Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!think!kulla!barmar
From: barmar@kulla (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  BITNET -- Internet capabilities
Message-ID: <31200@news.Think.COM>
Date: 28 Oct 89 21:24:11 GMT
References: <8910261650.AA20747@rt-jqj.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 17

BITNET-style file transfer is easily accomplished using FTP.  Many FTP
servers support anonymous FTP, which generally restricts the user to a
subset of the file system (on Unix it's generally a particular subtree, on
TOPS-20 it's world-accessible directories).  Sender-initiated file transfer
is done by using FTP to put the file into a directory to which anonymous
FTP has write access, then sending mail to the recipient telling him the
file's name.

Some BITNET hosts may provide better access control over the spool area
than the above, because the protocol includes the recipient's name and it
can distinguish writable spool areas from readable spool areas.  But for
many purposes the above mechanism is adequate.

Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar