18c9 ftpmail servers that may be available might include: ftpmail@ftpmail.ramona.vix.com ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk \ These also may be the same src.doc.ic.ac.uk / ftpmail servers. bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au (in Australia) mail ftpmail@grasp.insa-lyon.fr (body: help) Please, European users only. mail BITFTP@DEARN or to BITFTP@vm.gmd.de (body: help or ftplist for a list of anonymous ftp sites) (Europe only) ============================================================================== HOW TO USE FTPMAIL ============================================================================== Help on using ftpmail can be found by sending a message to one of the above addresses with the word 'help' in the body of the message. The actual help file looks like this: -- Help -- >>> >>> commands are: reply 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 -- ============================================================================== CAVEAT! ============================================================================== Yes, this service does exist. Please very careful in using it - the hosts that handle your mail for you may not be able to handle the large volumes generated by this FTP-Mail service. Be sure to check with all sites between you and the ftpmail service provider to make sure that this sort of actiuvity is cool with them. Remember, due to limitations of size of mail messages coming in to most mail servers. ftpmail wil probably break your messages into pieces. . 0