| Attached are both a message I sent to panarthea asking for help and the reply
I received from panrthea which contains the help file explainging all about
how to use the panarthea archive server.
If you are not able to get replies from panarthea you may want to add a PATH
command to your mail message (see path in the help file). As an example I
were to include a path command (I never have) it would look like this:
path [email protected]
Hope this helps,
Ray
From: OLDTMR::WALLACE 4-DEC-1989 11:33:02.23
To: DECWRL::"[email protected]"
CC: WALLACE
Subj:
send help
From: DECWRL::"[email protected]" 4-DEC-1989 11:37:46.25
To: oldtmr::wallace
CC:
Subj: How to use the Panarthea archive server
This message comes to you from the archive server at panarthea.sun.com,
archive-server%[email protected]. It received a message from you asking for
help.
The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail it a
request, and it mails back the response.
The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will just
answer "I don't understand you".
The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word on a
line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does anything,
so you can have several different commands in a single message. The archive
server treats the "Subject:" header line just like any other line of the
message. You can use any combination of upper and lower case letters in the
commands.
The archives are organized into a series of directories and subdirectories.
Each directory has an index, and each subdirectory has an index. The
top-level index gives you an overview of what is in the subdirectories, and
the index for each subdirectory tells you what is in it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try something,
then send the server a message containing the line
send index binaries
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the binaries
in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
files that you want:
send binaries/volume1 arc uucode tinydu
etc.
If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive-server%[email protected]. If your mailer deals in "!" notation, try
sending to {someplace}!sun!panarthea!archive-server, e.g.
decwrl!sun!panarthea!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is some more documentation. The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course, because
you are reading the help file. No other commands are honored in a
message that asks for help (the server figures that you had better
read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is "index",
then the server will send you the top-level index of the contents of
the archive. If there are other words on that line that match
the name of subdirectories, then the indexes for those subdirectories
are sent instead of the top-level index. For example, you can say
index
or
index sources
You can then send back another message to the archive server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the files
whose name you learned from that list.
(Footnote: "index binaries" and "send index binaries" mean the
same thing: you can use the "send" command instead of the "index"
command, if you want, for getting an index.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then all
other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you cannot
get an index and data in the same request. This is so that index
requests can be given high priority.
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is "send",
then the archive server will send you the item(s) named on the
rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory and its
name. For example
send binaries/volume2 ccprint
or
send sources/volume1 fastdump
Note that there is a space between the directory (category) name
and the names of the actual files.
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send sources/volume2/sed part01 part02
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get one binary and one source, you must use two
"send" commands, one beginning "send sources" and the other
beginning "send binaries".
If the server must use uucp mail to send your files, then it
cannot send more than 100K bytes in one message. If you ask for
more than it can send, then it will send as much as it can and
ignore the rest.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming path.
There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if you are a
true wizard, you already know what those reasons are. If you are an
apprentice wizard, you might not know all the reasons but you might
know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. For example, if you say
path pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj
then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address.
Try to use the Internet as much as possible:
path [email protected]
or
path cunyvm.cuny.edu!realhost!user
will both result in faster delivery than routing through dozens
of uucp-only sites.
If you would like the server to determine a uucp path for you,
using the most recent pathalias data, then put in a "path" command
with [email protected], e.g.:
path [email protected]
As you probably know, the pathalias data is sometimes wrong, but it
is often right.
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of binaries that are in the archive. Send this message:
To: archive-server%[email protected]
Subject: hi there
index binaries
2) Get the file-find Dumas uuencode utilities from the archive (you have
learned their file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive-server%[email protected]
Subject: send binaries/volume1 uucode
send binaries/volume5 ff
3) Get the mini-BBS binaries, and send them over the best path to my site:
To: sun.com!panarthea!archive-server
path [email protected]
send binaries/volume5/minibbs part01 part02 part03
NOTES:
The archive server acknowledges every request by return mail. If you don't
get a message back in a day or two (depending on how close you are to panarthea
on the network) you should assume that something is going wrong, and perhaps
try a "path" command. If you aren't getting anywhere and you don't know a
wizard to help you, try putting
path [email protected]
in your message, where "myname" is your mailbox name and "site" is the uucp
name of your machine.
The delays in sending out large items from the archives are intentional, to
make it difficult to get copies of everything in the archives. If you are new
to the network and would like to get all back issues of everything, you
should post a request to a regional newsgroup asking whether someone who is
geographically near you can provide them.
Don't send mail with long lines. If you want to ask for 20 binaries in one
request, you don't need to put all 20 of them in one "send" command. The
archive server is quite able to handle long lines, but before your mail
message is received by the archive server it might pass through relay
computers that will choke on long lines.
The archive server does not respond to requests from users named "root",
"system", "daemon", or "mailer". This is to prevent mail loops. If your name
is "Bruce Root" or "Joe Daemon", and you can document this, I will happily
rewrite the server to remove this restriction. Yes, I know about Norman
Mailer and Waverley Root. Norman doesn't use netmail and Waverley is dead.
% ==== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC)
% Received: by decwrl.dec.com; id AA10405; Mon, 4 Dec 89 08:32:36 -0800
% Received: from EBay.Sun.COM (male-bb.EBay.Sun.COM) by Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1)
% id AA12095; Mon, 4 Dec 89 08:32:29 PST
% Received: from panarthea by EBay.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1)
% id AA09898; Mon, 4 Dec 89 08:34:56 PST
% Received: by panarthea (4.0/SMI-4.0)
% id AA27010; Mon, 4 Dec 89 08:30:33 PST
% Date: Mon, 4 Dec 89 08:30:33 PST
% Message-Id: <8912041630.AA27010@panarthea>
% From: Panarthea archive service <[email protected]>
% In-Reply-To: message from [email protected]
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