Announcing FTP-Mail server
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 13:07:23 GMT
Message-ID: <1993Sep14.131750.13310_at_arbi.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>
Hello,
the FTP-Mail Software for ftp.Uni-Oldenburg.DE is now installed. You can access ftp.Uni-Oldenburg.DE:/pub/unix/oracle/* even if you have no ftp-account or only a _very_ slow ftp connection.
Just try to send a message with the subject 'help' or 'ping' to
'ftpmail_at_aix01.hrz.uni-oldenburg.de'.
If there are any problems or questions about the ftpmail server send mail to 'Ingo.Wilken_at_Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE' the FTP-Mail admin.
The help file is appended to these message.
Tschuess,
Andreas
Welcome!
This mailserver is only a mail frontend for the FTP archive of the University of Oldenburg, so if you are able to use FTP, please do so. The address is
ftp.uni-oldenburg.de [134.106.40.9] This should be much faster than using the mailserver.
To avoid certain problems (like endless loops between a bouncing mailer and this mailserver), the mailserver only answers to certain Subject: lines in the mailheader. All subjects are case-insensitive, and only the first word in the subject is checked (thus, "help me" is a valid subject, for example).
Subject: ping
This can be used to check the connection between the mailserver and your site. The server sends the header of your mail back to you, the body of your mail is ignored.
Subject: help
Sends you this help file. The body of your mail is ignored.
Subject: info
same as "help"
Subject: index
Sends you the recursive directory listing. Body is ignored.
Subject: request
This is the usual subject when sending mail to the server. The mailserver interprets the body of your mail, and the output of the commands is send back to you.
empty subject or no subject line at all
same as "request"
Remember that you must supply a valid reply-address in the Reply-To: or From: fields of your mailheader. The PING, HELP and INDEX answers and the REQUEST parse output are send to that address, the PATH command (see below) has no effect on these mails!!
REPLY-ADDRESS
Intially the mailserver get the reply-address from the mailheader. If there is a Reply-To: field in your mailheader, the server uses that address. Otherwise the reply-address is taken from the From: field. The server recognizes three variants:
- From/Reply-To: Realname <address>
- From/Reply-To: address (Realname)
- From/Reply-To: address
COMMANDS
Command keywords are case-insensitive, directory names and filenames are case-sensitive. Wildcards in filenames are not supported yet. <arg> means a single argument, <arg_list> means one or several arguments separated by whitespace. Arguments in square brackets [] are optional.
CD <dir>
CWD <dir>
change directory (Unix-style). You always start in the root directory of the FTP server and have to CD down to some directory where the stuff you want is.
DIR [<dir_list>]
LS [<dir_list>]
list all files in a directory. With no arguments, DIR lists the current directory.
SEND <file_list>
GET <file_list>
sends the requested file(s) as encoded mail. To minimize the the load of the machine, the files are not send immediately. All SEND requests are queued until non-business hours.
ZSEND <file_list>
ZGET <file_list>
same as SEND, but the files are compressed before encoding. Files with suffixes lzh, lha, zoo, arc, Z and zip are already compressed, so ZSEND works as a normal SEND in this case.
INDEX
SEND INDEX
GET INDEX
ZSEND INDEX
ZGET INDEX
sends the index file (a file containing a recursive directory listing) as
a separate mail. INDEX commands are not queued, the index file is send
immediately. ZSEND/ZGET sends it as a compressed and encoded file, otherwise
it it send as plain text.
HELP
SEND HELP
GET HELP
ZSEND HELP
ZGET HELP
sends this help file as a separate mail. HELP commands are not queued,
the help file is send immediately. ZSEND/ZGET sends it as a compressed
and encoded file, otherwise it it send as plain text.
MAILSIZE <n>
LIMIT <n>
split mails into pieces of <n> KB or <n> * 1000 bytes or <n> bytes: If <n> is a very small number (<= 1024), then it is multiplied by 1000, or (if followed by a 'k' or 'K') by 1024. Otherwise it is taken directly as the number of bytes:
MAILSIZE 8 -> 8000 bytes
MAILSIZE 8K -> 8192 bytes
MAILSIZE 8200 -> 8200 bytes
As a special case, MAILSIZE 0 has the effect of sending the mails
unsplit, no matter how large they are.
The minimum size is 5000 bytes, the maximum 1MB. The default size is
50000 bytes. Please note that the size does NOT include the header,
only the body of the mail.
RESEND <file> <part_list>
REGET <file> <part_list>
With multi-part mailings, it can happen that one or several part(s) do not arrive or get corrupted on the way. Instead of requesting the entire file again, you can request only the missing parts with this command. <part> is the number of the missing part. You must set MAILSIZE to the same value as in the original request prior to using the RESEND command! You cannet REGET parts of the help and index files!! Example: You requested the file "foobar.lzh" from /pub/amiga/bar with the default mailsize of 50 KB. The file arrived in 10 parts, but parts 4 and 5 somehow got corrupted. Just do this:
CD /pub/amiga/bar
RESEND foobar.lzh 4 5
ZRESEND <file> <part>
ZREGET <file> <part>
Same as RESEND for files that were requested with ZSEND.
VIEW <file_list>
SHOW <file_list>
allows you to view the contents of a lharc (.lzh), lha, zoo, arc, tar or compressed tar (.tar.Z) archive. [NOT SUPPORTED FOR NOW!!!]
TYPE <file_list>
CAT <file_list>
show an ASCII (text) file directly. Use this command to read the readmefile that usually accompanies an archive. The text file is inserted in the answer mail, so there is no delay like with a GET command. ATTENTION: don't try to TYPE a non-ASCII file. This will result in garbage, and most likely crashes a mailer somewhere between here and your site.
BTOA
UUENCODE
XXENCODE
Selects the encoding method. Default is UUENCODE.
COMPRESS
FREEZE
Selects the compression method for ZSEND. Default is COMPRESS.
START
BEGIN
marks the begin of commands, ignore anything above this line.
BYE
END
QUIT
EXIT
marks the end of commands. All text following this command is ignored.
PATH <address>
Override the reply-address from the mailheader with <address>. Note that
only commands following this are affected, all SEND commands prior to this
command use the old address.
Example: PATH bart_at_simp.sons.edu
REPLY <address>
This is the same as PATH, but it also affects the initial answermail from
the server. Hmm, I think a longer explanation is needed for this one:
For every request-mail (Subject: request), you get at least one mail back:
the output from parsing the body of your mail. This mail is send to the
address found in the From:/Reply-To: field of the mailheader. The PATH
command has no effect on this mail, but the REPLY command has.
The PATH command only affects all following GET/ZGET/REGET/etc. commands.
The REPLY command does this too, but also changes the address where the
parse output is send to.
This command is only useful if your mail software creates bogus From:
fields and you cannot add Reply-To: fields to your mailheaders, or if
there is some nasty address re-writing machine somewhere that also changes
Reply-To: fields.
IN CASE OF PROBLEMS
Just look at the header of the mails you get from the mailserver. There should be a line "X-ErrorsTo: <some address>". Send all complains, bug reports, ideas, cookies, chocolate bars etc. to that address.
That's all, folx.
--Received on Tue Sep 14 1993 - 15:07:23 CEST
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Name : Andreas Bartelt / Nickname: Tares Organization: Fachbereich 10 Informatik Softwarelab., Universitaet Oldenburg EMail : Andreas.Bartelt_at_Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE FTP-Adm/Unix: bartelt_at_aix01.HRZ.Uni-Oldenburg.DE
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