From: umueller@iiic.ethz.ch (Urban Dominik Mueller)
Subject: All about FTP [long]
Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:49:52 GMT

0. Contents
===========
1. Introduction
2. FTP command list
3. Important sites
4. A Sample Session
5. The .netrc File
6. Archivers
7. The Archie Database
8. Mailservers
9. Transferring to Amiga



1. Introduction
===============

FTP  stands  for File Transfer Protocol, the program (ftp) with the same name
allows  you  to  gain access to some other machines and store and/or retrieve
files.   If  you  have a UNIX account with internet access and that box knows
the  command 'ftp', you're almost done.  If not, you have to get the files by
mail, see chapter 'mailservers'.

Normally  one  needs an account on the remote machine to use it, but a number
of machines have a setup that allows everybody to log in as the user 'ftp' or
'anonymous'.   When  you  log  in using the anonymous account you should type
your  home  login  name  as  the password, especially when you upload.  After
doing so you may retrieve all files found in the public areas there.



2. FTP command List
===================

The most important commands you'll need within ftp are:

open <site> Connects to a remote site, valid addresses see below
bin         Sets the connection to binary mode for transfer of non-text files
get <rem>   Receives the <remote> file. Can't do multiple files
mget <pat>  Receives the files indicated by <pattern> or listed as args
put <loc>   Transmits the local file <loc>
mput <loc>  Transmits the files indicated by <pattern> or listed as args
dir <pat>   Lists files in the current dir of the remote machine
ls <pat>    Lists (short) the files
cd <dir>    Changes the current directory on the remote site
lcd <dir>   Changes the current directory on the local site
mkdir <dir> Creates a new directory on the remote site
hash        Shows a progress report when downloading
close       Closes connection to the remote site
bye         Quits the FTP client

Some  specialties  you should know in addition.  The 'get' command allows you
to  add a second argument that indicates the name to store it under.  You can
use  that  to  enter '-' or '|more' as the local name to view text files that
are  on  the remote machine.  Example:  'get README |more' (no blank in front
of more!)

Also  note  that  the ls and dir command only takes one argument, this can be
either  an  option  or a pattern, but not both.  The second argument is again
interpreted as the name to store the output under.



3. Important Sites
==================

Location     Name                   Address         Directory
--------     ----                   -------         ---------
Switzerland  amiga.physik.unizh.ch  130.60.80.80    pub/aminet/
Switzerland  litamiga.epfl.ch       128.178.151.32  pub/aminet/
Scandinavia  ftp.luth.se            130.240.16.3    pub/aminet/
Germany      ftp.uni-kl.de          131.246.9.95    pub/aminet/
Germany      ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de    130.149.17.7    pub/aminet/
Germany      ftp.th-darmstadt.de    130.83.55.75    pub/aminet/
USA          ftp.etsu.edu           192.43.199.20   pub/aminet/
USA          ftp.wustl.edu          128.252.135.4   pub/aminet/
USA          oes.orst.edu           128.193.124.2   pub/aminet/

USA          wuarchive.wustl.edu    128.252.135.4   systems/amiga/
Finland      nic.funet.fi           128.214.6.100   pub/amiga/
Hawaii       hubcap.clemson.edu     130.127.8.1     pub/amiga/
USA          ux1.cso.uiuc.edu       128.174.5.59    pub/amiga/fish/
USA          grind.isca.uiowa.edu   128.255.19.233  amiga/fish/

Note  that  the first 9 sites together are called 'AmiNet'.  They mirror each
other  which  means they have the same files.  This is only a small subset of
the  FTP  sites  around,  a  complete list can be found on hubcap.clemson.edu
under the name pub/amiga/FTP-Sites.txt .


4. A Sample Session
===================

This is an example FTP session. What you type is in [angle] brackets.

~> 
   [ftp]

ftp> 
     [open 130.60.80.80]
Connected to amiga.physik.unizh.ch.
220 amiga FTP server (Version 5.60.97 Wed Dec 9 22:23:21 MET 1992) ready.
Name (amiga:umueller): 
                       [ftp]
331 Guest login ok, send your userid as password.
Password:
          [kdalton]
230- Welcome to amiga.physik anonymous FTP server
230-      .....
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> 
     [cd pub/aminet]
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> 
     [get RECENT |more]
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for RECENT (5676 bytes).
| Recent uploads to amiga.physik.unizh.ch [130.60.80.80] on 11-Dec-1992
| The last 7 days' uploads, newest first. Blank line=new day, + = long .readme
|
|File                Dir        Size Description
|------------------- ---        ---- -----------
tiff2iff.lha         gfx/conv     7K Converts TIFF files to Amiga IFF
DNetIRCpic.lzh       comm/net    16K Demo picture of DNet IRC
DNetIRC.lha          comm/net    88K+IRC intuition DNet client (dnetlib.o neede
ICoons_Nofp.lzh      gfx/3d     172K+Spline based object modeller (no 68881 nee
1993.lha             mods/u4ia  109K+ProTracker Module By U4ia called '1993'
skick321.lha         os20/util   37K+Soft-kicker under OS 2.0 - new release
monoxyde.dms         demo/mega  477K+MONOXYDE - new demo by Vanish
baudbandit1.4b.lha   comm/misc   16K+Version 1.4b of baudbandit.device
jed206b.lha          util/edit  144K+programmable, programmers editor. OS2.0+
--More--
         [q]
226 Transfer complete.
local: |more remote: RECENT
5763 bytes received in 4.5 seconds (1.2 Kbytes/s)
ftp> 
     [cd game/think]
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> 
     [bin]
200 Type set to I.
ftp> 
     [get t-triz.lzh]
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for t-triz.lzh (56496 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: t-triz.lzh remote: t-triz.lzh
56496 bytes received in 0.43 seconds (1.3e+02 Kbytes/s)
ftp> 
     [bye]
221 Goodbye.
~> 


5. The .netrc File
==================

You  can  put a file named .netrc in your homoe directory and make it contain
all information about how to log in at your favourite FTP site, it'll be done
automatically.   After  you  create  it, you have to 'chmod 600 .netrc' or it
won't  be  accepted.   Here's  an example, changed the password to your login
name.  And never forget to add a blank line after the last command!

machine amiga.physik.unizh.ch
login ftp
password kdalton
macdef init
bin
cd pub/aminet


6. Archivers
============

Most files on FTP sites store their files in archived (compressed) format.
You can recognize the archiver used by the ending of the file name. These
are the most important ones:

Suffix  Archiver        Filename on Aminet

.lzh    LhA             LhA_e138.run
.lha    LhA             LhA_e138.run
.zoo    Zoo             zoo2-10.lzh
.zip    Zip             unzip-4.1.lzh
.dms    DMS             dms111.sfx
.run    (LhA)           -
.sfx    (LhA)           -
.tar.Z  tar, compress   tar-compress.lzh

The  AmigaDOS  versions  of  those archivers can be found on the AmiNet sites
(see  above)  in  the directory pub/aminet/util/arc/ and to give you a start,
LhA is also stored in self-extracting form (.run or .sfx), just execute it to
extract it.  .run files are in fact .lha files with a special header.

UNIX versions of most of these archivers are available:

LhA  ftp.th-darmstadt.de  /pub/archivers/lha-1.00.tar.Z  
Zoo  wuarchive.wustl.edu  /packages/compression/zoo-2.10.tar.Z
Zip  acsc.com             /pub/unzip401.tar.Z
Dms  wuarchive.wustl.edu  /systems/amiga/utilities/cli/archive/dmscheck.lzh


7. The Archie Database
======================

There is a database of all files on all FTP sites worldwide, called 'archie'.
They  have  a mailserver, a telnet service, and a client software.  Telnet to
archie.sura.net and log in as 'archie', or send a mail containing HELP in its
body to archie@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca .  You'll get more info that way.


8. Mailservers
==============

Some  sites  allow  sending  them magic mails which make them FTP things from
other  sites, uuencode them and send them to you.  Others only send the files
stored  locally at that site.  Here are the most important mail servers, send
a  mail  containing  HELP  in its body to find out more about them (note that
German links are slow, generally):

ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
mailserver@nic.funet.fi
ftp-mailer@ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de
mrcserv@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca
mail-server@ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu


9. Transferring to Amiga
========================

After  you  have  the  files  on your UNIX account, you need to get the files
home.   If  you  have  a  modem-connection  to  your  account,  there are two
possibilities:   ZMODEM  and  UUencode.   The better one is using the program
'sz'  which  sends  files  using the ZMODEM protocol.  If it's not present on
your site, you can get it from krynn.efd.lth.se:/pub/modem/rzsz9107.tar.Z and
compile  it,  or  use archie to find a version specific for your UNIX flavor.
IF that's not possible, type 'uuencode <filename fileane' to get your file
typed to the screen. That output you store in a capture file of your terminal
program and uudecode it (uudecode can be found on Fish Disk 92).

If  you don't have a modem, you can try to find a workstation with 3.5" Drive
as  the  Sun4  computers have.  There you can either use the mtools (try 'man
mcopy')  to store the files in MSDOS format and retrieve them using MSH (Fish
Disk   382),   or   you   use   gnu   tar   (UNIX  version:   decuac.dec.com,
/pub/binaries/gnutar-1.10.tar.Z)  to  store  files to the disk in .tar format
using  the  command  'gtar cfvM /dev/rfd0c'.  Then you restore the files with
gnu gtar (amiga.physik.unizh.ch:pub/aminet/util/gnu/gtar110.lzh) and the FLAT
device  (Fish Disk 535) and MSH (or any other PC format reading tool).  Mount
FLAT:,  and then enter 'gtar xfvM flat:MSH' or replace the MSH by the name of
your emulation tools.


If  you'd  like  some  additional  info  to  be included in this FAQ, contact
ftp@amiga.physik.unizh.ch.  -Urban Dominik Mueller
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc