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From: [email protected] (Kent Landfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted,alt.sources.wanted,comp.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: How to find sources (READ THIS BEFORE POSTING)
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Archive-name: finding-sources
Submitted-by: [email protected] (Kent Landfield)
Original-Author: [email protected] (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Version: 1.145
Last-modified: Sat Apr 22 21:33:16 CDT 1995

[ If you would like to get a current copy of this file send an ]
[ email message to [email protected] ]
[ and it will be mailed to you. ]

I. Table of contents

This article contains the following sections.

I. Table of contents
II. Introduction
III. How do you find sources?
IV. Things not to do
V. Searching techniques in detail
1. Usenet source newsgroups
2. The "archie" database
3. The "ftpable-readmes" WAIS database
4. Comp.archives
5. Comp.sources.wanted
6. Prospero
7. Mail server queries
VI. File retrieval techniques in detail
1. By anonymous ftp
2. By anonymous UUCP
3. By mail
a. Uunet mail archive
b. BITFTP
c. Ftpmail
d. AT&T's netlib archive
e. Periodic posting archives
f. Trickle mail servers
g. Other mail servers
VII. Locating a site's IP address
VIII. Credits

To find a particular section, search forward for a line beginning with
the Roman numeral corresponding to the desired section. For example,
search forward for "IV." at the beginning of the line to find the
section entitled "Things not to do". Alternatively, if your news
reader supports commands to "undigestify" and/or skip to the next
section in a digest message, you can use those commands to view this
message, since it is in digest format (the section you are reading now
is the "preamble" of the digest).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

II. Introduction

This posting discusses the resources available to people who are
looking for source code. Please read it before posting source code
requests to comp.sources.wanted, alt.sources.wanted or any other
newsgroup.

Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are
welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some
way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the
desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me
the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and
your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in
your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version). Submitting
changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to
avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting.

DO NOT send me private E-mail asking me to help you locate source
code. Nearly everything I know about finding sources is documented in
this posting. If you can't find something by following the
instructions below, then I'm not going to be able to find it either.
Furthermore, sending me E-mail asking for help BEFORE following the
instructions below is completely out of the question.

------------------------------

III. How do you find sources?

The method you use for locating sources depends on exactly what you
are looking for. Here are several possible routes to follow; pick the
one that best suits your needs. The descriptions below mention
general techniques (e.g. "Check the Usenet source newsgroup indices.")
which are described in detail later in this posting. These
descriptions are listed in order from most preferred to least
preferred solution. You will notice that "Post in
comp.sources.wanted" is listed last. This is because posting
a message in comp.sources.wanted should only be used as a last resort
when you have exhausted all other alternatives.

Once you have located your source code using the instructions below,
you can retrieve it via anonymous ftp or E-mail (depending on what is
accessible to you and on where the code is archived); this is
described in detail later in this posting.

Before following *any* of the routes below, the first thing you should
do is exhaust the local resources that are available to you. Often, a
program that you are looking for will already be accessible somewhere
on your system. Since each site has different local resources, it's
impossible to give details here about the resources at any specific
site. All that can be said is, "Find someone at your site to ask."
Nearly every site has someone whose job it is to answer questions from
other users, and the sites that don't have someone doing it officially
often have someone doing it unofficially. If you cannot find what you
want after checking things out locally, or if you can't find anyone to
ask, then proceed as follows.

1. "I know the name of the program I want, but I don't know where to
get it."

a. Check the indices for the various main Usenet source newsgroups.

b. Check with archie.

c. Check comp.archives.

d. Check the "ftpable-readmes" WAIS database.

e. Post to comp.sources.wanted.

f. If you are looking for an MS-DOS program, check /SimTel/msdos on
oak.oakland.edu or /pc/INDEX.ZIP on garbo.uwasa.fi, available
via anonymous ftp (see the section below about how to retrieve
a file via anonymous ftp).

2. "I know the name of the program I want, and I know which newsgroup
it was posted in, but didn't save it when it was posted and now I
find that I need it."

DO NOT post a message to comp.sources.wanted saying, "I didn't save
all of this when it was archived, could someone please send it to
me?" If the code was posted in a source newsgroup, then it is
archived somewhere. Follow the instructions below for retrieving
code from Usenet source newsgroup archives.

3. "Some parts of the <x> package in source newsgroup <y> didn't
arrive here. Did anybody else have this problem? Could someone
send me the parts I'm missing?"

If you did not receive part of a package, and you think that the
problem that caused you not to receive it is more widespread than
just your site, send a message to the poster of the package and let
him know that you think it may not have propagated everywhere. He
will act as a clearinghouse for problem reports and, if there are
enough of them, repost the missing parts.

If you want to get the missing parts, asking for them in a posting
is a bad idea for two reasons. First of all, you may very well get
lots of people mailing you the missing parts, enough to swamp your
mailbox or your mail feed (You can avoid this, to some extent, by
saying, "Please write to me if you have it -- don't send me the
whole thing unless I respond and ask you to!" but you still may end
up getting many more responses than you need). Second, since you
can get the missing parts from the Usenet source newsgroup archives
using the instructions below, it is a waste of the Usenet's
resources to post a message asking for them.

4. "I am looking for source code that does <x>."

Follow the same process as (1) above, but instead of searching for
the name of the program, search for keywords in your description of
what you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for
graphical clocks that run under the X window system, you might
search for the word "clock" in the index for comp.sources.x.

5. "I am looking for source code that does <x>," where <x> is
something algorithmic or mathematical that is commonly solved with
computers.

Check AT&T's "netlib" archive (which is accessible via E-mail as
described below, described below, or via World Wide Web as
http://www.netlib.org, or via anonymous ftp to netlib.att.com), and
if that doesn't work, proceed as in (3) above.

Alternatively, if you don't mind doing some typing and/or
programming, several reference books provide detailed descriptions,
pseudocode, and sometimes even code for for numerous popular (and
obscure) algorithms. Several good books to check are:

Comer, Douglas E. and David L. Stevens. "Internetworking
with TCP/IP, Volume II: Design, Implementation, and
Internals", Prentice Hall, 1991, ISBN 0-13-472242-6.

Foley, J. D. et al. "Computer Graphics: Principles and
Practice", Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN
0-201-12210-7.

Knuth, Donald E. "The Art of Computer Programming" (3
volumes), Addison-Wesley, 1973.

Plauger, P. J. "The Standard C Library", Prentice Hall,
1992, ISBN 0-13-131509-9.

Press, William H. et al. "Numerical Recipes, The Art of
Scientific Computing", Cambridge University Press, 1989,
ISBN 0-521-38330-7. (Fortran code)

Press, William H. et al. "Numerical Recipes in C, The Art
of Scientific Computing", Cambridge University Press, 1988,
ISBN 0-521-35465-X. (C Code)

Sedgewick, Robert. "Algorithms", Addison-Wesley, 1988.
(Pascal code)

Sedgewick, Robert. "Algorithms in C", Addison-Wesley,
1990, ISBN 0-201-51425-7. (C code)

The publishers of several of these books also make available floppy
disks containing machine-readable source code. Furthermore, Turbo
Pascal Numerical Recipes code is available for anonymous ftp in
/pc/turbopas/nrpas13.zip on garbo.uwasa.fi.

6. "I am looking for source code that does <x> under the X window
system."

As in (3), but after checking the Usenet source newsgroup indices
(most importantly, that of comp.sources.x), check the anonymous ftp
archive on ftp.x.org.

See also the postings entitled "Frequently Asked Questions about X
with Answers," posted monthly in comp.windows.x and various other
X-related newsgroups. Those postings discuss in detail how to get
X sources of various sorts. If these postings have expired at your
site, see the documentation below about retrieving postings from
the periodic posting archive.

7. "I'm looking for neat programs to run on my <x> machine."

Don't post questions like this. The amount of source code
available on the Usenet is incredible; you are essentially asking
for a summary of all of it. Browse through the various archives
mentioned in this posting if you want to find something like this.

8. "I'm looking for NetNews software <x>."

See the posting entitled "Usenet Software: History and Sources,"
posted periodically in news.admin and news.announce.newusers. If
it has expired at your site, see the documentation below about
retrieving postings from the periodic posting archive.

9. "I'm looking for the source code for Unix."

Most implementations of Unix contain source code that is, at least
to some extent, proprietary and not freely redistributable. If you
are looking for the source code to a particular Unix utility, you
may have better luck looking for a public-domain reimplementation
of that utility, using (1) or (3) above. Furthermore, the Free
Software Foundation (which is dedicated to the goal of making high
quality free software, including a complete Unix-compatible
software system called GNU, available for everyone) may distribute
a freely redistributable version of the utility, protected by the
GNU Public License.

Also, if the utility was written by the folks who do the BSD
variant of Unix, then it might be available in the various BSD
source archives (the best one is probably gatekeeper.dec.com;
ftp.uu.net has a bsd-sources directory too, and it contains some
sources that are not in the gatekeeper archive, but the sources
there are for 4.3reno BSD and might be difficult to compile under
other types of Unix) on the net.

There are three freely redistributable implementations of Unix. The
first is FreeBSD. The second is NetBSD, both of which are based on
BSD Unix sources. The third is Linux. Both of FreeBSD and Linux these
run on 386-class machines. NetBSD runs on i386, and many other platforms
For more information about them, see the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.questions,
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.questions and comp.os.linux newsgroups, or look for
FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux in the source archives using the instructions
above.

10. "I'm looking for a dictionary/thesaurus/encyclopedia."

There are few, if any, freely redistributable full dictionary or
thesaurus databases. There are, however, some freely available
word lists and/or synonym lists. One archive of such files
(including word lists in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian
and possibly others) is the anonymous ftp directory
/pub/dictionaries on ftp.cs.vu.nl. Another archive is the
anonymous ftp directory /documents/dict on ftp.gmd.de.

There also appears to be a package called "thesplus" for the PC,
that may or may not contain a thesaurus database and software (I
don't know anything about it). One archive site for it is the file
/ux1/pc/exec-pc/thesplus.zip on the anonymous ftp machine
mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu. I think this package may be shareware and
therefore not freely redistributable in the strictest sense of the
term.

Also, Project Gutenberg has an old (but relatively good) thesaurus
available on-line. It's accessible via anonymous ftp in /pub/etext
on the machine mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu. it's also accessible via WAIS
(ask the WAIS directory of servers for "thesaurus" in order to
locate it).

If you've already got the database (e.g. on a NeXT machine), you
may be able to find sources for code to manipulate it; see (3)
above.

If you really need to find a dictionary or thesaurus for on-line
use, and the ones already mentioned won't help you, then you're
probably going to have to pay somebody for it. Any
reasonably-sized software catalog for your type of computer is
probably going to mention dictionary software, and if not, then
calling the computer stores around your town should help you to
locate some.

You are even less likely to find a freely redistributable
encyclopedia than you are to find a dictionary or thesaurus.
Encyclopedias cost a lot of money to put together, and the
companies that do so therefore tend to be very protective about
their copyrights. Although some encyclopedia publishers have made
their work available on-line on commercial services (e.g. Prodigy),
none have made them freely redistributable. If you want an
electronic encyclopedia, you're going to have to pay someone for
it (by looking in a software catalog, as mentioned above).

------------------------------

IV. Things not to do

1. Don't post messages to source newsgroups (e.g. comp.sources.misc,
comp.sources.unix, etc.) asking for sources.

There are newsgroups specifically for source requests. If you post
a request to a moderated source newsgroup, then the moderator has
to deal with it (and he probably doesn't want to have to deal with
source requests from all over the Usenet), and if you post a
request to an unmoderated source newsgroup, then archives of that
newsgroup end up with cruft (i.e. your request) in them.

2. Unless you have a particularly special request that is likely to be
intrinsically interesting to the readers of a "topic" newsgroup,
don't post requests in such newsgroups. Just because you're
looking for Unix software doesn't mean your request belongs on
comp.unix.questions. Just because the software you're looking for
is likely to be written in C doesn't mean your request belongs on
comp.lang.c. Source requests belong in the "wanted" newsgroups;
that's what they're there for.

------------------------------

V. Searching techniques in detail

1. Usenet source newsgroups

There are many Usenet newsgroups in which source code is posted,
and most of them are archived. They include:

alt.sources
alt.sources.mac
comp.sources.3b1
comp.sources.acorn
comp.sources.amiga
comp.sources.apple2
comp.sources.atari.st
comp.sources.games
comp.sources.hp48
comp.sources.mac
comp.sources.misc
comp.sources.postscript
comp.sources.reviewed
comp.sources.sun
comp.sources.unix
comp.sources.x
vmsnet.sources
vmsnet.sources.games

If you're looking for software for a particular machine or
operating system, you should check the source archives that are
appropriate (e.g. checking "comp.sources.mac" if you're looking for
programs to run under SunOS probably wouldn't be very profitable),
as well as the general archives such as alt.sources or
comp.sources.misc.

Sites that archive Usenet source newsgroups usually provide some
method of getting an index of the files in each newsgroup's
archive. If you are accessing an anonymous ftp archive, then this
index will usually appear as a file called "index" or "Index" in
the top-level archive of the newsgroup, or in each volume of the
newsgroup's archive.

If you are accessing a mail archive, then the instructions for
using that archive should explain how to get indices of the
newsgroups that are archived.

If you are accessing an anonymous UUCP archive (see below), you are
usually told when you are given the phone number and password for
the archive how to get the top-level index for the archive, which
will tell you how to get other indices and files.

You can use archie to find anonymous ftp archives of Usenet
newsgroups. The most well-known Usenet newsgroup archive is
probably ftp.uu.net, which archives comp.sources.3b1,
comp.sources.amiga, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.misc,
comp.sources.reviewed, comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.unix, and
comp.sources.x, among other things. Another large Usenet archive
site is wuarchive.wustl.edu, which archives alt.sources,
comp.sources.mac, and comp.sources.apple2, in addition to most
of the newsgroups archived on ftp.uu.net. The official
comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.x and comp.sources.reviewed archives
are available on ftp.sterling.com, the official comp.sources.unix
archives are on gatekeeper.dec.com. A very large European anonymous
ftp site is nic.funet.fi, which archives Usenet newsgroups and
mirrors several foreign specialized ftp servers. Other large
European archive sites are mcsun.eu.net and ftp.inria.fr. If you
are in Europe, you should look on one of these sites for things
you need before trying sites elsewhere.

The vmsnet newsgroups are archived on black.cerritos.edu and
acfcluster.nyu.edu. See also the posting "Monthly info posting:
vmsnet.sources archive sites" in vmsnet.sources.d and comp.os.vms;
if it has expired at your site, see the documentation below about
retrieving postings from the periodic posting archive.

2. The "archie" database

"Archie" is a database of anonymous ftp sites and their contents.
The software for it was written by the "Archie Group" (Peter
Deutsch, Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Mike Parker) at McGill
University in Montreal, Canada, and they maintain the database as
well.

"Archie" keeps track of the entire contents of a very large number
of anonymous ftp sites, and allows you to search for files on those
sites using various different kinds of filename searches. Archie
also has a software description database (with contents similar to
the output of the "whatis" command under Unix), on which you can do
keyword searches.

The following machines are currently running and advertising the
archie service:

Server list current as of 21 Jun 1994

Host name Internet address Country
------------------- ---------------- --------------

archie.au 139.130.4.6 Australia
archie.uni-linz.ac.at 140.78.3.8 Austria
archie.univie.ac.at 131.130.1.23 Austria
archie.mcgill.ca 132.206.2.3 Canada
archie.uqam.ca 132.208.250.10 Canada
archie.funet.fi 128.214.109.110 Finland
archie.univ-rennes1.fr 129.20.254.2 France
archie.th-darmstadt.de 130.83.128.118 Germany
archie.ac.il 132.65.20.254 Israel
archie.unipi.it 131.114.21.10 Italy
archie.wide.ad.jp 133.4.3.6 Japan
archie.hana.nm.kr 128.134.1.1 Korea
archie.sogang.ac.kr 163.239.1.11 Korea
archie.kr 128.134.1.1 Korea
archie.nz 130.195.9.4 New Zealand
archie.uninett.no 128.39.2.20 Norway
archie.rediris.es 130.206.1.2 Spain
archie.luth.se 130.240.18.4 Sweden
archie.switch.ch 130.59.1.40 Switzerland
archie.twnic.net 192.83.166.10 Taiwan
archie.ncu.edu.tw 140.115.19.24 Taiwan
archie.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.2.10 United Kingdom
archie.hensa.ac.uk 129.12.43.17 United Kingdom
archie.sura.net 128.167.254.194 United States (MD)
archie.ans.net 147.225.1.2 United States (NY)
archie.rutgers.edu 128.6.18.15 United States (NJ)
archie.unl.edu 129.93.1.14 United States (NE)
archie.internic.net 198.49.45.10 United States (NJ)

Archie sites may soon be available elsewhere as well.

You can access archie at most of these machines in one of three
different ways:

1. Telnet or rlogin to the machine with username "archie" and no
password.

2. Send mail to archie@machine (e.g. [email protected]). Send a
message with "help" in the body to find out more.

3. Use one of the Prospero-based archie clients.

The site in Japan, archie.wide.ad.jp, supports only the third
method.

The third method listed is the preferred one, because it puts less
of a load on the archie servers and is faster than the other two
methods (its one drawback is that it does not yet provide an
interface to the archie "whatis" database). If you already have
Prospero installed at your site (see below), then you can search
archie by vcd'ing to the directory /archive-sites/archie/regex and
using "vls" with the regular expression for which you want to
search. Alternatively, you can get one of the stand-alone archie
clients that does not require all of Prospero in order to run. The
clients currently available include a C version with a text
interface, a C version with an X interface, and a perl version with
a text interface. They are available for anonymous ftp in
/archie/clients or /pub/archie/clients at each of the archie sites
listed above.

When using archie, you should connect to the site from the list
above that is closest to you, network-wise. Archie servers can
give different results when using different servers. If one server
fails to give results, try another (more remote) one.

If you would like more information about archie, you can write to
[email protected].

(Note to Janet/PSS users -- the United Kingdom archie site is
accessible on the Janet host doc.ic.ac.uk [000005102000]. Connect
to it and specify "archie" as the host name and "archie" as the
username.)

3. The "ftpable-readmes" WAIS database

Vincent Cate use to maintain a WAIS database of README files for various
packages on anonymous ftp sites all over the Internet. Vincent no longer
maintains or runs the ftpable-readmes WAIS database. If you have a couple
of hundred spare meg to take over the management of that excellent
resource.

For more information about WAIS, retrieve the file /wais/README
from the anonymous ftp server think.com.

4. Comp.archives

The comp.archives newsgroup was initially created amd moderated by
Ed Vielmetti, then moderated by Adam J. Richter and now Jost Krieger
[email protected]. It contains announcements of
archive sites and their contents. If you cannot find what you're
looking for in the comp.archives postings available at your site at
any given time, then you can read the newsgroup for a while and watch
for new postings that are of interest to you, or you can try to find
an archive site that archives the postings in comp.archives (e.g.
wuarchive.wustl.edu, ftp.sterling.com, cs.dal.ca).

5. Comp.sources.wanted

When you post a message to comp.sources.wanted or
alt.sources.wanted, the important thing to remember is to BE
SPECIFIC. If you're working under Unix, make sure to mention that;
possibly, mention even what type of Unix. If you're not working
under Unix, make sure to mention what operating system and machine
type you *are* working under.

Remember to choose a meaningful Subject line for your message;
something like, "Can you help me?" is very unhelpful to people who
ARE willing to help, and may just cause some of them to not bother
reading your posting. Try to summarize what you're looking for
meaningfully in your Subject line.

Also, it is usually a good idea to ask for people to send you
E-mail rather than posting responses. Say that if enough people
write to you and ask for copies of whatever responses you get, then
you'll summarize the responses in a later posting to the newsgroup,
and if that happens, then DO post the summary.

Finally, don't say, "Would someone please mail me <x>?" Say,
"Would someone please tell me where I can get <x>, or what's
available that does <x>? Instead say, "If you can mail it to me,
please let me know, and I'll let you know if I want you to." This
avoids the problem of several people mailing you what you requested
and overflowing your mailbox.

6. Prospero

If you are a Unix site on the Internet, you can use the Prospero
system (whose author is Clifford Neuman) to search through archives
of various sorts all over the Internet, and to retrieve files once
you have found them. Prospero uses a virtual filesystem which
allows you to transparently view directories and retrieve files.
There is some overlap between Prospero and other resources
mentioned in this document; for example, both archie and the
periodic posting archives on rtfm.mit.edu are accessible via
Prospero.

The Prospero software is available in /pub/prospero/prospero.tar.Z
on prospero.isi.edu; the user software may already be installed at
your site, and if not, you can get it and install it yourself. For
more information about Prospero, send mail to
[email protected].

7. Mail server queries

Anonymous ftp is most effectively used only for retrieving files
and not for searching for them, since it is a file transfer
protocol and not much more than that. However, many (if not all)
of the mail archive servers which allow file retrieval by
electronic mail provide a more functional (albeit slower) interface
than ftp which allows you to query the servers to find out what
they have available on them. Therefore, if you find it necessary
to use mail archive servers to get files, take advantage of the
indexing and search features available on the servers. The
features of individual servers can not be documented here, because
there are too many different servers running too many different
kinds of software, but the instructions below do explain how to ask
the servers for help and find out what commands they support.

------------------------------

VI. File retrieval techniques in detail

1. By anonymous ftp

If you are on a site that is connected to the Internet and allows
its users to ftp out to other Internet sites, then you have
anonymous ftp access. The usual procedure for using anonymous ftp
is to type the command "ftp machine-name", where "machine-name" is
the name of the machine to which you want to connect, and then to
use "anonymous" as the username and "user@host" (i.e. your E-mail
address) as the password when you are prompted for it by ftp.

Type "help" inside ftp to get a list of commands, and/or read the
man page for ftp, or any other documentation about it available at
your site for more information. If they don't answer your
question, then ask someone at your site for help.

If you don't have Internet and ftp access, then you can use an
ftp-mail server such as Princeton's BITFTP or ftpmail to retrieve
files from anonymous ftp archives. However, you should only use an
ftp-mail server when the same files are not available from a
dedicated mail archive server. See the BITFTP and ftpmail
instructions below.

For additional information on anonymous ftp, see the Anonymous FTP
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List maintained by
<[email protected]>. It is available from news.announce.newusers,
and news.answer.

2. By anonymous UUCP

There are various UUCP sites on the net that publish their modem
telephone numbers and a public username and password that can be
used to transfer files from the sites via UUCP. For more
information about doing this, see the documentation for the "uucp"
command on your system.

One place to find information about anonymous UUCP archives is the
Nixpub listing of public access Unix sites, maintained by Phil
Eschallier and posted in comp.misc and alt.bbs. If that posting
has expired at your site, you can get copies of it from the
Periodic posting archive described below.

3. By mail

a. Uunet mail archive

Uunet.uu.net provides E-mail access to the sources it archives (see
the discussion about ftp.uu.net above for some idea of what is
available). The address to which to send requests is
"[email protected]". You can send a message containing "help" in
its body for more information. Note, however, that this service
does not provide access to all of UUNET's archived files, so you
may have to use an ftp-by-mail service instead to get to some of
them.

b. BITFTP

The BITFTP servers, run by Princeton University and the German
National Research Center for Computer Science, allow people on
the BITNET to retrieve via E-mail files at anonymous ftp archive
sites. To find out how to use it, send mail to
"[email protected]" or "[email protected]" with "help" in the
body.

Note: The BITFTP server at Princeton will reject requests from
non-BITNET addresses, so if you're not on the BITNET and you need
to do anonymous ftp retrieval via E-mail, you should use ftpmail
(see below).

c. Ftpmail

Ftpmail servers allow you to retrieve via E-mail files at anonymous
ftp archive sites. Four ftpmail servers currently available are
"[email protected]", "[email protected]",
"[email protected]", and "[email protected]". To
find out how to use an ftpmail server, send mail to it with "help"
in the body. If you're on the BITNET, please use the BITFTP server
(see above) rather than ftpmail.

NOTE: Don't do something bogus like send your requests both to
BITFTP and ftpmail, or to multiple ftpmail servers, hoping that one
of them will get back to you first. Choose one server for your
request, and use it.

d. AT&T's netlib archive

AT&T's "netlib" archive is the repository for a large body of
source code and other material, much of it mathematical,
algorithmic or scientific in nature.

The archive is accessible in many ways, including

* Anonymous ftp to netlib.att.com

* Electronic mail. To find out how to use the mail server, send
mail to "[email protected]" with "help" in the body of
the message.

* World Wide Web. Open the URL http://www.netlib.org

e. Periodic posting archive

As mentioned above, The machine rtfm.mit.edu maintains an archive
of periodic Usenet postings. You can access it via anonymous ftp,
or via mail server. To find out how to use the mail server, send
a message to "[email protected]" with Subject "help".

The archive on rtfm is also accessible via WAIS. If you don't know
what that is, don't worry about it; if you do know what it is, you
can search through periodic Usenet postings by connecting to the
"usenet" WAIS database on rtfm.mit.edu.

f. Trickle mail servers

A BITnet mail server package called "Trickle" is supported at a
number of different BITnet sites all over the world:

Austria: [email protected]
Denmark: [email protected]
Belgium: [email protected]
France: [email protected]
Germany: [email protected]
Italy: [email protected]
Netherlands: [email protected]
Spain: [email protected]
Turkey: [email protected]
Israel: [email protected]

These archives contain files of all sorts from a number of
different major anonymous ftp archive sites, including
oak.oakland.edu, ftp.uu.net, ftp.x.org and sauna.hut.fi.
They are a good way for people on the BITnet to get access to
archives.

To find out how to use Trickle send a mail message to the Trickle
server closest to you with "/HELP" in the body of the message and
an empty Subject: line.

g. Other mail servers

There are other mail servers besides the ones listed above. If you
want to find out more about a server, send a message to it with
"help" in the body and see what it sends back.

The following is a list of some of the available services. Others
are listed in Scott Yanoff's "Updated Internet Services list"
posting, which appears regularly in alt.internet.services,
comp.misc, biz.comp.services, alt.bbs.internet, and news.answers.

[email protected] Alt.sources
[email protected]
Space archives (also accessible via
anonymous ftp to ames.arc.nasa.gov)
[email protected]
MIT Project Athena papers and source
code (also accessible via anonymous
ftp to athena-dist.mit.edu)
[email protected] UUCP maps, source-code for BCM WHOIS
database, NFS and PC-NFS information
and source-code, Unisys U-series
information and source code, other
stuff
[email protected] NeXT stuff (also accessible via
anonymous ftp to sonta.cc.purdue.edu
or nova.cc.purdue.edu)
[email protected]
Computer Underground Digest and
references
[email protected]
IPX, "patch" for MS-DOS, "sps" diffs
for SunOS 4.1
[email protected] Datacomp Systems, Inc. Elm and
Elm-related stuff
[email protected] Mac-security digest, information about
Eclectic, other stuff
[email protected]
Archives of MS-DOS, Amiga, and Apple
newsgroups, Internet RFCs, other stuff
[email protected] TeX, GNU, MH, other stuff
[email protected]
Archives of Atherton Technology
mailing lists and other files; Sun RPC
sources and files; other sources and
files
[email protected] NCSA stuff, especially telnet and tcp
for mac/pc
[email protected] Sun-spots, sun-source and sun-icons,
plus other software written or
influenced by people at Rice (also
accessible via anonymous ftp to
titan.rice.edu)
[email protected]
Ralph Johnson's UIUC smalltalk archive
(also accessible via anonymous ftp to
st.cs.uiuc.edu)
[email protected]
IBM and other good stuff (also
accessible via anonymous ftp to
sun.soe.clarkson.edu)
[email protected]
WDL archive server: snfs, tsig stuff
[email protected]
Information about the Clinton-Gore
presidential campaign
[email protected]
Comp.binaries.mac
[email protected]
Comp.sources.misc
[email protected]
Comp.sources.reviewed
[email protected]
Comp.sources.unix
[email protected] Comp.sources.x
[email protected] iPSC User's Group
[email protected] Paris Research Lab (PRL) technical
reports, articles, and notes; bignum
package
[email protected] News.answers, other general stuff
[email protected] General and VMS-specific TeX/LaTeX
sources, sty files, extensions, etc.;
mailing list archives; sources for VMS
packages of various sorts
[email protected] Solaris 2.0 Migration Support archives
-- programs that have been ported to
Solaris 2.0, and utilities for making
the migration to 2.0 easier
[email protected] 26 Gigabytes. Everthing really!
Almost all Unix, mac, pc packages.
[email protected]
comp.sources.x, comp.sources.unix,
comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.sun,
comp.sources.games,
comp.sources.atart.st,
comp.binaries.ibm.pc, alt.sources
archives, eunet.sources, and
sub.sources archives, GNU, selected
BSD, minix, selected X.V11R4 and
X.V11R3, X.V11R5, comm tools (ie.
kermit), various documents (ie. the
Internet worm, rfcs, mach), TeX, and
various other sources (also accessible
via anonymous ftp)
[email protected] Genbank gene database server
[email protected] Manchester smalltalk goodies archive
[email protected]
Graphix bibliography server; put
keywords in mail Subject (also
accessible via anonymous ftp to
gatekeeper.dec.com)
[email protected] Lots of stuff, including GNU software,
benchmarks, games, graphics utilities,
etc. (also accessible via anonymous
ftp)
[email protected] Macintosh, Sun, IBM-PC, Unix sources,
some documents, GNU, graphics, Usenet
archives (or lots of newsgroups), X
window system, TeX, programming
languages (lisp, icon, abc, others),
news sources, network sources, other
stuff
[email protected] Internet community calendar, E-mail
ftp server (currently unavailable),
CSNET general information documents,
CREN information, NSFNET information,
Some Internet RFCs, a small amount of
source code
[email protected] UCSC Technical Reports, Amoeba papers,
UCSC bibliography archive, IEEE TCOS,
other stuff (also accessible via
anonymous ftp to ftp.cse.ucsc.edu)
[email protected] Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory
(MEL) at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST)
archive
[email protected] AI bibliographical server; put
"lidosearch help" in mail Subject
[email protected]
[email protected] Erotica
[email protected] Russian TeX
[email protected] Same as [email protected]
[email protected] Lots of stuff from simtel-20; put "get
pdget help" in mail body
[email protected] GIFs, Atari ST software, random
documentation, ELM sources, Usenet FAQ
postings, GNU software, HP-UX
software, NN sources, SGI software,
TeX software and TeXhax and TeXmag
archives, random UNIX software, X11
software, other stuff (also accessible
via anonymous ftp to ftp.cs.ruu.nl)
[email protected] Mostly UNIX-related files, from the
Netherlands UNIX Users' Group
[email protected]
German TeX archives; benchmarks,
journal indices, RFCs, network info,
unix info; X, mac, pc, sun, aix, vax,
and other software (also accessible
via anonymous ftp to
rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de)
[email protected] PC software archives, frequently asked
questions in various areas, some
Usenet source archives
[email protected] Australian Netlib (also accessible via
anonymous ftp to draci.cs.uow.edu.au)
[email protected] Various sources, digests and other
miscellaneous stuff (also accessible
via anonymous ftp to
mthvax.cs.miami.edu)
[email protected] Mirror of AT&T netlib archive for use
by European (non-UK) sites
[email protected] Similar to the AT&T netlib archive
[email protected] Rec.puzzles-related archives
[email protected] A large subset of what is available
from uunet via anonymous ftp or
anonymous uucp
[email protected] UK netlib server (mostly same contents
as AT&T's netlib) (some files also
accessible via anonymous ftp to
harrier.ukc.ac.uk {username "guest"})
[email protected] NeXT stuff (also accessible via
anonymous ftp to sonta.cc.purdue.edu
or nova.cc.purdue.edu)
[email protected] Benchmarks, GOSIP
[email protected] NIST Cals server (also accessible via
anonymous ftp to durer.cme.nist.gov)
[email protected]
OFF format (?) objects
[email protected] PostScript stuff
[email protected] Sources related to REDUCE (A SAM
system with emphasis on nuclear
physics)
[email protected] Comp.os.research tech reports (also
accessible via anonymous ftp to
midgard.ucsc.edu)
[email protected] NFS benchmarking for determining if
Legato board will help your server
[email protected] FASTA program for nucleic acid
sequence
[email protected] Internet RFCs and FYIs, NIC database
registration, WHOIS database lookup
[email protected] Programs and files from the magazine
"Unix Review"
[email protected] Lots of statistical software (also
accessible via anonymous ftp to
lib.stat.cmu.edu -- username statlib)
[email protected] Experimental server (?) address might
point to a human
[email protected]
Comp.dcom.telecom archive
[email protected] Programs and files from the journal
"VAX Professional: A Technical Journal
for VMS Systems"
[email protected] Vmsnet.sources
[email protected]
DEC WRL technical reports and
abstracts
[email protected] HP 48 programs; put HP-MAIL-SERVER in
mail Subject
[email protected] MIT X Consortium files, mainly
patches

VII. Locating a site's IP address

If you are at a site with a deficient nameserver, you may need to know
the IP address of a host to FTP files from it. You can get this
information in two ways:

* By telnet:

telnet nic.ddn.mil hostnames (or `telnet 192.112.36.5 101')
hname XXX.YYY.ZZZ

* By e-mail:

To: [email protected]
Subject: host XXX.YYY.ZZZ
or: whois XXX.YYY.ZZZ
or: help

or:

To: [email protected]
body: site XXX.YYY.ZZZ

Information from Brendan Kehoe <[email protected]>.
------------------------------

VII. Credits

This FAQ was initially written by Jonathan I. Kamens. The following
people have contributed to this FAQ.

Bill Wohler <[email protected]> provided many of the addresses in the
"Other mail servers" section above, and provided suggestions for
several other sections. Andrew Purshottam <[email protected]>
also provided many mail archive server addresses. Bjorn P. Brox
<[email protected]> provided information about Trickle.

These people provided feedback and corrections:

[email protected]
Rusty Carruth <[email protected]>
Tom Cunningham <[email protected]>
Jim Davis <[email protected]>
Peter Deutsch <[email protected]>
Holger Friedrich <[email protected]>
Eric Gross <[email protected]>
Dan Jacobson <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Charles Geyer <[email protected]>
Chau Wing Kin <[email protected]>
Edwin Kremer <[email protected]>
Rene Lampe <[email protected]>
Kent Landfield <[email protected]>
Jonathan Leech <[email protected]>
Lee McLoughlin <[email protected]>
Allen McAuley <[email protected]>
Mark Maimone <[email protected]>
Michael Meyer <[email protected]>
Dick Munroe <[email protected]>
Nicolai Papke <[email protected]>
Petri Ojala <[email protected]>
Douglas Quist <[email protected]>
George V. Reilly <[email protected]>
Perry Rovers <[email protected]>
[email protected]
Timo Salmi <[email protected]>
Rich Salz <[email protected]>
Heribert Schuetz <[email protected]>
Dan Shearer <[email protected]>
Richard S. Smith <RSS%[email protected]>
Mike Stump <[email protected]>
Steve Sullivan <[email protected]>
Steve Summit <[email protected]>
Sydney S. Weinstein <[email protected]>
Joe Wells <[email protected]>
Jon Whellams <[email protected]>
George Wilson <[email protected]>
Bill Wohler <[email protected]>
Christophe Wolfhugel <[email protected]>
Adri Verhoef <[email protected]>
Ed Vielmetti <[email protected]>

------------------------------