown in parenthesis after the name.
Using electronic mail:
Users limited to electronic mail connectivity can send requests
to the database maintained at the InterNIC by sending mail to
[email protected]. The commands are sent in the Subject:
field. The body part of the mail is ignored except if the Sub-
ject: line is empty. In that case, only the first line is
interpreted.
This electronic mail interface recognizes all commands described
in Using Telnet. Requests should be prefixed with the word WHOIS.
Requests are processed automatically once a day.
Examples
If you are using a local client, and enter the command:
whois \!EARN... (remark: "\" is an escape character)
or if you send by e-mail the command:
whois !EARN...
then you will get the following results:
EARN (EARN-HST) SEINE.EARN.NET 193.52.216.1
European Academic Research Network (EARN-DOM) EARN.NET
To obtain detailed information on the second item, enter or send
the command:
whois EARN-DOM
then you will get the following result:
European Academic Research Network (EARN-DOM)
EARN Office
CIRCE BP 167
91403 ORSAY CEDEX, France
Domain Name: EARN.NET
Administrative Contact:
Bovio, Daniele (DB355)
[email protected]
+33 1 6982 3973
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Grange, Nadine (NG4)
[email protected]
+33 1 69823973 (FAX) +33 1 69285273
Record last updated on 19-Aug-93.
Domain servers in listed order:
SEINE.EARN.NET 193.52.216.1
LUMIERE.CIRCE.FR 130.84.8.14
For a partial search, enter:
whois hi@f...
then you will get the following result:
Bovio, Daniele (DB355)
[email protected]
EARN
EARN Office
CIRCE BP 167
91403 ORSAY CEDEX, France
+33 1 6982 3973
Record last updated on 23-Oct-92.
Learning more about WHOIS
The WHOIS service is documented in an Internet Request For Com-
ments (RFC 1400).
If you have any questions about WHOIS write to
[email protected].
Bug reports, comments, suggestions, etc. should be mailed to
[email protected].
X.500
What is X.500
X.500 is an OSI (Open System Information) based directory servi-
ces protocol designed by the CCITT (International Telegraph and
Telephone Consultative Committee).
X.500 provides distributed directory services to network users.
The X.500 directory specifies a model for connecting directory
services to form one distributed global directory. Each directory
service holds a part of the global database and the directory
information is made available via a server (called a Directory
System Agent - DSA). The database is maintained locally. From the
user point of view, the entire directory is accessible from the
local server.
While most of the information available today via X.500 is about
people and organizations, the design of the X.500 directory is
also suitable for storing information about other entities (or
objects), such as network resources, applications or hardware.
Several projects are underway which utilise these directory capa-
bilities (eg, the Internet RFCs (Request For Comments) are listed
in the global directory).
Each item (entry) in the X.500 directory describes one object
(eg, a person, a network resource, an organization) and has a
Distinguished Name - DN (a unique identifier). It consists of a
collection of attributes (eg, last name, organization name,
e-mail,...- for a person). The information held in the X.500
directory (or Directory Information Base - DIB) is arranged hier-
archically. This organization is called the Directory Information
Tree (DIT). At the top-level is the root entry (the World), then
the country level, then the organization level, and, eventually,
the people, the resources, etc., at the bottom-level of the hier-
archy.
Who can use X.500
Although X.500 is part of the OSI standard definition, OSI access
is not necessary to use the directory services. Many X.500 servi-
ces are available on the Internet. In addition, users on any net-
work can access the X.500 directory by electronic mail. See the
section Using X.500 below for details.
How to get to X.500
There are three ways to access the X.500 services: via a local
client, interactive session (Telnet or X.25 access) or electronic
mail. Each type of access is described below in the Using X.500
section.
In addition, other network tools (eg, WWW and Gopher) provide
access to X.500 directory services through gateways.
Accessing a remote client is an easy way to start querying the
X.500 directory. Some sites allow public access via Telnet or
X.25 to a client. Public access user interfaces are available at:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Telnet (login) Public X.25 (login) Country |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| jethro.ucc.su.oz.au (fred) Australia |
| elem4.vub.ac.be (dua) 222100611 Belgium |
| login.dkuug.dk (ds) Denmark |
| nic.funet.fi (dua) Finland |
| 20800603053201 France |
| (login: dua, password: ucom.x) France |
| 26245050230303 Germany |
| ashe.cs.tcd.ie (de) Ireland |
| jolly.nis.garr.it (de or fred) 22225010083212 Italy |
| zoek.nic.surfnet.nl (zoek) Netherlands|
| elc1.mat.torun.edu.pl (de or dish) Poland |
| chico.rediris.es (directorio) 2142160234013 Spain |
| hypatia.umdc.umu.se (de) 240374810306 Sweden |
| nic.switch.ch (dua) 22847971014540 Switzerland|
| paradise.ulcc.ac.uk (dua) 23421920014853 Paradise |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Paradise is a European project to encourage the use of X.500 in
European countries.
To connect to one of these sites, select an access method (Telnet
or X.25) and at the login: prompt type the specified login, if
required.
Using X.500
X.500 supports data management functions (addition, modification
and deletion of entries) and powerful lookup capabilities. The
use of X.500 is primarily for its lookup capabilities, ie, query-
ing a database for information on a person (postal address, tele-
phone number, e-mail address, etc.). The basic fields for search-
ing are the person's name, the name of the person's organization
(and department within the organization) and the country.
In the following, angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional param-
eter; a vertical (|) indicates a choice of parameters.
Using a local client:
In the X.500 world, a local client is called a Directory User
Agent (DUA) Public domain and commercial DUAs are available for
numerous platforms ranging from mainframes to personal computers.
For a comprehensive list of DUAs, their description and where to
find them, consult the Internet document RFC 1292 - A Catalog of
Available X.500 Implementations.
Available DUAs range from simple line commands to sophisticated
graphical user interfaces which require a pointing device.
Using Telnet or X.25:
3 categories of user interfaces might be available at the remote
site:
* line-oriented: de, dish, fred
* menu-driven: sd (formerly known as widget)
* X-Windows-based: Xdi, Xlookup (or xlu), pod
Capabilities of these DUAs range from basic search facilities to
full X.500 functionality.
de (directory enquiries) is recommended for novice users since it
is a very simple user-interface. It has been designed to run as a
public access DUA and is accessible from any kind of terminal. It
supports the basic X.500 functions: read, search, list. The Sim-
ple query mode is suitable for those who are new to querying the
X.500 directory.
de invokes the X.500 interrogation user-interface.
q exits de.
?<topic> displays the on-line help on the specified topic or
general help.
<circ>C (Ctrl-C) is the interrupt character. It aborts a search
in progress or resets the current query specification.
* (asterisk) will list all entries of the specified
field. It is also the wildcard character and can
replace any other character in a name. It can appears
anywhere in the name, eg: smit* or *smit* are valid
string formats.
- resets the default value to a blank string.
When de is invoked, the user is requested to fill in 4 fields to
specify a request. In all fields, the value from the previous
request is the default value. Press the RETURN key to accept it,
or enter a new value. All searches are case insensitive.
The four fields to be filled in are:
Person's name
Wildcard characters may be used anywhere in the name.
All matching names will be listed. Typing only "*" will
match all people of the specified department or organi-
sation. If this field is blank, the search will be on
department or organization only.
Department name
the name (or an acronym) of the department in the
organization where the person works. Wildcard charac-
ters may be used anywhere in the name. Typing only "*"
will match all departments. If no person's name has
been entered, details on the department are displayed,
otherwise, the search is carried out with the selected
name. If no department name is given, all departments
will be searched. This field could be omitted in small
organizations.
Organization name
the name (or an acronym) of the organization where the
person works. Wildcard characters may be used anywhere
in the name. Typing only "*" will match all organiza-
tions. If no person's name or department name has been
entered, details on the organization are displayed,
otherwise, the search is carried out with the selected
name.
Country name
the name of the country where the person works. Typing
"*" will list all countries. The country name could be
the 2-letter country code (eg, DK stands for Denmark),
the name or a part of it without wildcards (eg, nether
instead of The Netherlands).
If a large number of matching entries are found, they are listed
so that the user can select one entry to get further details.
Using electronic mail:
The Norwegian networking organization (UNINETT) offers an e-mail
interface to X.500. To use it, send a mail message to: Directo-
Directo
[email protected] with the word find in the Subject: field. The body
part contains the search request, one per message.
The format of the search request is:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| find <person-name> <: org-name <; country-name>> | |
| <; country-name> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
If org-name and country-name are omitted, the sender's organiza-
tion name and country name are used as default values. The mail
interface guesses these values from the From: field of your mail,
so the results can be surprising if your address ends with .bit-
net!
"*" (asterisk) is the wildcard character and can replace any oth-
er characters in any name. It can appear anywhere in the name.
The result of the query is sent back in a mail message. The
search is case insensitive.
Note: To avoid overloading the directory service, users are
not allowed to search for a person without selecting an organisa-
tion. To receive a help file, send the word help instead of a
find command.
Examples
Using de, you can search for the Anthropoloy department of the
University College of London in United Kingdom, with the follow-
ing request:
Person's name, q to quit, * to browse, ? for help
:-
Department name, * to browse, ? for help
:- a*
Organisation name, * to browse, ? for help
:- ucl
Country name, * to browse, ? for help
:- uk
A few entries match the selected department, all are listed for
further selection:
United Kingdom
University College London
Got the following matches. Please select one from the list
by typing the number corresponding to the entry you want.
United Kingdom
University College London
1 A.U.T. Office
2 American Institute for Foreign Study
3 Anatomy and Developmental Biology
4 Anthropology
5 Audio Visual Centre
Department name, * to browse, ? for help
:- 4
United Kingdom
University College London
Anthropology
Telephone Number +44 71-387-7050 x2455
fax +44 71 380 7728
If you are looking for Erik Lawaetz from UNI-C in Denmark, you
can enter the following request (default values come from a pre-
vious request):
Person's name, q to quit, * to browse, ? for help
:- law*
Department name, * to browse, <CR> to search all depts, ?
for help
:-
Organisation name, * to browse, ? for help
:- uni-c
Country name, * to browse, ? for help
:- dk
One entry matches the selected criteria, details are displayed:
Denmark
UNI-C
Erik Lawaetz
postalAddress UNI-C
DTH
Bygning 305
DK-2800 Lyngby
Telephone Number +45 45 93 83 55
+45 42 88 39 99 x2018
fax +45 45 93 02 20
electronic mail
[email protected]
If you send mail to
[email protected] with the request:
find geir ped* : *oslo ; no
you'll get the following result:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This message is in response to your request to the directory to
find
geir ped* : *oslo ; no
This is interpreted as a request to find a person with a name
matching "geir ped*" in an organisation with name matching
"*oslo" in a country with a name matching "no".
There were 8 organisations with a name matching the
organizational name you specified. Within those organisations
there were 7 persons that had a name matching the personal name
you specified. Directory information for the located persons is
shown below.
Geir Pedersen : Universitetet i Oslo ; Norway
Alternate Geir Kenneth Pedersen
Alternate Geir K. Pedersen
E-Mail (RFC)
[email protected]
E-Mail (X.400) /G=geir/S=pedersen/OU=usit/O=uio/PRMD=uninett/
ADMD= /C=no/
Postal Address Postboks 1059 - Blindern
0316 Oslo 3
NORWAY
Phone +47-22-852478
Phone +47-22-852470 (front-office)
Fax-phone +47-22-852730
Description Project leader for UNINETTs X.500 projects
User ID geirp
Favorite Drink Farris
Street Address Gaustadalleen 23
Home Address Gaustadveien 17A
0372 Oslo 3
NORWAY
See also Geir Pedersen : UNINETT ; Norway
Entry updated Tue Jun 15 11:51:31 1993
-----------------------------------------------------------------
and 6 other entries.
Learning more about X.500
Several Internet RFC documents deal with X.500:
RFC 1292 A Catalog of Available X.500 Implementations.
RFC 1308 Executive Introduction to Directory Services Using the
X.500 Protocol,
RFC 1309 Technical Overview of Directory Services Using the
X.500 Protocol,
The official source of information on X.500 is the X.500 recom-
mendation published by the CCITT (Blue Book, Volume VIII - Fasci-
cle VIII.8, Data Communication Networks Directory, Recommenda-
tions X.500-X.521, CCITT, 1988, ISBN 92-61-03731-3). This
document is also available electronically: send the command GET
ITU-5233 to
[email protected]. This is not intended for the casual
user!
NETFIND
What is NETFIND
NETFIND is an Internet user directory tool. It provides a simple
Internet white pages directory facility.
Given the name of a person on the Internet and a rough descrip-
tion of where the person works, Netfind attempts to locate tele-
phone and electronic mailbox information about the person. It
does so using a seed database of domains and hosts in the net-
work.
Netfind finds information about people through the Internet pro-
tocols SMTP and finger. If the person being sought is at a site
that is not directly connected to the Internet (e.g., the site is
connected only through a mail forwarding gateway), Netfind
informs the user that the person can not be found.
Due to the dynamic nature of Netfind's search procedures and var-
iations in Internet availability, different results can be
obtained for the same search on different occasions.
The Netfind software can only run on Suns running SunOS 4.0 or
more recent.
Who can use NETFIND
You must be on the international TCP/IP network (the Internet) in
order to use Netfind. Moreover, Netfind can only find information
on users who are on the Internet.
There is no e-mail access to Netfind.
How to get to NETFIND
You can access Netfind through software at your site (local
access), or you can use Telnet to access it at one of the follow-
ing hosts (remote access):
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Host Country Host Country
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| archie.au Australia bruno.cs.colorado.edu USA |
| dino.conicit.ve Venezuela ds.internic.ne USA |
| lincoln.technet.sg Singapore macs.ee.mcgill.ca Canada
| malloco.ing.puc.cl Chile monolith.cc.ic.ac.uk England
| mudhoney.micro.umn.edu USA netfind.oc.com USA |
| netfind.vslib.cz Czech Rep. nic.nm.k Korea|
| nic.uakom.sk Slovakia redmont.cis.uab.edu USA |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Using NETFIND
To use Netfind, you give it the name of a person and keywords
indicating where that person works. After you specify a search,
Netfind looks in its seed database to find domains matching the
specified keywords. If there is more than one matching domain,
Netfind displays the list of matching domains, and asks you to
select up to three to search. If the keys you specified match
more than 100 domains, Netfind will list some of the matching
domains/organizations and ask you to form a more specific search.
You can use any of the parts of an organization's name (or any of
the components of its domain name) as keys in searches. Using
more than one key implies the logical AND of the keys. Specifying
too many keys may cause searches to fail.
When it completes the search (or when interrupted by <circ>C),
Netfind summarizes the search results. The summary includes prob-
lems searching remote domains, information about the most promis-
ing email address for the person being sought (if available), and
information about when and where the person most recently/is cur-
rently logged in (if available). If more than one person is
located by a search, the summary does not include information
about email targets and most recent/current logins (since only
the user can decide which person was the correct one.)
Local access:
The format of the Netfind command is:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| netfind <options> name-keyword place-keywords |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where the options are:
-h tells Netfind to skip the domain search phase, and
immediately begin searching individual machines found
in the seed database. This option exists for measure-
ment purposes. It is not of much use to casual users.
-s will disable usage of the SMTP protocol during search-
es. This option is mainly useful for measurement pur-
poses. Without this protocol, searches will begin pro-
ducing finger output slightly sooner, but will often
search less useful machines, generate more Internet
load, and fail to find information for users at sites
that do not support finger (such as many companies).
-t will report how many timeouts occurred. The -T option
will set the timeout interval to the specified number
of seconds. It may be necessary to use this option to
increase the timeout value for intercontinental search-
es.
-D sets the maximum number of domains that Netfind will
search at once. The default is 3. While it may seem
convenient to set a high value for this number, we sug-
gest you do not do this. The search will actually pro-
ceed faster (and waste less Internet bandwidth) if a
small number of well chosen domains are searched.
-H sets the maximum number of machines that will be
searched by Netfind. The default value is 50. Again,
we suggest that you do not set this value higher.
-m displays measurement information. If no filename
is specified, measurements are output to stderr. The
packet count estimates are usually exaggerated, because
they make pessimistic assumptions about the state of
the Domain Naming System.
-d allows you to turn on various classes of debugging out-
put (all of which are output to stderr), using a letter
corresponding to each one. Debugging output is enabled
using the -d option with a list of letters, eg, -dslf.
The following classes/letters exist:
c: display control messages (check if the pro-
gram has reached a specified point)
f: display finger related messages
h: list machine names found in the seed database
l: display lock related messages (when entering
monitors)
m: display messages about mail protocol (SMTP)
n: display messages about network failures
r: display hosts matched from the seed database
that were rejected from searches because of
search scope selection
s: display system call related messages
t: display thread related messages
A: convert the above flags to mean their comple-
ment (example -dAt means produce all debug
output except that for threads).
The letters that are most likely to be of interest to the casual
user are f, m, and n. By default, these options are enabled.
Specifying any of these three flags with -d on the command line
will disable them (hence, the -d option toggles the default
behavior of each of the flags).
The name keyword specifies the person being sought by first,
last, or login name (only one name can be specified).
The place keywords describe where the person works, by either the
name of the institution or the city/state/country. If you know
the institution's domain name (e.g., cs.colorado.edu, where there
are host names like brazil.cs.colorado.edu) you can specify it as
keys without the dots (eg, cs colorado edu). The host parts of
domain names (brazil) cannot be used as keywords. Keys are case
insensitive and may be specified in any order, although using a
very common key (like university) first will cause internal buff-
ers to overflow and some domains to be missed.
Using more than one key implies the logical and of the keys.
Specifying too many keys may cause searches to fail. If this hap-
pens, try specifying fewer keys.
Remote access:
Telnet to one of the remote Netfind sites (see How to get to
NETFIND, above) and log in as netfind. No password is necessary.
You will get the following menu:
Top level choices:
1. Help
2. Search
3. Seed database lookup
4. Options
5. Quit (exit server)
If you select Search, you will be given an opportunity to enter a
name keyword and place keywords.
Examples
To find the address of e-mail address of Nadine Grange, who works
at the EARN office at CIRCE in France, you could try the key-
words:
nadine circe france
Since there are more than three domains that fit the place key-
words, you are asked to pick a few. The search proceeds, using
the domains of your choice:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Please select at most 3 of the following domains to search:
0. circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, orsay ce
1. ciripa.circe.fr (centre inter-regional de calcul electronique, c
2. dnet.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, ors
3. ibmmail.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique,
4. obspm.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, or
5. oecd.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, ors
6. phy.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, orsa
7. ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique, orsa
8. cth.ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique,
9. lure.ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifique,
10. lps.cth.ups.circe.fr (centre national de la recherche scientifi
Enter selection (e.g., 2 0 1) --> 0
( 1) check_name: checking domain circe.fr. Level = 0
Search of domains completed. Proceeding to search of hosts.
( 3) check_name: checking host loire.circe.fr. Level = 0
( 4) check_name: checking host solrt.circe.fr. Level = 0
( 5) check_name: checking host groucho.circe.fr. Level = 0
( 1) check_name: checking host rsovax.circe.fr. Level = 0
( 2) check_name: checking host ventura.circe.fr. Level = 0
( 1) do_connect: Finger service not available on host rsovax.circe. can't
( 1) check_name: checking host earn-ng.circe.fr. Level = 0
( 4) check_name: checking host luregate.circe.fr. Level = 0
SYSTEM: loire.circe.fr
Login name: nadine In real life: Nadine Grange
Directory: /home/nadine Shell: /bin/csh
On since Sep 7 08:48:05 on ttyp0 4 days 21 hours Idle Time
New mail received Sun Sep 12 00:00:08 1993;
unread since Fri Sep 10 11:53:17 1993
No Plan.
Login name: nadine In real life: Nadine Grange
Directory: /home/nadine Shell: /bin/csh
On since Sep 7 09:17:09 on ttyp6 1 day 12 hours Idle Time
SUMMARY:
- "nadine" is currently logged in from
loire.circe.fr, since Sep 7 09:17:09.
- The most promising email address for "nadine"
based on the above search is
[email protected].
----------------------------------------------------------------
Note that Netfind found only an Internet address on a Unix
machine.
Learning more about NETFIND
The remote access version of Netfind has a large Help section.
There is also a set of frequently asked questions available with
the software release, in the Doc directory. These questions cov-
er Functionality, Methodology, Network and Remote Site Load, Pri-
vacy, Future Directions, and Related Work.
A noteworthy article on Netfind is:
Experience with a Semantically Cognizant Internet White Pages
Experience with a Semantically Cognizant Internet White Pages
Directory Tool, by M. F. Schwartz and P. G. Tsirigotis, Journal
of Internetworking Research and Experience, March 1991, pp.
23-50.
This publication discusses the research principles, performance,
and scope measurements of Netfind, and compares it with other
white pages facilities.
There is a mailing list for Netfind users (for software updates
and other discussions). To be added to the list, send an email
message to
[email protected] with the body
(not subject line) subscribe netfind-users
Part 5
GETTING FILES
TRICKLE
What is TRICKLE
TRICKLE is a service which will send you files on request or by
subscription. TRICKLE works with various anonymous FTP sites
(computers in the Internet network that allow public access and
retrieval of software and files). It provides a quick and easy
alternative to FTP, whether or not you have access to the Inter-
net.
There are several TRICKLE servers throughout the world that coop-
erate to distribute the files efficiently. To request files, the
user issues commands to the nearest TRICKLE server, which deliv-
ers the software either from its local cache disk, from the cache
of another TRICKLE server, or from an FTP site that holds the
software.
Who can use TRICKLE
There are currently TRICKLE servers at the following addresses:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Location EARN/BITNET Internet |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Austria TRICKLE@AWIWUW11
[email protected]
| Belgium TRICKLE@BANUFS11
[email protected] |
| Colombia TRICKLE@UNALCOL
[email protected] |
| France TRICKLE@FRMOP11
[email protected] |
| Germany TRICKLE@DEARN
[email protected] |
| Israel TRICKLE@TAUNIVM
[email protected] |
| Italy TRICKLE@IMIPOLI
[email protected]|
| Netherlands TRICKLE@HEARN
[email protected] |
| Poland TRICKLE@PLEARN
[email protected] |
| Sweden TRICKLE@SEARN
[email protected] |
| Turkey TRICKLE@TREARN
[email protected] |
| Turkey TRICKLE@TRMETU
[email protected] |
| UK TRICKLE@UKACRL
[email protected] |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
When you send a command to a TRICKLE server, it either executes
the command or sends you a message with the address of the
TRICKLE server for your area.
The files which are available from TRICKLE are organized in main
directories which contain many subdirectories. The main directo-
ries which are currently available are:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Directory Source FTP Site Contents |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| MSDOS simtel20.army.mil Large MS-DOS software archive
| MISC simtel20.army.mil Software for VM, VMS, Unix
| SIGM simtel20.army.mil SIG/M CP/M archive |
| PC-BLUE simtel20.army.mil PC-BLUE MS-DOS archive |
| CPM simtel20.army.mil CP/M Software Archive |
| ARCHIVES simtel20.army.mil Various discussion group archives
| UNIX-C simtel20.army.mil Unix and C code software archives
| MACINTOS simtel20.army.mil Apple Macintosh software archives
| OS2 0tp-os2.nmsu.ed Large archive of OS/2 software
| AMIGA nic.funet.fi Large Amiga collection |
| KERMIT watsun.cc.columbia.edu Kermit network software |
| TEX rusinfo.rus-uni-stuttgart.de TeX software and fonts
| WUARCHIVE wuarchive.wustl.edu MS-DOS and others |
| EXPO-MIT export.lcs.mit.edu Unix and others |
| UUNET ftp.uu.net Unix and others |
| SUMEX-AIM sumex-aim.stanford.edu Macintosh and others |
| GARFIELD garfield.catt.ncsu.edu Multimedia (pictures and sounds)
| X11 export.lcs.mit.edu X-Windows software distribution
| LINUX nic.funet.fi Linux system software distribution
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Not all directories are available at all servers. If your closest
server does not provide the directory of your choice, you can use
any other TRICKLE for the missing directory. If your closest ser-
ver is temporarily unavailable, you can use any other TRICKLE
instead.
How to get to TRICKLE
You send commands to TRICKLE by electronic mail. The commands
should be in the body of the mail message, one command per line.
Any number of commands (up to your daily command limit) may be
placed in one message. Users on the EARN/Bitnet network may also
send commands to TRICKLE by interactive message.
Using TRICKLE
All commands begin with a slash (/). Note that the angle brackets
(<>) are part of the command, not an indication of an optional
parameter.
Use the /PDDIR command to obtain directory listings.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| /PDDIR |
| |
| /PDDIR <dirname> |
| |
| /PDDIR <dirname.subdirname>pattern |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
dirname is the name of a main directory,
subdirname
is the name of a subdirectory,
pattern is part of a filename.
Use /PDDIR without any parameters to get a listing of the main
directories. With PDDIR <dirname> you will get a listing of the
subdirectories under that directory. If you specify both directo-
ry and subdirectory, it will list the files that are available in
that subdirectory. With pattern, you will get a listing of only
those files that match or begin with that pattern. Wildcards "?"
and "*" may be imbedded into subdirname and pattern ("?" matches
any single character; "*" matches any number of characters).
Use the /PDGET command to get files.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| /PDGET <dirname.subdirname>filename ( delivery-option |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
dirname is the name of a main directory,
subdirname
is the name of a subdirectory,
filename is the name of a file.
delivery-option
specifies the format to which the file(s) should be
translated before being sent to you. The possible val-
ues are:
EBC80 UUE XXE HEX BTOA
The option EBC80 should be used to get text files if
you work on an IBM mainframe system. The other options
are formats for translating binary files so that they
can be sent via electronic mail. You will need a pro-
gram to translate the file back to its original form.
The default for EARN/Bitnet users is to send the file
as-is. The default for others is UUE.
Wildcards "?" and "*" may be imbedded into subdirname and file-
name ("?" matches any single character; "*" matches any number of
characters) to get several files.
The /SUB command is used to subscribe to directories or to indi-
vidual files.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| /SUB <dirname> |
| |
| /SUB <dirname.subdirname>pattern |
| |
| /SUB QUERY |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
dirname is the name of a main directory,
subdirname
is the name of a subdirectory,
pattern is part of a filename.
If you subscribe to a directory, you will get a summary of added
files about once a week, depending on how active the FTP site is.
This listing shows the names, sizes and dates of each file added.
If you subscribe to files, as soon as TRICKLE is informed that a
new version of the file has been stored at its FTP site, a copy
of the file will be sent to you.
Note that since filenames usually reflect the version number of
the file, it is a good idea to omit the number when specifying a
pattern. For example, it is better to send the command:
/SUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>SCANV
rather than
/SUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>SCANV106
since, as new versions of the file are stored, the name might
change to SCANV107, SCANV108, etc.
Wildcards are not allowed with the /SUB command.
The /SUB QUERY command allows you to get a list of the files you
are subscribed to.
The /UNSUB command may be used to cancel a subscription.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| /UNSUB <dirname> |
| |
| /UNSUB <dirname.subdirname>pattern |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
dirname is the name of a main directory,
subdirname
is the name of a subdirectory,
pattern is part of a filename.
The command /UNSUB * may be used to terminate all your directory
and file subscriptions.
Examples
For a listing of the files in the VIRUS subdirectory of SIMTEL20
(the MSDOS directory), send the command:
/PDDIR <MSDOS.VIRUS>
To get the file 00-INDEX.TXT from <MSDOS.VIRUS> in EBCDIC format,
send the command:
/PDGET <MSDOS.VIRUS>00-INDEX.TXT ( EBC80
If you are not sure of the exact name of the file, you can use
wildcards:
/PDGET <MSDOS.VIR*>*INDEX* ( EBC80
To subscribe to automatically get new versions of the SCANV soft-
ware from <MSDOS.VIRUS>, send the command:
/SUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>SCANV
To unsubscribe from all files in the VIRUS subdirectory, send the
command:
/UNSUB <MSDOS.VIRUS>*
Learning more about TRICKLE
The /HELP command may be sent to any TRICKLE server to obtain a
very detailed help file from the server.
A brief guide to TRICKLE is available from the EARN documentation
filelist. Send mail to
[email protected]. In the body of
the message, write:
GET TRICKLE MEMO
BITFTP
What is BITFTP
BITFTP, BITNET FTP Server, allows users of EARN, Bitnet and asso-
ciated networks to access FTP sites on the Internet.
The BITFTP server provides a mail interface between a user on the
EARN/Bitnet network to FTP sites on the Internet. BITFTP handles
this task by passing the commands specified in the mail message
from the user to another server that actually makes the connec-
tion to the FTP sites. When the server finishes the interaction
with the FTP site, or fails due to an error, a transcript of the
result is sent back to the user, as well as the requested
file(s), if any.
The format of the files sent to the user can be defined within
the mail message. BITFTP can deliver files in netdata and uuen-
code formats.
Who can use BITFTP
BITFTP is currently available only to users on EARN, Bitnet and
other regional NJE networks. BITFTP does not support multiple
file request via the mget command nor does it support sending
files to FTP sites (the put command).
How to get to BITFTP
There are BITFTP servers currently running at:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
|
[email protected] Germany |
|
[email protected] USA |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Users on the EARN/Bitnet international network only may use the
US server. Only users from EARN member countries may use the
server in Germany. Servers at other locations are planned.
BITFTP accepts requests via electronic mail, including IBM NOTE
and PROFS-format messages, as well as by NJE file transfer.
Using BITFTP
BITFTP implements a large subset of the FTP commands of the IBM's
TCP/IP for VM, using the same syntax. This software is documented
in the IBM manual TCP/IP for VM User's Guide. In the following,
angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter.
Use the ftp command to specify which host to connect to. This
command must be the first command in your mail file. You can also
specify the file format that you wish BITFTP to use to deliver
files to you.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| ftp hostname <fileformat> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
hostname is either the IP address or the domain name of the host
to connect to,
fileformat
is the format in which BITFTP should deliver files to
you. It can be either netdata or uuencode.
Use the user command to tell the host the username and the
password to be used for the FTP connection. Note that on many
FTP sites, both username and password are case-sensitive.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| user username password |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
username is the user-id to use for the FTP connection,
password is the password for the username you specified. It can
be omitted if you specified anonymous for the userid.
Use the cd command to select a particular directory as current
directory.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| cd directory-name |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
directory-name
is the name of the directory to be selected.
Use the dir command to display a list of the files in the cur-
rent, or specified, directory. The file names, and depending on
the site, the file size, file creation date and other informa-
tion will be listed.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| dir <pattern> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
pattern is a pattern that defines which file names should be
displayed. Many FTP sites are case-sensitive, thus care
must be used with the pattern. The pattern may contain
any number of characters, and the wildcard character
"*" (asterisk) may be used to represent any characters.
The ls command is similar to the dir command, except that with
most FTP sites, it only displays the filenames, without any other
information. The pattern specification is identical to dir.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| ls <pattern> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the get command to obtain a file from the current host.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| get foreignname <localname> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
where:
foreignname
is the filename of the file, as stored at the FTP site.
With many sites, the case of the filename must be
respected.
localname is an optional local filename. If you specify a local-
name, it must be in the form: filename.filetype where
neither part is longer than eight characters.
Use the binary command to set the FTP transfer mode. If this
option is set then no EBCDIC-ASCII translation will take place.
This should be used for non-text files.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| binary |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the quit command to close the connection to the host,
and to terminate the BITFTP session.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| quit |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Examples
To get the file how.to.ftp.guide from the directory
/pub/nic/network.service.guides at the anonymous FTP site
nic.sura.net, and to get a listing of the files in that
directory, you could send the following commands by e-mail to
BITFTP:
ftp nic.sura.net
user anonymous
cd pub/nic/network.service.guides
get how.to.ftp.guide
dir
quit
In response you will receive an e-mail containing the following
lines (some lines have been removed for brevity):
> ftp nic.sura.net
> user anonymous
>> OPEN NIC.SURA.NET
>> USER anonymous
> cd pub/nic/network.service.guides
>> CD pub/nic/network.service.guides
> get how.to.ftp.guide
>>>> "how.to.ftp.guide" sent as "HOWTO FTPGUIDE".
> dir
total 60
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 344 Apr 14 1992 README
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 12759 Oct 30 1992 how.to.email.guide
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 6327 Mar 24 13:28 how.to.ftp.guide
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root 120 2818 Mar 4 1992 how.to.telnet.guide
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mtaranto 120 6136 Oct 30 1992 how.to.use.vi.guide
-rw-r--r-- 1 1086 120 0 Aug 18 21:23 plane.
The above directory listing is typical of the format of Unix FTP
sites. There is information on file permissions and ownership as
well as the size of the file in bytes, the time and date of its
last change, and the file name.
You could request the first two files by once again sending mail
to BITFTP with the following commands:
ftp nic.sura.net
user anonymous
cd pub/nic/network.service.guides
get README
get how.to.email.guide
quit
Learning more about BITFTP
A four-page instruction to the BITFTP service can be obtained by
sending a help command in the body of a mail message to either
BITFTP server.
Additional information on BITFTP may be obtained from EARN
(
[email protected]). More information about TCP/IP and FTP in
general can be obtained from a wide variety of sources, such as
the documents mentioned in the example above.
Part 6
NETWORKED INTEREST GROUPS
LISTSERV (Version 1.7f)
What is LISTSERV
LISTSERV is a distribution list management package. It runs on
IBM VM/CMS systems in the international NJE network (EARN/
Bitnet). It allows groups of computer users with a common inter-
est to communicate among themselves, while making efficient use
of computer and network resources. It makes it easy for even nov-
ice users to discover, join, and participate in these interest
group mailing lists. LISTSERV also provides facilities for log-
ging and archiving of mail traffic, file server functions, and
database searches of archives and files.
There are LISTSERV lists on every subject under the sun, with
names ranging from AARPUB-L (AAR Electronic Publication list) to
Z3950IW (Z39.50 Implementors Workshop). LISTSERV lists are inter-
national and eclectic. You will find lists in every imaginable
field, for every audience, in many different countries and in
many different languages. See the description of the List command
in the section Using LISTSERV section for instructions on getting
an up-to-date list of lists.
Who can use LISTSERV
Anyone who can send electronic mail to an EARN/Bitnet address can
participate in a mailing list and access other LISTSERV facili-
ties, as long as the e-mail format is valid (according to the
RFC822 standard), and has a usable return address. Every day,
people use LISTSERV from HEPnet, Internet, Compuserve, MCIMail
and many other networks throughout the world.
If you don't know how to send electronic mail to EARN/Bitnet, ask
your local support people for help.
How to get to LISTSERV
To use LISTSERV facilities, send electronic mail with your
LISTSERV commands to: LISTSERV@host-id where host-id is the host
computer's NJE address (for example, TAUNIVM.BITNET) or its
Internet domain name (in this case, VM.TAU.AC.IL). There may be
some local variation on the format needed to send mail to Bitnet
or Internet addresses. Check with your local support personnel.
More than one command can be sent to LISTSERV in the same mail
message. Each command must be on a separate line. LISTSERV will
ignore the Subject: line of the mail header, so ensure that your
commands are in the body of the e-mail.
For EARN/Bitnet users, interactive messages are the fastest and
most convenient way to send commands to LISTSERV, but bear in
mind that interactive messages only work when the links between
your computer and LISTSERV are up; if the message fails, you can
always send your command via mail.
To facilitate communications with the LISTSERV servers on the
EARN/Bitnet network, a special LISTSERV computer node has been
defined. This means that any EARN/Bitnet user can address their
commands to the userid LISTSERV at the special node LISTSERV.
All non-EARN/Bitnet users may address their command mail to the
userid LISTSERV at the special node LISTSERV.NET. Note that if
this node is not yet defined on your network, you may also try
LISTSERV%
[email protected]. For example, if you
wanted to join the 3D-L mailing list that discusses 3D computer
graphics but are not sure of the address of the LISTSERV server
hosting this list. You could send a subscription request to
either of the following addresses:
[email protected]
LISTSERV@LISTSERV (on BITNET)
Your subscription request will be automatically forwarded on to
the LISTSERV server hosting the 3D-L mailing list (in this case,
at the computer node ARIZVM1).
You may also utilize the special LISTSERV address to send e-mail
to any LISTSERV mailing list if you are unsure of its address.
For example, if you wanted to send mail to the BITFTP-L mailing
list to request a copy of the BITFTP product, you could do so by
addressing your e-mail to
[email protected]. It will automat-
ically be forwarded to the list's real address (in this case,
[email protected]) when it reaches the LISTSERV node. Once
you know the real address of a list, it should be used for all
future mail sent to that list.
There are more than 250 sites in over 30 countries throughout the
world running LISTSERV as part of the world-wide network. Here
are a few of the LISTSERV sites:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Host Computer Site Country|
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| BITNIC BITNET Network Information Center USA|
| DEARN GMD, Bonn Germany|
| EARNCC EARN Office, Paris France|
| HEARN Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen Netherlands|
| PUCC Princeton University, New Jersey USA|
| SEARN Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan, Stockholm Sweden|
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Using LISTSERV
The commands given here are available for everyone and require no
special LISTSERV command privileges. Only the most common com-
mands are described. For a complete list of non-privileged
LISTSERV commands, retrieve the LISTSERV User Guide in the DOC
FILELIST from
[email protected].
Commands are presented in a particular format: CAPITAL letters
indicate acceptable abbreviation, angle brackets (<>) indicate an
optional parameter, and vertical bar (|) indicates a choice of
parameters. All parameters are fully explained in each command
description.
There is a standard set of command keywords available for use in
some LISTSERV commands. They may be used with any commands where
they appear as optional parameters in the command description.
The important standard keywords are:
PW= password
This keyword is used to specify a password in a com-
mand. If you have registered a personal password on a
LISTSERV server, you will then have to validate certain
commands by using the PW= command keyword in the com-
mand text. This feature is designed to prevent impo-
stors from issuing commands while using your e-mail
address. The use of passwords is strongly recommended
for this reason. See the PW command for details on reg-
PW
istering personal passwords. Once you have registered a
personal password at a LISTSERV server, you will be
obliged to include the PW= command keyword in all com-
mands where it appears as an option.
F= format This keyword controls the file format (or internal file
structure) in which files will be sent to you. If you
are not a member of the EARN/Bitnet network, then
LISTSERV will always use the default file format of
MAIL. Otherwise, the default file format is dependent
upon the information held in the BITEARN NODES file
regarding your computer. The BITEARN NODES file is a
special network definition file used in the EARN/Bitnet
network. Any user may ask for a file format other than
their default by specifying it in the F= command key-
word in the commands where it appears as an option.
Note that this will not permanently change your default
file format, its effect is only for those commands
where it is specified. Following is a list of file for-
mats that are valid for all users:
XXE UUe MIME/text MIME/Appl MAIL
In addition, EARN/Bitnet users may specify:
Netdata Card Disk Punch LPunch VMSdump
Contact your local support personnel for more informa-
tion about the file formats supported on your computer.
Commands for LISTS:
The primary function of LISTSERV is to operate mailing lists
(also referred to as distribution lists). Mailing lists are used
to distribute the e-mail sent to them to a list a recipients.
They provide the means for a group of users to establish an
e-mail forum on any topic or area of common interest. This ser-
vice provides an extremely convenient means for the exchange of
ideas and information between list members since LISTSERV (and
not the mail sender) manages the distribution of e-mail to all of
its final recipients. Users need only to remember one list
address to which they send their mail in order to communicate to
a potentially large number of users. Due to the efficiency with
which LISTSERV distributes e-mail to list members, discussions or
debates with a world-wide audience may be conducted.
The following commands are designed for use with LISTSERV mailing
lists. With them you may do things such as finding the names and
addresses of lists, signing on to or off lists, reviewing lists
or changing your personal options for any mailing list to which
you are subscribed.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| SUBscribe list-name <full-name> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the SUBscribe command to join a mailing list. You can also
use this command to alter the name (but not e-mail address) by
which you are known on a mailing list you have already joined.
The list-name parameter is the name of the list to which you want
to subscribe. For example, the EARN User Group list located at
the node IRLEARN has a list name of EARN-UG. Do not confuse this
with the list's address (EARN-UG@IRLEARN) which should not be
used. The optional full-name parameter allows you to give a name
by which you want to be known on a mailing list. If specified, it
should be your full, real name (at least your first name and last
name) and not your e-mail address. If you send this command to
LISTSERV via command mail, the name for the full-name option will
be taken from the name given in the From: mail header should it
be omitted from the command text. If you send a SUBscribe command
for a list to which you already belong, then LISTSERV will inter-
pret the command as a request to change your full-name on the
list.
A request to join a mailing list can be processed in three ways:
subscription to a list may be OPEN, CLOSED, or BY-OWNER. If it is
OPEN, you will be automatically added to the list and sent noti-
fication. If it is CLOSED, you will not be added to the list, and
LISTSERV will send you a message telling you that your request
has been rejected. If it is BY-OWNER, your subscription request
will be forwarded to the list owner(s), who will decide whether
or not to add you to the list (LISTSERV will inform you to whom
your request has been forwarded). To see what kind of subscrip-
tion a list has, use the REView command.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| UNSubscribe list-name | * <(NETWIDE> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the UNSubscribe command to leave a mailing list. The list-
name parameter is the name of a mailing list from which you want
to remove your subscription. You can signoff all the lists to
which you are a member at any particular LISTSERV site by using
the "*" (asterisk) character in the place of a list name. If you
want your UNSubscribe command to be propagated to all LISTSERV
servers on the network, include the (NETWIDE option. Use this
option if you are changing your e-mail address or are leaving
your computer for an extended period.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| List <options> <F= format> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the List command to get a listing of available mailing lists
at a LISTSERV server. The options parameter may be any of the
following:
Short This option displays a summary of all the lists managed
by a LISTSERV in a brief, one line description. This is
the default.
Long The Long (or Detailed) option will send a file (called
node-name LISTS) to you that contains a comprehensive
description of the lists managed by a LISTSERV server.
Global <pattern>
This option gives a complete list of all known LISTSERV
mailing lists at all servers at the time the command is
issued. A file (called LISTSERV LISTS) will be sent to
you containing the names, titles and e-mail addresses
of these lists. This is a very large file, so make sure
you have the necessary disk space to accommodate its
size before you use the Global option. The optional
pattern parameter can be used to match any string in
the list name, list title or list address.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| REView list-name <(> <options> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the REView command to receive a listing of a mailing list. It
will be sent to you as a file called list-name LIST (or list-name
node-name for peered lists). A mailing list is comprised of two
parts: a control section and a subscription section. The control
section holds the definition parameters for a list which includes
information such as who is authorized to review or join a list
and whether or not it is archived. The subscription section holds
the e-mail addresses and names of all list members. The REView
command allows you to receive a listing of either or both of
these sections (the default is both) for any list, provided you
are authorized to do so. Note that at the discretion of the list
owner(s), the REView command can be restricted in use to list
members only. In this case, you will not be authorized to review
a mailing list if you are not a member of that list yourself.
Also, individual list members can restrict the appearance of
their e-mail address and name in response to a REView command if
they have set the CONCEAL mailing list option (see the SET com-
mand for more details). The list-name parameter is the name of
the LISTSERV list you wish to review. The important options are:
Short This option restricts the information you receive to
the control section of a list (giving its definition
parameters) and does not return the subscription sec-
tion of a list (giving the list members).
Countries If you use this option, the list of members will be
organized by the nationality given in their e-mail
addresses.
LOCal If the list is peered (that is, it is linked to other
mailing lists of the same name but on different
LISTSERV servers), you will receive listings of all of
these mailing lists in response to a REView command.
The LOCal option can be used to suppress the propaga-
tion of the REView command to the LISTSERV servers
hosting these peered mailing lists. In this case, you
will receive a listing only from the server to which
you send the REView command and not the others.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Query list-name | * |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
When you join any mailing list, you will be assigned a default
set of list options that control such things as way you received
mail when it is distributed and the type of notification LISTSERV
will give you when it distributes mail you have sent to a list.
These are the personal list options that may be altered on any
mailing list to which you are subscribed to suite your circum-
stances. See the SET command for a complete descriptions of these
options. The Query command can be used to review the personal
list options you have in effect at any mailing list. The list-
name parameter is the name of a list to which you are subscribed.
If you use an "*" (asterisk) character instead of a list name,
you will receive information about your personal options for all
lists to which you belong at the LISTSERV to which you send the
command.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| SET list-name | * options |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the SET command to change your personal options for a mailing
list. These options will remain in effect until they are explic-
itly changed. The Query command can be used to display your cur-
rent optional settings for any list to which you are subscribed.
The list-name parameter is the name of the mailing list for which
you are changing your options. You may change your options for a
specific list or for all the lists you belong to at a particular
LISTSERV by using the "*" (asterisk) character in place of a list
name. After processing your SET command, LISTSERV will send you
conformation of the successful alteration of your mailing list
options via e-mail. The important options are:
Mail | DIGests | INDex | NOMail
These options of the SET command alter the way in which
you receive mail from a mailing list. The Mail option
means that you wish to have list mail distributed to
you as mail. This is the default. The DIGests and
INDex options are available only if a list has had
these features enabled by its owner(s). Digests hold
all the mail messages sent to a list over a certain
period of time. Instead of receiving each mail individ-
ually as it is distributed to list members, you will
receive all the mail in one batch for a given day, week
or month. You may then browse through these mail mes-
sages at your leisure. Note that mail is not edited
with the DIGests option, you will receive copies of all
the mail messages in their entirety. The INDex option
will provide you with only the date, time, subject,
number of lines and the sender's name and address for
all mail messages sent to a list. The text of the mail
message will not be included. You may then select and
retrieve any mail that interests you from the list
archive. Both the DIGests and INDex options provide a
means of listening in to discussions on mailing lists
without having to deal with large quantities of incom-
ing mail messages. The NOMail option means that mail
sent to the list will not be distributed to you. This
is useful when you are leaving your computer for an
extended period of time and you do not want mail from
the list to fill your mailbox. When you return, you can
send the SET command with the Mail option to restore
mail service.
SHORThdr | FULLhdr | IETFhdr | DUALhdr
All mail messages are comprised of header and body sec-
tions. The header section provides details such as the
recipients, the original sender and the date and time a
mail message was sent. The mail body section contains
the text of a mail message. These options of the SET
command indicate the type of mail headers you want to
receive in the mail distributed from a mailing list.
SHORThdr means that the mail header will include only
the essential informational headers (for instance the
Date:, To:, From:, Subject:, Sender: and Reply-to:
headers). This is the default. You may change this to
FULLhdr, which means that all (including non-essential)
mail headers will be present in e-mail. The IETFhdr
option means that LISTSERV will not change the headers
of a mail message it distributes to you other than to
add a Received: mail header (and also a Message-id: and
Sender: headers if either of these were not already
present). This option is designed specifically for com-
patibility with SMTP exploders (as used, for instance,
on the Internet network). Lastly, DUALhdr is very simi-
lar to the SHORThdr option except that LISTSERV will
also insert mail headers at the beginning of the mail
body. Therefore, when the mail is received and read by
a recipient using this option, it will start with this
information (for instance, the first three lines of a
mail message may contain the To:, From: and Subject:
mail headers). This option is useful for users of some
PC based mail packages that will not display this
information from the real mail headers.
CONCEAL | NOCONCEAL
Indicates whether or not you want your name and mail
address to appear in the display of list members which
is given in response to a REView command. The default
is NOCONCEAL. Note that a complete list of members is
always given to list owners and LISTSERV administrators
regardless of this option.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| CONFIRM list-name |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the CONFIRM command to renew your subscription to a list.
Some mailing lists require subscription renewal at regular inter-
vals (usually once a year). A mail message is automatically sent
to list members indicating that they must send a CONFIRM command
within a given number of days or they will be removed from the
list. This command must be sent from the same e-mail address that
received the confirmation notice. The list-name parameter is the
name of the mailing list to which you are confirming your sub-
scription. LISTSERV will send a message that your subscription
has been confirmed.
Commands for FILES:
LISTSERV also functions as a file server. That is, files can be
stored at a LISTSERV server and made available for retrieval by
users upon their request. These files are stored in LISTSERV
under a hierarchical system of filelists. As the name suggests, a
filelist is a special file that holds a list of files. Each entry
in a filelist describes a file that is available for retrieval
and gives details such as the file's name and size and also a
file's access code (also known as a FAC) which describes who is
authorized to retrieve it. These files may themselves be file-
lists, in which case they too will hold information about avail-
able files or further filelists. In this way, filelists are
organized in a hierarchical or tree structure.
There are two basic types of filelists on LISTSERV servers. The
first type holds files that have been specifically placed there
by file owners or LISTSERV administrators. These files may be
documents, maps or diagrams, or even programs. The second type of
filelist is associated with a LISTSERV mailing list. These are
referred to as list filelists and retain copies of all e-mail
distributed on a particular mailing list. They consist of a
series of files, each of which holds a copy of the mail messages
distributed on a list over an interval of time (usually, one
month). These files may then be retrieved to recover any list
mail distributed during a specific period. Note that e-mail dis-
tributed on a mailing list may also be retrieved via the database
functions of LISTSERV. Not all mailing lists have an associated
list filelist; this is enabled at a list owner's discretion.
A further aspect of the file server functions of LISTSERV is the
concept of packages. A package consists of one or more files that
appear in a filelist. These may be, for example, a series of
files that go to make up a software package. A package is
declared in a LISTSERV filelist through a file that has the spe-
cial name of package-name $PACKAGE. Within it will be a list of
all the files that comprise the package. This list can be
reviewed by sending a retrieval request for that file. However,
all the files that comprise the package may also be retrieved
through a request for the file: package-name PACKAGE. Note that
in this case, the "$" (dollar) symbol is dropped from the name.
The files that go to make up the package will then automatically
be sent to the requestor. This enables users to retrieve an
entire set of files that belong to a package with only one com-
mand, instead of having to retrieve each of these files individu-
ally through a series of commands.
The following LISTSERV commands enable general users to manipu-
late files that are stored at a server. This includes commands to
search for, retrieve and subscribe to files. When sending file
server commands to LISTSERV, you must address them to the server
and not to any mailing lists. Note that where the PW= keyword
appears in a command description, this need only be included in
the command text if you have defined a personal password at the
server to which you are sending file server commands. Otherwise,
it need not be used. The optional F= command keyword may included
as desired.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| INDex <filelist> <F= format> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the INDex command to get a listing of the files in a particu-
lar filelist. The filelist parameter specifies the name of the
filelist you wish to get. If no name is specified, an index of
the root filelist (called LISTSERV FILELIST) will be sent to you.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| GET filename filetype <filelist> <F= format> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
The GET command is used to retrieve a specific file or package
from a filelist, provided you are authorized to do so. The file-
name and filetype parameters identify the file or package you
wish to retrieve. The optional filelist parameter identifies the
filelist within which the file or package resides. If it is not
supplied in the command, LISTSERV will determine the filelist
through a search of its own internal filelist index.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| AFD options |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
AFD is an acronym for Automatic File Distribution. This command
enables you to subscribe to a file or package in a filelist.
Every time this file or package is updated in its filelist, you
will then automatically be sent of copy of it by the LISTSERV
server. You may subscribe to any number of files for packages
from any filelist with the AFD command. You may also review or
delete your subscriptions at any LISTSERV server. The options
must be one of the following:
ADD filename filetype <filelist> <text> <PW= password> <F=format>
The ADD option allows you to subscribe to a file or
package. This means that a copy will henceforth be sent
to you automatically by LISTSERV when it is updated on
its filelist. The filename and filetype parameters
identify a file or package to which you want to sub-
scribe. The filelist option allows you to specify the
name of the filelist in which it is located. If this is
not specified in the command, LISTSERV will locate the
filelist through a search of its own internal filelist
index. Also, if you wish to have an informational text
message inserted automatically at the top of the file
or package when it is sent to you, you may use the text
parameter. Note that if you omit the filelist option,
the text you provide in the text parameter must be
enclosed in double quotes ("). This parameter is most
commonly used by network server applications that sub-
scribe to files at a LISTSERV on behalf of users. If
you are subscribing to files directly from LISTSERV
yourself, you should not need to use this option.
DELete filename filetype <filelist> <PW= password>
Remove your subscription to a file or package for which
you have an AFD. The filename and filetype parameters
identify a file or package to which you wish to remove
an AFD. These names may also include the "*" (asterisk)
wildcard character so that multiple files or packages
may be removed with one DELete command. The filelist
option allows you to specify the name of the filelist
in which it is located. If this is not specified in the
command, LISTSERV will locate the filelist through a
search of its own internal filelist index.
List <(FORMAT>
The List option shows the files or packages to which
you are currently subscribed at a LISTSERV. If you
include the (FORMAT option, then the file format to be
used when a file or package is sent to you will also be
displayed.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| FUI options |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
FUI is an acronym for File Update Information. It enables you to
subscribe to a file or package in a filelist. Every time this
file for package is updated in its filelist, you will then auto-
matically be informed of this by the LISTSERV server. This com-
mand is similar to the AFD command, except you will only be sent
notification of an update rather than the updated file or package
itself. You may subscribe to any number of files for packages
from any filelist with the FUI command. You may also review or
FUI
delete your subscriptions at any LISTSERV server. The options
parameter must be one of the following:
ADD filename filetype <filelist> <PW= password>
The ADD option allows you to subscribe to a file or
package by adding an FUI to it. The filename and file-
type parameters identify a file or package to which you
want to add an FUI subscription. The filelist option
allows you to specify the name of the filelist in which
it is located. If this is not given in the command,
LISTSERV will locate the filelist through a search of
its own internal filelist index.
DELete filename filetype <filelist> <PW= password>
Remove your subscription from a file or package for
which you have an FUI. The filename and filetype param-
eters identify a file or package to which you want to
delete an FUI. The filelist option allows you to speci-
fy the name of the filelist in which it is located. If
this is not specified in the command, LISTSERV will
locate the filelist through a search of its own inter-
nal filelist index.
List The List option shows the files or packages for which
you currently have an FUI subscription at a LISTSERV
server.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Query File filename filetype <filelist> <(FLags> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
This command can be used to get update information on various
files. Update information about the file or package specified in
the filename and filetype parameters will be given. Optionally,
you may include a filelist name in the filelist parameter. If it
is omitted, LISTSERV will locate the filelist through a search of
its own internal filelist index. You may also specify the (FLags
option to display additional technical data about the file (which
can be useful when reporting problems to LISTSERV administra-
tors).
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| PW options |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
The PW command enables you to add, change or delete a personal
password on any LISTSERV server. A personal password is designed
to give you added command security on a LISTSERV since it helps
prevent impostors using your e-mail address. The use of personal
passwords is strongly encouraged for this reason. Every server
will accept a password registration request from you at any time.
Passwords are comprised of one to eight alphanumeric characters.
You may change or delete your password at any time. The options
parameter must be one of the following:
ADD new-password
Add a new personal password on the LISTSERV processing
your command. Once you have registered a password on a
LISTSERV server, you will be obliged to use the PW=
command keyword in the commands where it appears as an
option.
CHange old-password new-password
Change your personal password on a LISTSERV server
where you already have one.
DELete old-password
Remove your personal password from a LISTSERV where you
already have one. Once you have removed a password from
a LISTSERV server, you will no longer be obliged to use
the PW= command keyword in the commands where it
appears as an option.
LISTSERV DATABASE Functions
LISTSERV provides the facility for users to retrieve old mail
that has been distributed on mailing lists. Each mailing list has
an associated database (called a notebook or list archive data-
base) in which list mail is stored. Note that databases may not
be maintained for every mailing list, this is done at the discre-
tion of a list owner. The notebook databases are the most common-
ly used of the LISTSERV databases. However, every LISTSERV server
also has a database of all the EARN/Bitnet computer nodes (called
the BITEARN database). This is available to all LISTSERV users.
The backbone LISTSERV servers also have a database of all the
LISTSERV computer nodes (called the PEERS database). In addition
to these databases, a LISTSERV server may have any number of dif-
ferent databases that have been created locally. To find out what
databases are accessible at a particular LISTSERV site, send fol-
lowing command to that server:
DATABASE LIST
To perform a database search, you can send mail to LISTSERV con-
taining a batch database job which contains your database query.
In addition, EARN/Bitnet users on VM or VMS systems can access
the database facilities interactively via the LDBASE program. For
more details on the LISTSERV database facilities, send an Info
DATABASE command to your nearest (or any) LISTSERV server (see
the section Commands for INFORMATION) or consult the LISTSERV
DATABASE Functions chapter in the LISTSERV User Guide.
Commands for INFORMATION:
The LISTSERV server can provide a diverse range of information to
the general user. This includes help files, release levels of the
server and important configuration files, statistics and informa-
tion pertaining to the EARN/Bitnet network. When sending these
commands to LISTSERV, they must be addressed to the server and
not to any mailing lists it may manage. For those commands that
result in files being sent to the requestor (for example the Info
command), the format of the file can be specified by the optional
command keyword F= in the command text (see the section LISTSERV
Command Keywords for more information).
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Help |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use this command to get a brief description of the most commonly
used LISTSERV commands and also the name and e-mail address of
the server's postmaster.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Info <topic> <F= format> |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Use this command to get an informational (or help) file from a
LISTSERV server. The topic option should specify the topic for
which an informational file will be sent to you. You may get a
list of valid topics by sending the Info command with no parame-
ters to your nearest (or any) LISTSERV.
Examples
You wish to subscribe to the EARNEWS list which is located at the
node FRMOP11. Your full name is Mark P. Waugh. Send the following
command to
[email protected]:
SUBSCRIBE EARNEWS Mark P. Waugh
You wish to leave the INFO-MAC mailing list (to which you have
already subscribed) at the node CEARN. The command:
UNSUBSCRIBE INFO-MAC
should be sent to the LISTSERV server at CEARN which manages the
INFO-MAC list. To leave all the LISTSERV lists you belong to
throughout the network, send the following command to your near-
est (or any) LISTSERV:
UNSUBSCRIBE * (NETWIDE
You wish to receive a listing of all mailing lists that have the
text europe in their name or title. Send the following command to
your nearest (or any) LISTSERV server:
LIST GLOBAL EUROPE
You want to stop receiving mail from all the lists at SEARN to
which you belong. Send the following command to the LISTSERV ser-
ver at SEARN:
SET * NOMAIL
You have received a message from the LISTSERV server at IRLEARN
asking you to confirm your subscription to the EARN-UG list. Send
the following command to that server:
CONFIRM EARN-UG
You wish to receive a listing of the files in the DOC FILELIST
The command:
INDEX DOC
should be sent to the LISTSERV server at EARNCC where this file-
list is located. Note that the above command is the same as issu-
ing a GET DOC FILELIST command.
You wish to retrieve the file PCPROG ZIP from a filelist and have
it sent to you in XXE file format. Send the following command to
the LISTSERV server that holds this file:
GET PCPROG ZIP F=XXE
You want to retrieve all the files that make up a package called
PROGRAM (as listed in a file called PROGRAM $PACKAGE) from a
filelist called SAMPLE. Send the command:
GET PROGRAM PACKAGE SAMPLE
You wish to subscribe to a file called BUGDET MEMO in a filelist
called EXPENSES with an AFD:
AFD ADD BUDGET MEMO EXPENSES
To subscribe to a file called VM EMAIL in the DOC FILELIST with
an FUI, you would send the following command to LISTSERV at node
EARNCC:
FUI ADD VM EMAIL DOC
Learning more about LISTSERV
A standard set of help files are available upon request from each
LISTSERV server. To get a copy of these files, use the INFO com-
mand (see the section Commands for INFORMATION).
Detailed documentation on LISTSERV (and related services) is
available from the DOC FILELIST at
[email protected]. This
includes the LISTSERV User Guide which is available in both post-
script and plain text formats. To obtain a list of available doc-
uments use the INDex command (see the section Commands for
FILES).
There are several mailing lists for discussion of technical
LISTSERV issues. They are not intended for casual users, but they
should be of interest to advanced users. They are:
LSTSRV-L Technical forum on LISTSERV
LSTOWN-L LISTSERV list owners' forum
LDBASE-L Forum on LISTSERV database search capabilities
NETNEWS (USENET)
What is NETNEWS
Netnews, or Usenet as it is more commonly called, is a message
sharing system that exchanges messages electronically around the
world in a standard format. Messages exchanged on Usenet are
arranged by topic into categories called newsgroups. Netnews is,
thus, a huge collection of messages, being passed from machine to
machine. The messages may contain both plain text and encoded
binary information. The messages also contain header lines that
define who the message came from, when the message was posted,
where it was posted, where it has passed, and other administra-
tive information.
The major, hierarchical categories of Usenet newsgroups which are
distributed throughout the world are alt, comp, misc, news, rec,
sci, soc, and talk. There are many other major categories which
may be topical (eg, bionet, biz, vmsnet) and are usually distrib-
uted worldwide as well, or geographical and even organizational
(eg, ieee) or commercial (eg, clari). The latter categories are
usually distributed only with their area of interest. The messag-
es of many Bitnet LISTSERV mailing lists are also distributed in
Usenet under the major category bit.
The major categories are further broken down into more than 1200
newsgroups on different subjects which range from education for
the disabled to Star Trek and from environmental science to poli-
tics in the former Soviet Union. The quality of the discussion in
newsgroups is not guaranteed to be high. Some newsgroups have a
moderator who scans the messages for the group before they are
distributed and decides which ones are appropriate for distribu-
tion.
Usenet was originally developed for Unix systems in 1979. Within
a year, fifty Unix sites were participating. Now, there are thou-
sands of sites running a number of operating systems on a variety
of hardware platforms communicating via Usenet around the globe.
Who can use NETNEWS
Usenet newsgroups can be read at thousands of sites around the
world. In addition, there are several sites that provide public
dial-up service so that people who are not at a Usenet site can
have access to newsgroups as well. If you don't know if your site
has Usenet access, check with your local computer support people.
Protocols and software for the distribution of news are in use in
several networks, such as the Internet, UUCP, EARN/Bitnet and
Fidonet.
If you have e-mail service only, then you can not access Usenet.
However, many newsgroups are connected to mailing lists which you
could join. For a list of these newsgroups and their associated
mailing lists, send mail to
[email protected] with the line:
GET NETGATE GATELIST Moreover, many of the documents which appear
periodically in newsgroups are available by e-mail from mail-
[email protected]. For instructions, send a message with the
subject HELP
How to get to NETNEWS
If your site provides Usenet access, then you just need to use
one of the many software packages available for reading news (at
least one is probably available on your computer). These packages
either access a local news spool, or use the Network News
Transfer Protocol (NNTP) to access the news spool on some other
computer in the network.
Within EARN, a network of Netnews distribution has been devel-
oped, providing efficient distribution of Usenet traffic while
minimising the load on the network for the participating coun-
tries.
If Usenet is not available to you and you would like to arrange
access for your site, contact your system administrator. You
should also read the article How to become a USENET site which is
posted periodically to the news.answers newsgroup. It is also
available by anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as
/pub/usenet/news.answers/site-setup or by mail to:
[email protected] with the line: send
usenet/news.answers/site-setup.
Using NETNEWS
There are many software packages available for reading and dis-
tributing Netnews on a variety of operating systems (Unix, VMS,
VM/CMS, MVS, Macintosh, MS-DOS and OS/2) and environments (Emacs,
X-Windows, MS-Windows). See the list of freely available news
reader software packages in Appendix A. Note that the number of
software packages available to run news, especially on PCs, is
increasing.
In addition to the software packages specifically designed to be
news readers, many other communications programs, particular mail
interfaces, provide the possibility for Usenet access in addition
to their main function.
Most, if not all, of the news readers provide the same basic
abilities:
* Subscribing to newsgroups: This means that your news reading
software will make these groups immediately accessible, so
that you can choose to read the postings of groups that
interest you quickly and easily.
* Unsubscribing from newsgroups: Removing groups from your
easy access list.
* Reading newsgroup postings: Your news reader presents post-
ings to you and keeps track of which postings you have and
have not read.
* Threads of discussion: You can follow groups of postings
that deal with the same subject easily.
* Posting to news groups: You can participate in group discus-
sions; your news reader knows where to send your posting.
* Responding to a posting: You can send a response to the
newsgroup (often called follow-up) or to the author of a
posting (often called reply).
Examples
When you enter the tin news reader, you get a listing of the
newsgroups to which you are subscribed:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Group Selection (9) h=help
1 30637 bit.listserv.novell local list
2 1106 comp.mail.misc General discussions about compu
3 8031 comp.protocols.tcp-ip TCP and IP network protocols.
4 840 comp.sys.mac
5 8789 news.answers Repository for periodic USENET
-> 6 29 news.lists News-related statistics and lis
7 15056 rec.woodworking Hobbyists interested in woodwor
8 7094 sci.psychology Topics related to psychology.
9 13093 soc.culture.celtic Celtic, Irish, & Welsh culture
*** End of Groups ***
----------------------------------------------------------------
In tin, selecting a newsgroup is done with the arrow keys. When
you select a group, you get a listing of the articles:
----------------------------------------------------------------
comp.mail.misc (41T 64A 0K 0H) h=help
1 + RIPEM Frequently Noted Vulnerabilities Marc VanHeyningen
2 + RIPEM Frequently Asked Questions Marc VanHeyningen
3 + Mail Archive Server software list Jonathan I. Kamen
4 + 1 UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ Chris Lewis
5 + 2 PC Eudora and Trumpet Winsock problem Jim Graham
6 + X11 mail reader Dominique Marant
7 + MIME supporting e-mail Tim Goodwin
8 + 1 IBM User name and Address Server Wes Spears
9 + 5 Newbie needs MHS/SMTP question answered Chris Pearce
10 + FAQ - pine Bruce Lilly
11 + FAQ: International E-mail accessibility Olivier M.J. Crep
-> 12 + PC E-Mail and Dial-in Edward Vielmetti
13 + Prodigy Mail Manager "01/07"
[email protected]
14 + Prodigy Mail Manager "02/07"
[email protected]
15 + Prodigy Mail Manager "03/07"
[email protected]
----------------------------------------------------------------
tins is a threaded news reader: replies to a posting are grouped
together with the original posting, so that the reader can follow
a thread of discussion. Above, you see the threads, the number of
replies in each thread, the subject and the author. The plus sign
(+) indicates that not all postings in the thread have been read.
Other news readers show other details. When you select an item,
it appears on your screen:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wed, 01 Sep 1993 07:05:49 comp.mail.misc Thread 13 of 41
Lines 27 Re: PC E-Mail and Dial-in No responses
[email protected] Edward Vielmetti at Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor
Sherry H. Lake (
[email protected]) wrote:
: I am looking for an email package that will allow a user to
: dial-in to his mail machine download any messages to his local
: PC, delete the messages from the server and then automatically
: sign him off. The user can then use his client software (local)
: to read, compose and reply. He then would have to dial-in again
: to so his outgoing mail will be uploaded to the server.
Various POP clients for PCs or Windows Sockets will do roughly
this. You should look at:
- NUPOP (MS-DOS)
- Eudora for Windows (Windows)
- WinQVT/Net (Windows)
- various commercial POP clients listed in the 'alt.winsock'
directory of commercial Windows systems
You'll want to look particularly for dial up IP software (SLIP or
PPP) that makes the process of connecting minimally onerous, e.g.
by scripting the session so that the users don't have to type
anything, perhaps by automatically dialing for you when you go to
read or otherwise open a network connection, and offering a
reasonable way to disconnect.
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc.
[email protected] Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI 48103
+1 313 998 4562 (fax: 998 4563)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Learning more about NETNEWS
News programs communicate with each other according to standard
protocols, some of which are described by Internet Request For
Comments (RFC). Copies of RFCs are often posted to the network
and obtainable from archive sites. Current news-related RFCs
include the following:
RFC 977 specifies NNTP, the Network News Transfer Protocol,
RFC 1036 specifies the format of Usenet articles.
Some newsgroups carry articles and discussions on the use of
Usenet, notably: news.announce.newusers, news.answers and
news.newusers.questions.
Many of the articles which appear periodically in these news-
groups or in others are also available from rtfm.mit.edu by anon-
ymous FTP or by mail to:
[email protected]
Part 7
OTHER TOOLS OF INTEREST
ASTRA
What is ASTRA
The ASTRA service allows users to retrieve documents from
databases known by ASTRA throughout the network. Users can send
their queries to the ASTRA server which in turn forwards the
query to the related database servers. This provides an easy-
to-use uniform access method to a large number of databases.
ASTRA provides the same user interface for all databases it can
access, even if the database servers have different access lan-
guages, such as STAIRS, ISIS or SQL.
Each database defined in ASTRA has an abstract which holds
information about the database: title, name of the maintainers,
a brief description of the database, the main topics of the data-
base and its language. Users are advised to look at the
abstracts before sending requests, to avoid sending requests to
the wrong databases.
Some databases actually combine several different databases that
deal with the same topics. When a user sends a request for such a
database, the request is forwarded to all related databases.
How to get to ASTRA
Anyone who can send electronic mail to EARN/Bitnet can access
ASTRA. Interactive user interfaces (clients) to ASTRA are avail-
able for VM and VMS systems on the EARN/Bitnet network. For all
other users, there is a batch language that permits batch queries
using e-mail.
Currently there are five ASTRA servers installed at the
following addresses:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
|
[email protected] |
|
[email protected] |
|
[email protected] |
|
[email protected] |
|
[email protected] |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Learning more about ASTRA
An extensive help file is available by sending the command HELP
to
[email protected].
The LISTSERV list ASTRA-UG is used for the distribution of a
newsletter about new databases or new versions of the current
databases. To subscribe, send the command:
SUB ASTRA-UG Your Name
to
[email protected].
An ASTRA newsletter is also available by sending the command NEWS
to
[email protected].
The developers of the ASTRA service may be contacted at:
[email protected]
NETSERV
What is NETSERV
NETSERV is a server, which allows fast access to data files and
programs of interest to the EARN/Bitnet community. NETSERV pro-
vides a repository consisting of information files and programs.
It allows users to retrieve files, to store files and to sub-
scribe to the files of their choice. The latter two functions
however, require that the user have a password for NETSERV (this
is called a privileged user).
In order to achieve a balanced load on the network and a faster
response time to users, NETSERV uses a distributed server con-
cept: this is achieved by the installation of a large number of
servers on the network to ensure that the user can locate a near-
by server. All servers communicate with each other to distribute
updated information and make it available from each copy of the
server.
NETSERV's file server functions include retrieving any file
present in its filelists, storing new versions of a file, and
subscribing to files stored on the server. Its file directories
are arranged in an hierarchical method, with NETSERV FILELIST
being on top or at the root of the filelists. This filelist can
be obtained by sending a GET NETSERV FILELIST command to any
NETSERV. Filelists contain short descriptions of the files, and
two access codes for each file. These codes represent the get and
put privileges required for that file. These codes are explained
at the beginning of the NETSERV FILELIST file.
How to get to NETSERV
The server is available in almost every country. To find the
closest server for your area send a QUERY SERVICE command to a
server. The following are examples of NETSERV server
addresses:
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
|
[email protected] |
|
[email protected] |
|
[email protected] |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
In EARN, there is only one NETSERV permitted for one country.
However, in some limited cases, such as when the country has a
large number of nodes, additional servers may be installed. In
any case, the user is not required to run NETSERV to be able to
access and use the server.
NETSERV accepts e-mail access from users on any network. Com-
mands to NETSERV should be placed in the body of the mail file,
and not in the Subject: line.
For users in the EARN/Bitnet network, NETSERV is accessible via
interactive message. Commands from privileged users requiring a
password must be sent this way.
NETSERV does not have delivery limitations, except that a file
ordered from NETSERV cannot be ordered again on the same day.
Learning more about NETSERV
The server provides a large helpfile which can be obtained by
sending a GET NETSERV HELPFILE command to any NETSERV.
A list for NETSERV maintainers is available as
[email protected].
Additional information can be obtained from the NETSERV main-
tainer, Ulrich Giese at
[email protected].
MAILBASE
What is MAILBASE
Mailbase is an electronic information service with much of the
Mailbase
same functionality as LISTSERV. It allows United Kingdom groups
to manage their own discussion topics (Mailbase lists) and asso-
ciated files. The Mailbase service is run as part of the JANET
Networked Information Services Project (NISP) based at Newcastle
University.
How to get to MAILBASE
Commands should be sent in an electronic mail message to mail-
[email protected]. More than one command may appear in a mes-
sage to Mailbase. Commands may be in any order, in UPPER, lower,
or MiXeD case.
Learning more about MAILBASE
For a summary of Mailbase commands, send the command help in an
e-mail message to
[email protected]. For a list of on-line
documentation about Mailbase, send the command: index mailbase.
You can then use the send command to retrieve those documents
that interest you. Eg, to retrieve a file of frequently asked
questions, send the following command: send mailbase user-faq.
User support is also available by sending queries in an e-mail
message to:
[email protected]
Public files on Mailbase are also available by anonymous FTP to
mailbase.ac.uk
PROSPERO
What is PROSPERO
Prospero is a distributed file system. It differs from tradi-
tional distributed file systems in several ways. In traditional
file systems, the mapping of names to files is the same for all
users. Prospero supports user centered naming: users construct
customized views of the files that are accessible. A virtual
system defines this view and controls the mapping from names to
files. Objects may be organized in multiple ways and the same
object may appear in different virtual systems, or even with mul-
tiple names in the same virtual system.
In Prospero, the global file system consists of a collection of
virtual file systems. Virtual file systems usually start as a
copy of a prototype. The root contains links to files or direc-
tories selected by the user.
The Prospero file system provides tools that make it easier to
keep track of and organize information in large systems. When
first created, your virtual file system is likely to contain
links to directories that organize information in different ways.
As the master copy of each of these directories is updated, you
will see the changes. You may customize these directories. The
changes you make to a customized directory are only seen from
within your own virtual system, but changes made to the master
copy will also be visible to you.
Users are encouraged to organize their own projects and papers in
a manner that will allow them to be easily added to the master
directory. For example, users should consider creating a virtual
directory that contains pointers to copies of each of the papers
that they want made available to the outside world. This virtual
directory may appear anywhere in the user's virtual system. Once
set up, a link may be added to the master author directory. In
this manner, others will be able to find this directory. Once
added to the master directory, any future changes will be immedi-
ately available to other users.
How to get to PROSPERO
In order to use Prospero, you must be on the international TCP/IP
network (the Internet) and you must have Prospero running on your
computer.
Before you can begin using the Prospero file system a virtual
system must be created for you. However, Prospero, as shipped, is
configured so that once you compile the clients you can type:
vfsetup guest and start working right out of the box using a
guest virtual system at the USC Information Sciences Institute.
The latest version of PROSPERO is available as file prospe-
ro.tar.Z for anonymous FTP from prospero.isi.edu in the directory
/pub/prospero.
Learning more about PROSPERO
Prospero is being developed by Clifford Newman. Several documents
and articles describing Prospero by Newman and others are avail-
able.
The following files are available via anonymous FTP from prospe-
prospe
ro.isi.edu. They are also available through Prospero.
ro.isi.edu
* Anonymous FTP: /pub/papers/prospero/prospero-oir.ps.Z,
* Prospero: /papers/subjects/operating-systems/prospero/
prospero-oir.ps.Z.
This is a useful first paper to read. It gives a good overview of
Prospero and what it does. It also describes a bit about the Vir-
tual System model, of which Prospero is a prototype implementa-
tion. It describes what Prospero does, not how it does it.
* Anonymous FTP: /pub/papers/prospero/prospero-bii.ps.Z,
* Prospero: /papers/subjects/operating-systems/prospero/
prospero-bii.ps.Z.
This paper describes how Prospero can be used to integrate Inter-
net information services, including Gopher, WAIS, archie, and
World Wide Web.
IRC
What is IRC
IRC, Internet Relay Chat, is a real-time conversational system.
IRC
It is similar to the talk command which is available on many
machines in the Internet. IRC does everything talk does, but it
allows more than 2 users to talk at once, with access throughout
the global Internet, It also provides many other useful features.
IRC is networked over much of North America, Europe, and Asia.
When you are talking in IRC, everything you type will instantly
be transmitted around the world to other users who are connected
at the time. They can then type something and respond to your
messages.
Topics of discussion on IRC are varied. Technical and political
discussions are popular, especially when world events are in
progress. IRC is also a way to expand your horizons, as people
from many countries and cultures are on, 24 hours a day. Most
conversations are in English, but there are always channels in
German, Japanese, and Finnish, and occasionally other languages.
How to get to IRC
Clients and servers for IRC are available via anonymous FTP from
cs.bu.edu. A few sites offer public access to IRC via Telnet. Two
such sites are wbrt.wb.psu.edu and irc.demon.co.uk. At both
sites, you should log in as irc.
The many server hosts of Internet Relay Chat throughout the net-
work are connected via a tree structure. The various servers
relay control and message data among themselves to advertise the
existence of other servers, users, and the channels and other
resources being occupied by those users.
Fundamental to the operation of IRC is the concept of a channel.
All users are on a channel while inside IRC. You enter the null
channel first. You cannot send any messages until you enter a
chatting channel, unless you have set up a private conversation
in some way. The number of channels is essentially unlimited.
Learning more about IRC
To get help while in IRC, type /help and follow the instructions.
If you have problems, you can contact Christopher Davis
(
[email protected]) or Helen Rose (
[email protected]) - known on IRC as ckd
and Trillian, respectively. You can also ask for help on some of
the operator channels on IRC, for example #twilight_zone and
#eu-opers.
Various documents on IRC, and the archives of IRC-related mailing
lists, are available via anonymous FTP from ftp.kei.com.
RELAY
What is RELAY
The RELAY server system is a set of servers in the global EARN/
Bitnet network which broadcast interactive messages from one user
to other users signed on to the same channel of the RELAY system.
A user signed on to the closest available RELAY is also virtually
signed on to all RELAYs which are linked to it. Most RELAYs are
closed during peak hours. Only some RELAYs are up 24 hours a day.
Each RELAY server provides service to a specific collection of
one or more nodes designated as a service area. The functions of
RELAY are available to EARN/Bitnet users with access to interac-
tive messages who have not been expressly excluded from the sys-
tem by RELAY management.
RELAY is a program which allows several people to talk at the
same time. In order to start, you must sign on to a RELAY to
place your ID in the current user list. You communicate with
RELAY through messages just as you would send messages to a
user. RELAY commands start with a slash(/) character; anything
not beginning with a slash is considered a message and is sent
back out to all other current users.
How to get to RELAY
RELAY is available at the following EARN/Bitnet addresses, and
others. The nickname of the RELAY machine is in parentheses.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| RELAY@ASUACAD (Sun_Devils) RELAY@PURCCVM (Purdue) |
| RELAY@AUVM (Wash_DC) RELAY@SEARN (Stockholm) �|
| RELAY@BEARN (Belgium) RELAY@TAMVM1 (Aggieland) �|
| RELAY@BNANDP11 (Namur) RELAY@TAUNIVM (Israel) |
| RELAY@CEARN (Geneva) RELAY@TECMTYVM (Monterrey) �|
| RLY@CORNELLC (Ithaca_NY) RELAY@TREARN (EgeRelay �|
| RELAY@CZHRZU1A (Zurich) MASRELAY@UBVM (Buffalo) |
| RELAY@DEARN (Germany) RELAY@UFRJ (RioJaneiro) �|
| RELAY@DKTC11 (Copenhagen) RELAY@UIUCVMD (Urbana_IL) |
| RELAY@FINHUTC (Finland) RELAY@USCVM �(LosAngeles) �|
| RELAY@GITVM1 (Atlanta) RELAY@UTCVM �(Tennessee) �|
| RELAY@GREARN (Hellas) RELAY@UWAVM (Seattle) |
| RELAY@HEARN (Holland) RELAY@VILLVM �(Philadelph) �|
| RELAY@ITESMVF1 (Mexico) RELAY@VMTECQRO (Queretaro) �|
| RELAY@JPNSUT00 (Tokyo) RELAY@VTBIT �(Va_Tech) �|
| RELAY@NDSUVM1 (No_Dakota) RELAY@WATDCS �(Waterloo) �|
| RELAY@NYUCCVM (NYU) RELAY@YALEVM (Yale) |
| |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
RELAY is available to users on the EARN/Bitnet network via inter-
active message (eg, the TELL command of VM or the SEND command of
VMS/JNET). All RELAY server machines are on IBM VM/CMS systems,
but you do not have to be a VM user in order to use RELAY. If you
are not in the EARN/Bitnet network, you can not use RELAY.
CHAT, a full-screen interface to send and receive TELL messages
for VM systems, is particularly useful for users of RELAY. CHAT
is available from any NETSERV.
Learning more about RELAY
Upon registration, the files RELAY INFO and RELAY USERGUIDE are
sent to the user. These two files give a comprehensive descrip-
tion of RELAY.
A brief guide to RELAY is available from the EARN documentation
filelist. Send mail to
[email protected]. In the body of
the message, write: GET RELAY MEMO.
Appendix A
Freely available networking software
Below you will find the location of client software for several
of the tools described in this guide (Gopher, WWW, WAIS and Net-
news). This is not a complete listing of available software for
any of these tools.
Gopher clients
Environment FTP site & directory Comments
Unix boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/Unix
VMS boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/VMS
job.acs.ohio-state.edu
XGOPHER_CLIENT.SHARE for Wollongong or UCX
VM/CMS boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/Rice_CMS
boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/VieGOPHER
MVS boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/mvs
Macintosh boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher
ftp.cc.utah.edu
/pub/gopher/Macintosh requires MacTCP
ftp.bio.indiana.edu
/util/gopher/gopherapp requires MacTCP
OS/2 boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/os2
MS-DOS boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/PC_client requires packet driver
oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu
/public/dos/misc dosgopher, for PC/TCP
bcm.tmc.edu
/nfs/gopher.exe for PC-NFS
lennon.itn.med.umich.edu
/dos/gopher for LAN Workplace for DOS
MS-Windows sunsite.unc.edu
/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/apps Gopherbook
X-Windows boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/Unix xgopher (Athena widgets)
boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/Unix moog (Motif)
boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/Unix/xvgopher or Xview
Next boombox.micro.umn.edu
/pub/gopher/NeXT
World-Wide Web clients
Environment FTP site & directory Comments
Unix info.cern.ch
/pub/www/src WWW line-mode browser
ftp2.cc.ukans.edu
/pub/WWW/lynx Lynx browser for vt100 terminals
archive.cis.ohio-state.edu
/pub/w3browser tty-based browser written in perl
VMS info.cern.ch
/pub/www/bin/vms port of NCSA Mosaic for X
Macintosh info.cern.src
/pub/www/bin/mac requires MacTCP
MS-Windows fatty.law.cornell.edu Cello
/pub/LII/Cello
Emacs moose.cs.indiana.edu
/pub/elisp/w3
X-Windows info.cern.ch
/pub/www/src tkWWW Browser/Editor
info.cern.ch
/pub/www/src MidasWWW Browser for X/Motif
info.cern.ch
/pub/www/src ViolaWWW Browser for X11
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
/Web NCSA Mosaic Browser for X11/Motif
Next info.cern.ch
/pub/www/bin/next Browser and Editor
WAIS clients
Environment FTP site & directory Comments
Unix ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/unix-src swais
VMS ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/vms
MVS ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/ibm-mvs
Macintosh ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/mac
OS/2 ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/os2
MS-DOS sunsite.unc.edu
/pub/wais/DOS
hilbert.wharton.upenn.edu
/pub/tcpip PCWAIS
MS-Windows ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/windows WNWAIS
ftp.cnidr.org
/pub/NIDR.tools/wais/pc/windows
Emacs ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/unix-src gwais
X-Windows ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/unix-src xwais
Next ftp.wais.com
/pub/freeware/next
Netnews - news reader software
Environment FTP site & directory Comments
Unix lib.tmc.edu rn also available via e-mail to:
[email protected]
ftp.coe.montana.edu trn
dkuug.dk nn
ftp.germany.eu.net tin
VMS kuhub.cc.ukans.edu ANU-NEWS
arizona.edu VMS/VNEWS
VM/CMS psuvm.psu.edu NetNews
also available from LISTSERV@PSUVM
ftp.uni-stuttgart.de NNR
cc1.kuleuven.ac.be VMNNTP
MVS ftp.uni-stuttgart.de NNMVS
Mac ftp.apple.com News
MS-DOS ftp.utas.edu.au Trumpet
MS-Windows ftp.utas.edu.au WTrumpet
X-Windows many FTP sites xrn
export.lcs.mit.edu xvnews
Emacs most GNU sites GNUS
for use with GNU Emacs editor
most GNU sites Gnews
for use with GNU Emacs editor
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction
Part 1: EXPLORING THE NETWORK
GOPHER
What is Gopher
Who can use Gopher
How to get to Gopher
Using Gopher
VERONICA
Learning more about Gopher
WORLD-WIDE WEB
What is World-Wide Web
Who can use World-Wide Web
How to get to World-Wide Web
Using World-Wide Web
Examples
Learning more about World-Wide Web
Part 2: SEARCHING DATABASES
WAIS
What is WAIS
Who can use WAIS
How to get to WAIS
Using WAIS
E-mail access
Examples
Learning more about WAIS
Part 3: FINDING NETWORK RESOURCES
ARCHIE
What is ARCHIE
Who can use ARCHIE
How to get to ARCHIE
Using ARCHIE
Using a local client
Using Telnet
Using electronic mail
Examples
Learning more about ARCHIE
Part 4: FINDING PEOPLE AND COMPUTERS
WHOIS
What is WHOIS
Who can use WHOIS
How to get to WHOIS
Using WHOIS
Using a local client
Using Telnet
Using electronic mail
Examples
Learning more about WHOIS
X.500
What is X.500
Who can use X.500
How to get to X.500
Using X.500
Using a local client
Using Telnet or X.25
Using electronic mail
Examples
Learning more about X.500
NETFIND
What is NETFIND
Who can use NETFIND
How to get to NETFIND
Using NETFIND
Local access
Remote access
Examples
Learning more about NETFIND
Part 5: GETTING FILES
TRICKLE
What is TRICKLE
Who can use TRICKLE
How to get to TRICKLE
Using TRICKLE
Examples
Learning more about TRICKLE
BITFTP
What is BITFTP
Who can use BITFTP
How to get to BITFTP
Using BITFTP
Examples
Learning more about BITFTP
Part 6: NETWORKED INTEREST GROUPS
LISTSERV (Version 1.7f)
What is LISTSERV
Who can use LISTSERV
How to get to LISTSERV
Using LISTSERV
Commands for LISTS
Commands for FILES
LISTSERV DATABASE Functions
Commands for INFORMATION
Examples
Learning more about LISTSERV
NETNEWS (USENET)
What is NETNEWS
Who can use NETNEWS
How to get to NETNEWS
Using NETNEWS
Examples
Learning more about NETNEWS
Part 7: OTHER TOOLS OF INTEREST
ASTRA
What is ASTRA
How to get to ASTRA
Learning more about ASTRA
NETSERV
What is NETSERV
How to get to NETSERV
Learning more about NETSERV
MAILBASE
What is MAILBASE
How to get to MAILBASE
Learning more about MAILBASE
PROSPERO
What is PROSPERO
How to get to PROSPERO
Learning more about PROSPERO
IRC
What is IRC
How to get to IRC
Learning more about IRC
RELAY
What is RELAY
How to get to RELAY
Learning more about RELAY
Appendix A:
Gopher clients
World-Wide Web clients
WAIS clients
Netnews - news reader software
