80 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
80 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
|
Looking up FTP files on ARCHIE
|
||
|
|
------------------------------
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1991 21:40:33 PST
|
||
|
|
Fr: Richard Hintz <hintz@oz.ucop.edu>
|
||
|
|
Re: What is an Archie?
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Archie: The McGill School of Computer Science Archive Server
|
||
|
|
______________________________________________
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
To access Archie, telnet to quiche.cs.mcgill.ca or 132.206.2.3
|
||
|
|
login: archie
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Archie: The McGill School of Computer Science Archive Server
|
||
|
|
Listing Service
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Given the number of hosts being used as archive sites
|
||
|
|
nowadays, there can be great difficulty in finding needed
|
||
|
|
software in a distributed environment. You may know that the
|
||
|
|
software that you need is out there, but it can sometimes be
|
||
|
|
difficult to find. The School of Computer Science at McGill
|
||
|
|
University has one solution to the problem - "archie".
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Archie is a pair of software tools: the first maintains a list
|
||
|
|
of about 600 Internet ftp archive sites. Each night software
|
||
|
|
executes an anonymous ftp to a subset of these sites and
|
||
|
|
fetches a recursive directory listing of each, which it stores
|
||
|
|
in a database. We hit about 1/30th of the list each time, so
|
||
|
|
each site gets updated about once a month, hopefully balancing
|
||
|
|
timely updates against unnecessary network load. The "raw"
|
||
|
|
listings are stored in compressed form on quiche.cs.mcgill.ca
|
||
|
|
(132.206.2.3), where they are made available via anonymous ftp
|
||
|
|
in the directory ~ftp/archie/listings.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The second tool is the interesting one as far as the users are
|
||
|
|
concerned. It consists of a program running on a dummy user
|
||
|
|
code that allows outsiders to log onto the archive server host
|
||
|
|
to query the database. This is in fact the program we call
|
||
|
|
Archie.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Users can ask archie to search for specific name strings. For
|
||
|
|
example, "prog kcl" would find all occurences of the string
|
||
|
|
"kcl" and tell you which hosts have entries with this string,
|
||
|
|
the size of the program, its last modification date and where
|
||
|
|
it can be found on the host along with some other useful
|
||
|
|
information. In this example, you could thus find those
|
||
|
|
archive sites that are storing Kyoto Common Lisp. With one
|
||
|
|
central database for all the archive sites we know about,
|
||
|
|
archie greatly speeds the task of finding a specific program
|
||
|
|
on the net.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Complete anonymous ftp listings of the various sites that we
|
||
|
|
keep in the database may be obtained via the 'site' command
|
||
|
|
and for a list of the sites which we keep track of, see the
|
||
|
|
'list' command.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Archie also maintains a 'Software Description Database' which
|
||
|
|
consists of the names and descriptions of various software
|
||
|
|
packages, documents and datasets that are kept on anonymous
|
||
|
|
ftp archive sites all around the Internet.
|
||
|
|
The 'whatis' command allows you to search this database.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Send comments, bug reports etc to
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
If you have a favourite anonymous ftp site that archie doesn't
|
||
|
|
seem to maintain, or if you have additions or corrections to
|
||
|
|
the Software Description database, send mail to
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
archie-admin@cs.mcgill.ca
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Archie was written and is maintained by Alan Emtage
|
||
|
|
(bajan@cs.mcgill.ca) and Bill Heelan (wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca).
|
||
|
|
Peter Deutsch (peterd@cc.mcgill.ca) provided (and continues to
|
||
|
|
provide) ideas and inspiration.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
==== <g FTP> 10 links in glossary topic
|