From: bx341@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Robert E. Winston)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Subject: Re: FTP access through mail?
Date: 2 Oct 92 03:23:00 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


 > How does one use the FTP through e-mail?

There are three ways to retrieve Mac files from the Internet 
to your mailbox.

The easiest is to use the Listserv@ricevm1.rice.edu. 
Send E-Mail to: 

Listserv@ricevm1.rice.edu

Leave the subject line blank.

Send this message exactly:

$MACARCH GET help/accessing-files.txt 
$MACARCH GET help/all-files.txt

You will receive, a few minutes later, a help file and a list of
all the Mac files. The Rice Listserv is a 'mirror' of
info-mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu and contains all the same files.

It runs about 24 hours behind Sumex in posting new files, so
take that into consideration if you want files listed in 
today's Info-Mac digest. 
To order additional files, just cut and paste
the path/filename after a "$MACARCH GET" command. <no quotes, of
course.> 

For example, the latest version of ZTerm is listed as:

258256	Feb	15	17:07	./comm/zterm-09.hqx

To retrieve this file, send this note:

<to:> Listserv@ricevm1.rice.edu 
<subject:> 
<message:> $MACARCH GET comm/zterm-09.hqx

Files arrive compressed with Stuffit or Compact Pro and
binhexed.
You are limited to 256K per day (which starts at 1:00AM). If you
need a file that is larger then 256K then order only that one
file.

The other major Mac archive site is at the University of
Michigan.
It now has its own mail server.
For a list of all files and a help file send a note to:

mac@mac.archive.umich.edu

with the message:

Help
Send /00help/allfiles.txt

It has a limit of 5 files or 1mb per 24 hours.

There is a way to access any ftp site through E-mail but it's
more cumbersome. You have to send a precisely formatted message
to ftpmail@pa.dec.com which in turn contacts the ftp site on
your behalf and attempts to retrieve the requested files. Files
through ftpmail@pa.dec.com take about 24 hours to arrive. To get
a help file send a note to:

ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com

Leave the subject blank and send the message:

Help

To see how ftpmail works, you can obtain the file list from
Apple's ftp site by sending this message to: 

ftpmail@pa.dec.com:

Connect ftp.apple.com 
binary 
UUencode 
Compress 
Get /dts/help/dir-files-all 
Quit

This will retrieve the file compressed in Unix .z and UUencoded.
If you can, you should use this method for getting long text
files.(>100K)(UU is a kind of Unix binhex.) 
If you don't specify UUencoding then dec.com uses the default 
btoa, which you probably can't decode.

If you can't deal with UU and .z, order the files as plain text.
For the plain text version send:
 
Connect ftp.apple.com 
ascii
Chunksize 100000  
Get /dts/help/dir-files-all 
Quit

Since binhexed (.hqx) files are already ascii encoded, use ascii
(not binary) when retrieving these files.

Example: To get ResEdit from apple.com send a note to
ftpmail@pa.dec.com with this message:

Connect ftp.apple.com 
ascii
Chunksize 100000 
Get /dts/mac/tools/resedit/resedit-2-1-1.hqx 
Quit

Ftpmail is normally sent out in 50000 byte messages.
If your mailer can handle it, use the "Chunksize" command to set
this to the maximum of 100000 bytes.

Mac files on the Internet are usually compressed with Stuffit or
Compact Pro and then converted to ascii with Binhex 4. Stuffit
Expander will decompress any form of Stuffit or Compact Pro
file.

Stuffit has a dehexer under the Translators menu and Compact Pro
has one under the Misc. menu. You may also need MacCompress for
decompressing Unix .z files and UULite 1.4 for converting UU
files.

To receive these files (and this assumes that you have a way to
dehex them), send a note to:

Listserv@RiceVM1.Rice.Edu 

Leave the subject blank and send the message:

$MACARCH GET util/stuffit-expander-101.hqx
$MACARCH GET util/uu-lite-14.hqx
$MACARCH GET util/maccompress-32.hqx

________
Robert E. Winston      usr4818a@tso.uc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm,comp.sys.mac.system,comp.unix.aux