FW: FTP By Mail

[Richard Sobocinski <"Richard_G_Sobocinski%~WHC207"@CCMAIL.PNL.GOV>]

         For all those folks that asked about FTP by Mail, here you
         go.  This works quite well, although it's not as immediate as
         "real" ftp (it takes at least a full day, usually, to get
         your file).  This file is a few months old and I think that
         there are more ftp-by-mail servers available now than what
         are listed here.  Sorry, but I can't remember what happens
         with binary files (I haven't used this method for a while),
         but I suspect that they would need to be UUDECODED.

         There is also a similar scheme for accessing ARCHIE by mail,
         and I'll try to dig that up for those of you that are
         interested.

         Rich (rxs459 -at- fep1 -dot- rl -dot- gov)


######################################################################
FTP by mail
-----------

If you can't ftp directly from your site (ask your local support staff first),
use an ftp-by-mail server.  ftpmail servers are located at:

  ftpmail -at- decwrl -dot- dec -dot- com          ftpmail -at- src -dot- doc -dot- ic -dot- ac -dot- uk
  ftpmail -at- cs -dot- uow -dot- edu -dot- au           ftpmail -at- grasp1 -dot- univ-lyon1 -dot- fr

Send an e-mail message to the closest address, with the lines:

reply your_address -at- some -dot- where     <- replace with your real email address
connect ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca
ascii
get rec-travel/00index
quit

You can "get" any file in the archive this way.  You can also include the
line "ls" to list the files in any directory and "cd" to change directory.
For complete instructions, send a one-line message reading "help" to the
server.

=============
Apparently, these servers will FTP any file from any site allowing anonymous
logins . . .  ==> thus ccMail users could pull down files from anywhere . . .

I requested the 'help' file, and it looks like this . . .

=============
  -- Help --
>>> $Id: help-text,v 1.7 1993/05/05 00:49:43 vixie Exp $
>>>
>>> commands are:

        reply <MAILADDR>        set reply addr, since headers are usually wrong
        connect [HOST [USER [PASS [ACCT]]]]
                                defaults to gatekeeper.dec.com, anonymous
        ascii                   files grabbed are printable ascii
        binary                  files grabbed are compressed or tar or both
        chdir PLACE             "get" and "ls" commands are relative to PLACE
                                        (only one CHDIR per ftpmail session,
                                        and it executes before any LS/DIR/GETs)
        compress                compress binaries using Lempel-Ziv encoding
        compact                 compress binaries using Huffman encoding
        uuencode                binary files will be mailed in uuencode format
        btoa                    binary files will be mailed in btoa format
        chunksize SIZE          split files into SIZE-byte chunks (def: 64000)
        ls (or dir) PLACE       short (long) directory listing
        index THING             search for THING in ftp server's index
        get FILE                get a file and have it mailed to you
                                        (max 10 GET's per ftpmail session)
        quit                    terminate script, ignore rest of mail message
                                        (use if you have a .signature or
                                         are a VMSMAIL user)

>>> notes:

        -> you should send complaints to the ftpmail-admin address.  our
           postmaster does not handle ftpmail problems and you can save her
           the trouble of forwarding your complaints by just mailing them to
           the right address.  the "ftpmail-request" address is gone; don't
           use it.

        -> the "index" command depends on the "SITE EXEC INDEX" feature of
           some ftp servers.  Gatekeeper.dec.com originated this feature,
           and ftp.uu.net duplicated it (with a format change to the output,
           naturally).  Wuarchive.wustl.edu also has this feature, though
           their index seems to be empty.  The source for an ftpd that
           supports this feature is on Gatekeeper.DEC.COM in /pub/DEC/gwtools.

        -> a password of "" or '' will be sent as a null string.  if you need
           this you will know it, if you don't, you won't.

        -> the "Subject:" of your request will be contained in the "Subject:"
           of all of ftpmail's responses to you regarding that request.  You
           can therefore use it to "tag" different requests if you have more
           than one outstanding at any given time.

        -> you must give a "connect" command, default host is
           gatekeeper.dec.com, default user is anonymous, default
           password is your mail address with a hyphen prepended.

        -> binary files will not be compressed unless 'compress' or 'compact'
           command is given; use this if at all possible, it helps a lot.
           note that many files are already compressed.  if you use any of
           the binary-file qualifiers (compress, compact, uuencode, btoa)
           without setting 'binary' first, your session will abort in error.

        -> binary files will always be formatted into printable ASCII
           with "btoa" or "uuencode" (default is "btoa").  if you don't
           use the "binary" command, ftpmail will cheerfully try to mail
           you the binary data, which will absolutely, positively fail.

        -> all retrieved files will be split into chunks and mailed.  the
           size of the chunk is 64000 characters unless you change it with
           the "chunksize" command.  CompuServe users will need to set this
           to 49000.  there is no way to set it higher than 100000, so please
           don't ask.

        -> if you ask for more than 10 files in a session, you will receive
           an error message and your entire request will be rejected.

        -> VMS/DOS/Mac versions of uudecode, atob, compress and compact
           are available, ask your LOCAL wizard about them if you can't
           locate them (but try gatekeeper.dec.com in /archive/pub/VMS
           if you're still using a VMS system.)

        -> several mail unsplitters are hiding on gatekeeper.dec.com in
           /pub/mail/ua/misc/unsplit.  there is one in c, one in perl,
           and one in VMS DCL.

        -> there is no way to request only certain parts of a file and we
           do not plan to add one in the near future, so please don't ask.

        -> there is no way to delete things from the queue or to find out
           the status of things in the queue, and we do not plan to add
           either feature in the near future, so please don't ask.

>>> examples:

        -> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get a root directory listing:
                connect
                ls
                quit

        -> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get the README.ftp file:
                connect
                get README.ftp
                quit

        -> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get the gnuemacs sources:
                connect
                binary
                uuencode
                chdir /pub/GNU
                get emacs-18.58.tar.Z
                quit

        -> connect to ftp.uu.net as anonymous and get a root directory list:
                connect ftp.uu.net
                binary
                chdir /index/master
                get by-name.Z
                quit

Ftpmail was written by Paul Vixie at the DEC Western Research Laboratory
and at the DEC Network Systems Laboratory, from 1989-1993.
  -- End of Help --