Archie

Archie is an automatic information gathering utility designed to create an indexed directory listing for all anonymous FTP sites on the Internet. Archie uses a filename query string to search an Archie server's database to obtain the location of a file.

URLs:

See context below for external Archie-related URLs.

W3E References:

FTP

Archie is commonly used to locate a file to be retrieved by an FTP client.

Detail:

Archie servers are computers on the Internet which routinely log onto every known anonymous FTP server and retrieve a full directory listing of all the publicly available files. This information is stored in the Internet Archives Database. When a user issues an Archie command, the Archie software accesses the information stored on an Archie server. The parameters and filename string provided by the user are used to quickly search the data and return the results. (See Example 1: A typical Archie output, using "pkz204g.exe" as the search string.)

In order to gain access to Archie you will need either a shell account or a dial-up PPP/SLIP account on the Internet.

There are at least five ways to access Archie.
NOTE: The links in this list are internal anchors to this page.

1. direct Archie access from the command line
2. automatic Archie server access
3. manual telnet to an Archie server
4. via a WWW Archie service
5. via Archie E-mail

Tips for using Archie

• Always set the maximum number of items to find to 10 or fewer, otherwise your output may be extremely lengthy.
• Use full filenames as much as possible, the closer the pattern string to the file you are trying to locate, the shorter and more exact the output will be.

Direct Archie Access

If your ISP has command line Archie, then typing in "archie"<ENTER> would display the command line options similar to:

Usage: archie [-acelorstvLV] [-m hits] [-N level] string
          -a : list matches as Alex filenames
          -c : case sensitive substring search
          -e : exact string match (default)
          -r : regular expression search
          -s : case insensitive substring search
          -l : list one match per line
          -t : sort inverted by date
         -m hits : specifies maximum number of hits to return (default 95)
         -o filename : specifies file to store results in
         -h host : specifies server host
          -L : list known servers and current default
    -N level : specifies query niceness level (0-35765)

Automatic Archie Server Access

Your ISP may have the command "archie" defined to automatically telnet you to an Archie server. If this is your situation, refer to archie server commands below.

Telnet to an Archie Server

If your ISP does not have automated Archie access, you must telnet to an Archie server. You can try one of these or any other Archie server.

• archie.sura.net
• archie.unl.edu
• archie.internic.net
• archie.rutgers.edu
• archie.ans.net

Archie Server Commands

Here is a list of the important Archie server commands.

quit

end the Archie session and terminate the connection

find pattern

Search for pattern

prog pattern

the old command for find

whatis pattern

search the Software Description Database

help [?]/[command]

display the list of commands or the info for a specific command

manpage

display the archie server manual page

motd

redisplay the welcome message

servers

display a list of archie servers

set mailto addr

set the email address for mail output

mail [addr]

mail output

set maxhits number

sets the maximum number of items to find

set pager / unset pager

formats the output to display one page at a time / turns pager off

set status / unset status

displays the status line during a search / turns status line off

set output_format [verbose/terse/machine]

display the output using long, short or machine format

set sortby [none/filename/hostname/size/time/rfilename/rhostname/rsize/rtime]

sorts output, note: r- prefix implies reverse

set search [exact/sub/subcase/regex/exact_sub/exact_subcase/exact_regex]

search for [exact/anything containing/case sensitive anything containing/regular expression/exact then sub/exact then subcase/exact then regex]

WWW Archie

If your browser has forms capabilities, you can take advantage of the WWW Archie clients. A WWW Archie client is simply a Web form with all the Archie command line parameters transformed into pull-down lists and radio buttons.

Archie E-mail

If you have Internet e-mail you can use Archie by e-mail. In order to process an Archie search by email, you will need to send a message to the archie server. Address your email message to archie@servername, leave the subject blank and list each command on a separate line. Archie by email uses the same commands as a telnet archie server. Below is an example of the body of an email message bound for an Archie server:

set mailto thecolonel@las.vegas.com
set maxhits 10
set output_format verbose
set search exact
set sortby time
find elvis
quit