A Beginner's Guide to the Internet/INTERNET.ISO/text/guides/help/archftp.hlb

Text File | 1994-07-15 | 4.8 KB | 92 lines

Archie - The Internet File Locator

    Archie is a tool used to locate files on the Internet.  Unlike
Exec-PC, where all the files are located in one place, files on the
Internet are located on numerous machines scattered around the world.
This makes it difficult to locate the file you are looking for.
Fortunately, the operators of many of the systems that archive files
have agreed to help maintain lists of what they have on their systems.
There are a little over a dozen archie servers that collect the lists
of files from all the sites.  On this system, we have a program that
automatically makes the connection to an archie server and performs
the query for you.
    There are several different type of searches that can be
performed on archie.  Two of the most common types of searches are
already set up on the menu.  All you need to do is type in what you
want to search for.  For the other types of searches, select the first
option to run archie, and specify which type of search you want as
described below.  Keep in mind that the file lists on archie do NOT
have file descriptions attached to them.  What you are entering is a
string to search for within file names themselves.  If you want a
software package that performs a particular function, but you don't
know the actual name of a package, your best bet is to ask someone who
is more familiar with software of that type, or check out a newsgroup
that deals with that subject.
    The four main types of searches are selected by placing a
letter with a dash in front of it at the beginning of the command you
enter after the menu disappears.  The "s" search, which is probably
used more than any other, performs a case insensitive search for the
string you specify anywhere within a file name.  Thus, if the string
you entered was "jog", archie would match "jogging.txt" and
"letsjog.zip", as an example.  The "e" search will match files only if
their name matches exactly (case sensitive) what you entered.  This
would be a good option to choose if you know the file you are looking
for, but just don't know where to find it.  The "c" search is exactly
the same as the "s" search, except that the search is case sensitive.
And, lastly, the "r" search allows you to give a "regular expression"
as a search string.  Regular expressions are strings made up of
pattern matching constructs.  To find out more about regular
expressions, and how to set up searches with them, check out the
manual page for the "grep" commands by typing "man grep" at the
command line.
    If you have any trouble with archie that you cannot figure out
by reading the help files, please feel free to send a mail message to
help on this system.

Retreiving files with the File Transfer Protocol

    More than half of the bytes that traverse the internet do so
through FTP.  FTP is roughly analogous to the files section on a BBS.
In FTP, however, all the files are not in one place.  They're on
thousands of computers world-wide.  Perhaps you've heard about a
particular FTP site in a newsgroup, or from a friend, or perhaps you
used the archie tool to look for a specific file, and were given a
list of ftp sites where you could find it.

    When you select ftp, enter the site name (example:
"wuarchive.wustl.edu", which is one of the biggest sites in the world).
You'll then be on the remote system as an FTP user.  FTP sites work
on the principle of a directory structure, much like a DOS drive.
Files are typically kept in the "pub" directory, and subdirectories
thereof.

Common ftp commands:

ls    - List files in the current directory
cd    - Change directory (eg: cd pub)
mget  - get multiple files (eg: mget foo1.zip foo2.zip foo3.zip)
page  - look at a file, one screen at a time (eg: page README).
bye   - close the ftp connection.

    Files that you transfer are placed in your home directory here
on the Exec-PC Internet Gateway.  You can then download them with the
File Transfers option on the main menu.  Don't forget to remove them
from your directory afterwards, as you have only 2 megabytes of space.

    Other things to remember are that filenames are case sensitive
(this applies to just about everything on the Internet and in Unix).
Also, if you restrict your ftp access to off hours, you're much more
likely to connect to otherwise busy sites, and transfers will be an
order of magnitude faster.

    The FTP software here normally logs you into the remote system
as an anonymous user automatically.  However, you may need to do this
yourself at some point.  Note: if you run FTP from the command line,
you can use "ncftp", which logs you in automatically.  The normal
"ftp" program doesn't log you in automatically.  To log in
anonymously, at the login prompt enter either "ftp" or "anonymous",
then at the password, you can enter your login name with a '@'
appended to the end, which will send your full Internet address to the
remote system (which most ftp sites require).