Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!gatech!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!deshaw.com!do-not-use-path-to-reply Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 08:00:41 GMT Supersedes: Expires: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 08:00:40 GMT Message-ID: From: netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes) Subject: How to Get Information about Networks Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.announce.newusers,news.answers Reply-To: netannounce@deshaw.com Followup-To: news.admin.misc Approved: netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes) Lines: 215 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.admin.misc:42740 news.announce.newusers:1897 news.answers:48219 Archive-name: internet/network-info/part1 Last-change: 11 May 1995 by netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes) Changes-posted-to: news.admin.misc,news.misc,news.answers ------------------------------ Subject: Introduction. This is a periodic posting on how to get information about the Internet and how to get information about connecting to the (US) National Science Foundation's NSFNET through an NSF-affiliated regional network, or to get commercial Internet service through a commercial service provider. Because the contents of the documents referred to in this posting are constantly being updated, this posting only describes how to obtain a current copy rather than providing the data directly. In this document, electronic mail addresses, commands that you should use and other such references are indented by a single TAB character (may appear on your screen as some number of spaces, typically 8) When you use the reference, do not include the TAB. ------------------------------ Subject: Table of Contents. 1. Introduction. 2. Table of Contents. 3. The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC). 4. Internet documents and specifications. 5. Commercial networks. 6. Contributors. ------------------------------ Subject: The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC). The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) makes current documentation on the NSFNET available via a mail server, by anonymous ftp, gopher, WAIS and the World-Wide Web. If all else fails, you can contact them by phone. The InterNIC has a wealth of documents on the Internet; by the time you finish reading the introductory ones, you probably won't need this posting any more! + Getting information via electronic mail. (some sort of E-mail access needed) If you're on some sort of network that can send and receive electronic mail from the Internet, you can get various documents from the InterNIC's automated mail server. Send mail to mailserv@is.internic.net and leave the "Subject" line blank. Here's a suggested initial message: begin help index send about-infoguide/about-infoguide end Be sure your mailer puts out a valid "From:" line that the server can respond to! If you have problems with the reply (eg. you don't get a reply within a few days), try sending the same message with the line reply YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS after the begin line. Make sure YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS is one that can be replied to from the Internet. Ask your site's postmaster for help, if you need to. + Using Gopher (Internet access needed) Use your "gopher" client program to connect to gopher.internic.net eg. on a typical Unix machine, try gopher gopher.internic.net or, if you do not have a gopher client installed, you can use a "telnet" client program to connect to gopher.internic.net eg. telnet gopher.internic.net When you get the login: prompt, reply gopher + Using the anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP) (Internet access needed) Use your FTP client program to connect to is.internic.net eg. ftp is.internic.net When you get the login: prompt, reply anonymous and follow the instructions on your screen. + Using Wide Area Information Services (WAIS) (Internet access needed) source name: internic-infoguide server name: is.internic.net + World-Wide Web (WWW) (Internet access needed) With your WWW client (eg. Lynx, Mosaic or WWW), give the reference http://www.internic.net/ ------------------------------ Subject: Internet documents and specifications. General Internet information documents are available from the DDN Network Information Center (which is part of the Internet). There are several "For Your Information (FYI)" documents published as part of the Internet "Request For Comments (RFC)" series of documents. These can be helpful in getting a better understanding of the Internet and its services and organization. Experienced, novice, and would-be Internet users can all benefit from reading these documents. Included among these are: RFC-1325 FYI-4: Answers to commonly asked "new Internet user" questions RFC-1462 FYI-20: "What is the Internet" RFC-1208 Glossary of Networking Terms RFC-1207 FYI: Answers to commonly asked "experienced Internet user" questions RFC-1178 Choosing a Name for your Computer RFC-1150 FYI on FYI: Introduction to the FYI notes To learn how to retrieve RFCs, get the following document by anonymous ftp from isi.edu: in-notes/rfc-retrieval.txt You can also get the information by sending electronic mail to rfc-info@isi.edu with the body of the message: help: ways_to_get_rfcs ------------------------------ Subject: Commercial networks. The Internet is composed of many networks, not just those sponsored or affiliated with the US Government. There are also commercial Internet service providers. Commercial firms that might not meet requirements for connecting to a US Government-related network can still connect to the TCP/IP Internet via commercial service providers not affiliated with the NSFNET or the DDN Internet. For a list of dialup Internet service providers, send email to info-deli-server@netcom.com with the single line query: Send PDIAL For a list of Internet service providers that offer Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) high-speed dialup access at 64kbps or higher, try http://alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn For a list of Internet (and UUCP) service providers, see the frequent posting "How to Become a Usenet Site" in the news.admin.misc, news.announce.newusers and news.answers newsgroups. (Archive-name: usenet/site-setup) You can also get this document by anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu, or by sending mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the single line request: send usenet-by-group/news.announce.newusers/How_to_become_a_Usenet_site O'Reilly and Associates has a mail server that provides a list of Internet Access providers who offer dedicated line connections. Send e-mail to: dlist@ora.com with an empty message body. If you have problems getting the information from dlist, send email to mj@ora.com If you have access to the WWW, you can get more info on network providers in different countries from the rather large list of all registered WWW servers at: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Geographical.html ------------------------------ Subject: Contributors This is a list of people who have made contributions to this document. The first version of this document was written by Randall Atkinson It was enhanced & edited until 5/93 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford). It was rewritten in Mar 94 by Mark Moraes , also the current maintainer. Thanks to the following for their contributions: Ed Vielmetti Denis Lafont Mary Jane Caswell-Stephenson Daniel R. Kegel --