Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf.edu!wet!epsilon
From: epsilon@wet.UUCP (Eric P. Scott)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: ftp
Message-ID: <498@wet.UUCP>
Date: 30 Aug 89 04:12:37 GMT
References: <820@adelphi.UUCP> <4902@eos.UUCP>
Reply-To: epsilon@wet.UUCP (Eric P. Scott)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco
Lines: 48

In article <820@adelphi.UUCP> markd@adelphi.UUCP (Mark J. DeFilippis) writes:
>I am sure this must have been asked 10000+ times, but I have not seen
>it recently and I have been looking for a while.
Most sites expire news after 2 weeks, and it may actually have
been two weeks since we last addressed it.  :-)

>1.  What exactly is ftp
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol.  It's one of the basic
services available to Internet sites.  If you are not connected
to the Internet, this probably doesn't help you.  
>	               We archive net sources here at Adelphi
>	University, and maybe I can make them available via anonymous
>	uucp and/or ftp if I can get information on ftp.
There are several sites already archiving usenet sources and
making them available for anonymous FTP.  Since the networks
don't "charge more for distance" the existing sites are probably
adequate.   For anonymous uucp, there's a clear benefit to
making sources available this way.  (Consider also that networks
multiplex traffic, whereas dialup uucp means one phone line tends
to handle exactly one connection for as long as the call lasts,
so more phone lines are always welcome!)

>2.  I notice several requests from people asking for someone to 
>	"mail me the sources for xyz".  I would like to help, but
>	don't know exactly how to mail them, and I don't want to
>	get anyone angry.  Do I just mail the source code via email?
>	Is this type of bandwidth usage frowned upon?
This is only a problem if a lot of people all mail the same thing
at once.  If you have something large, send a message saying "I
have X and will mail it on request."  Let the recipient advise
you of any special formats, etc.  "Packaging" is usually a good
idea.  For UNIX sources, find out what shar, tar, compress, and
uuencode do, and when to use them.  Some mail systems impose
limits on the size of individual messages; 100,000 bytes is
typical, although I've seen 50,000.  Moderated digests that
split at 40,000 seem to do o.k., so that's a conservative lower
bound.  (For non-UNIX sources, ... ask--there may be special
requirements.)


In article <4902@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:
>FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol." It dates back to the earliest
>days of the ARPAnet (NCP days) about 1969.

The history can be found in RFC 959; I think it's more like
1971.  A year here, a year there...

					-=EPS=-