284 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
284 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
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Welcome to alt.internet.services!
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This group was designed to handle information about services available
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on the internet for people who have internet accounts and want to
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explore beyond their local computers and take advantage of the
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information and services available.
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This file has been updated.
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The 'services' are:
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* things you can telnet to
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* things you can FTP
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* things mentioned on the various lists posted periodically
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The 'services' are *not*:
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* utility programs like telnet, ftp, mail, and uudecode on your
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system (programs like telnet are vastly different than a
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place you can telnet to)
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* basic new user questions
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To begin, I'm putting this near the top so people can see it. Most
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people do not have the slightest clue what alt.internet.services is
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for, and ask almost random questions.
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This is *NOT* alt.internet.general.questions, alt.internet.help,
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or alt.internet.new-users. Before asking a question here:
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* Ask someone locally! The guy siting next to you, your
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professor, the system administrator. 9 times out of 10 you
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won't have to post.
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* read news.newusers
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* look through your .newsrc file for a more appropriate group.
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Questions about mail can go to comp.mail.misc. Questions
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about access can go to alt.internet.access.wanted. And so
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on. alt.internet.services is *not* some kind of default
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group to go to if you can't find any others.
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* ask yourself: is this question about a service I can access
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thought the internet like the ones on the periodically
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posted lists?
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There's a wide range and variety of stuff available, and more pouring
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in every day! Please do not send *me* services -- post them or
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something. Send additions, suggestions, comments, snide remarks to me
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abut this FAQ or how to improve it. Remember it's still under
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construction for the most part.
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Note that this welcome does not list services. It instead alerts you
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to the lists of services that are regularly posted on the group.
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Special thanks to Aydin Edguer, whose excellent alt.bbs.internet FAQ
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gave me some basics for this one, too.
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What is "FAQ"? A _F_requently _A_sked _Q_uestion
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Where do I get FAQs?! From a newsgroup called net.answers
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Here's an index of topics covered
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* Stuff that should be discussed
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* Stuff NO ONE WANTS TO SEE
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* Some lists that are posted you should look for
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* What is...
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...archie
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...IRC
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...MUD, MUSH, etc
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* How do I...
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...send mail to CompuServe?
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...send mail to users on Prodigy?
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...send mail to users on Fidonet?
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...get a name resolved?
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* Brief FTP Primer
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Stuff that should be discussed:
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-------------------------------
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* posts about new stuff you can do on the net
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special services like weather reports and databases and
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library catalogues and...
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systems that allow public connections, in the spirit of the
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old, classic bbs systems
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clients/servers like archie, IRC, MUD, MUSH, etc.
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Stuff NO ONE WANTS TO SEE:
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--------------------------
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* pleas for access to the internet -- these will be ignored! There are
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two groups which can help you, though, so please direct your posts
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there.
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alt.internet.access.wanted
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- this group was created because a lot of traffic about
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- needing internet access was showing up in the WRONG groups,
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- because it had no where to go. Now it has somewhere and
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- should go there!
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Some lists that are posted you should look for:
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-----------------------------------------------
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* This welcome, which outlines the basic nature of the group and will
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steer you towards what the posts should be about.
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* The Internet Services list by Scott Yanoff - an indespensible guide
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to services avaialble.
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What is...
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----------
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...archie?
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Archie is a service that automatically checks sites for anonymous FTP,
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and if they have that service available, it catalogues the items you
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can get from the site. You can either connect to archie via telnet,
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and Scott Yanoff's list tells sites that you may connect to, or you
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may compile a client on your own computer and interface archie through
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that.
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...IRC?
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IRC is the Internet Relay Chat, a service where users can "talk" via
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typing to people around the world. A sample client is available,
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please see Scott Yanoff's services list for details.
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There are newsgroups specifically devoted to IRC, so please refer to
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them for more information. (alt.irc, for example)
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...MUD, MUSH, etc?
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These are Multi-User, text based, virtual reality games. Each one is
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very different from the other, and there are an astounding number of
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variations on the MUD theme. Please see rec.games.mud for more
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information about them -- there is a very good FAQ posting there that
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will explain them (or at least there used to be! :))
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How do I...
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-----------
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NOTE: there is a group, comp.mail.misc, which is a good place to take
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e-mail related questions such as the ones below.
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...send mail to CompuServe?
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Users at CompuServe have numbers like XXXXX,YYYYY -- so to send them
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mail, use the address XXXXX.YYYYY@compuserve.com and your mail will go
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straight to them.
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...send mail to users on Prodigy?
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By opening an account on Prodigy.
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Prodigy does not currently have any external connections and has
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announced no plans to ever add external connections. It is therefore
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impossible to send mail to a Prodigy user from any system other than
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Prodigy. [Aydin Edguer] Prodigy has spoken of a two phase plan to
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connect Prodigy to all major networks including the internet. The
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first phase is a simple mail gateway which "should" be in place by
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Sept 92, the second phase is a wider range of network products. (When
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I pressed them, they really did not know what that meant, but they
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alluded to News, ftp, irc, and muds.) [Scott C. Kennedy, who applied
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for a job with them]
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...send mail to users on Fidonet?
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First you need to know the name of the person and node number of the
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Fido-Net system that the person uses.
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The address of a FidoNode looks like this: 1:105/302.0. Usually the 1:
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and .0 are left off, but they are there by default. (In Europe the
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Zone is 2: and in the Pacific Basin it is 3:.) That address can be
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translated as "Zone 1, Net 105, FidoNode 302, Point 0." or
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p0.f302.n105.z1. Add the FidoNet domain of .fidonet.org to the end of
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that, chop off the p0 (it a default since the point number is zero)
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and you have f302.n105.z1.fidonet.org - the "Fully Qualified Domain
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Name" of a FidoNet BBS.
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Another example is 2:105/4.3 which would be written as
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p3.f4.n105.z2.fidonet.org
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Notice that we specified the point number since it was a number other
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than zero.
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FidoNet uses full names of the callers. Multi-part name folks (eg.
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First Last, ie. "Tim Pozar") will have a period '.' seperating their
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names. So, lets say you wanted to send mail to Tim Pozar at
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1:125/555.0, you would address your letter to:
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Tim.Pozar@f555.n125.z1.fidonet.org.
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[Tim Pozar]
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...get a name resolved?
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Your local host should have a name resolver...but if it doesn't, you
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can always send mail to the address resolve@cs.widener.edu with a body of
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site foo.com
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site some.where.else
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and you'll receive a mail message with the IP addresses for each site
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listed. [Brendan Kehoe] (I assume the reverse is also true, IP -> name)
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Brief FTP Primer
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----------------
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FTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows a person to transfer files between
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two computers connected to the Internet. Some systems on the Internet
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offer files through "anonymous" FTP. Anonymous FTP servers permits users
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to transfer files to/from the site even when they do not have an account
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at the site.
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Not every site permits anonymous tranfers and it is wrong to try systems that
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have not advertised the availability of such a service. This is similar to
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walking up to a strange house and trying the windows and doors to see if any
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are open.
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To find a list of sites that permit anonymous FTP, you can monitor the
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newsgroup comp.archives. You can also read the "Anonymous FTP List"
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maintained by Tom Czarnik <aftp-list@netcom.com>. The list is regularly
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posted to comp.sources.wanted and is available via anonymous FTP from
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pit-manager.mit.edu in the files /pub/usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/sites*.
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In general, the "Anonymous FTP List" should be used as a last resort
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when trying to locate information. There are a _large_ number of anonymous
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FTP sites on the Internet, and it is much too time consuming to try to
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search each site when trying to find information. There are other
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tools, such as Archie, that help you to locate sites that carry a specific
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package.
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It is beyond the scope of this FAQ to try to cover all the ways to locate
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sources on the Internet. More information about how to find sources and
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sites is posted in the comp.sources.wanted FAQ "How to find sources".
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It is available for anonymous FTP from pit-manager.mit.edu in the file:
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/pub/usenet/comp.sources.wanted/H_t_f_s_(R_T_B_P).
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Perhaps the best way to learn how to use FTP is the read the manual pages
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[if any] that are on your system. Lacking such documentation, the following
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summary should help. More information is available in other FAQs.
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To use FTP, a command similar to "ftp hostname" is used; where hostname
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is replaced by the name of host you wish to contact. If the computer knows
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how to contact that host, you will next be presented with a "Name:" prompt.
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At this point, if you are using anonymous FTP, you should enter the username
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of "anonymous". On some sites "ftp" will also work as an anonymous username.
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If the system recognizes the username as an anonymous entry then you should
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receive back a "331 Guest login ok" response followed by a "Password:" prompt.
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At this prompt you should enter your email address for the password.
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It's not necessary, but it's a courtesy for those sites that like to know who
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is making use of their facility. At this point you should be presented
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with a "230 Guest login ok" response or something similar. If for some
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reason things did not work you may receive a "530 Login incorrect" response.
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Type in "quit" at the "ftp>" prompt and try again. If it fails a second time,
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contact someone at your site for help.
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Once connected to the other site and authenticated, you have a number of
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commands available to you. Some FTP commands are the same on most computers,
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but others are not. Most versions of FTP will list the commands available
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if you type "help". The standard commands include:
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dir list the files in the current directory
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cd Change directory
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binary Switch to binary mode. For transferring binary files.
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ascii Switch to ascii mode. For transferring text files.
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It will automatically translate CR/LF and NL between
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systems. ASCII mode is the default mode.
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get copy a file from the remote computer to yours
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Typically, a directory called 'pub' is where the interesting things
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are stored. Some sites will have a file with a name like ls-lR,
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that contains a complete list of the files on that site.
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Different systems have different organizations for their files
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and you may need to do some exploring to find where the files of
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interest you are located.
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Once you have finished getting the files of interest you should issue the
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"quit" command to close the FTP connection and exit the FTP program.
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