=========================================================================
=========================================================================
=========================================================================
The following was retreived from Tapcis forum on compuserve:
The complete file is in the Tapcis libraries as file: FTPNET.ZIP
It is compuserve specific, but the method and observations can easily 
be adapted to other systems
=========================================================================
=========================================================================
=========================================================================

February 1, 1994  (Original file was dated Jan 15, 1993;
previously updated May 28, 1993, and June 13, 1993)
 
This archive contains the following files:
 
   FTPMAIL.HLP   -  The official ftpmail help file from
                    decwrl.dec.com
   (Reproduced at the bottom of this file)
 
   ARCHMAIL.HLP  -  The official archie email help file from
                    archie.rutgers.edu (called to my attention
                    by Jeremy Hall)
 
   UUDECODE.EXE  -  Version 4.21 of Richard Marks' freeware MS-
                    DOS implementation of the UNIX uudecode
                    program
 
   UUENCODE.EXE  -  The corresponding MS-DOS implementation of
                    the UNIX uuencode program -- not necessary
                    for ftp, but it can be useful if you want to
                    *send* a binary file to the Internet
 
   UUDECODE.DOC  -  Documentation file for the foregoing
 
   COMPRESS.EXE  -  Version 4.3d of the freeware MS-DOS
                    implementation of the UNIX
                    compress/decompress program
 
   COMPRESS.DOC  -  Documentation file for the foregoing
 
   TAR.EXE       -  MS-DOS implementation of the UNIX tar (tape
                    archive) archiver/unarchiver
 
   TAR.MAN       -  Documentation file for TAR.EXE
 
   README.TXT    -  This file
 
Much of the information in this file is based on or inspired by
the excellent guidance provided by Ed Krol in his book, "The
Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog," published by O'Reilly
and Associates, Inc., 1992 (ISBN 1-56592-025-2). If you are
interested in learning about what is available on the Internet,
you want this book. Even at its full list price of $24.95, it is
a very worthwhile investment.
 
In the Internet world, one of the most common means of
downloading files is via the anonymous file transfer protocol, or
"anonymous ftp." With this system, an Internet user connects to a
remote machine which supports the protocol, logs on as
"anonymous," and gives his or her own Internet E-Mail address
when prompted for a password.  The user is then allowed to
download files from certain areas of the host computer. There are
hundreds, if not thousands, of hosts on the Internet which permit
anonymous ftp.
 
It is not very well known, but thanks to a program written by
Paul Vixie and publicly available on a server located at (but not
supported by) the Digital Equipment Corporation, one can
"anonymous ftp" files--both ASCII and binary--from the Internet,
using nothing more than CompuServe Mail.
 

                                 FTPMAIL
                                 -------
 
The basic procedure is simplicity itself:  You send a carefully
formatted C-Mail message to
 
                 INTERNET:ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
 
and, in a day or so, the file you requested will appear in your
CompuServe Mailbox.  Between the dispatch of your message and the
arrival of the file, you will probably receive a couple of
automated reports on the status of your request.
 
The essential part of the above instruction is "carefully
formatted."  Your request will be handled entirely by automatic
software routines and will not be reviewed by any human beings;
thus, the formatting must be letter perfect, or the request will
fail.  Full instructions for setting up the E-Mail request are
contained in FTPMAIL.HLP, but since that file was written
primarily for UNIX users who have mail access to the Internet,
some explanation for the DOS-oriented CompuServe user might be
useful.
 
For openers, the Subject of your request message can be anything
you like.  You might want to use a subject that will remind you of
the name of the file you are requesting, as all the messages you
receive from decwrl.dec.com in response to your request will
carry the same subject.
 
Below are a couple of commented sample messages I sent via
C-Mail to INTERNET:ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com to request,
respectively, README, a fairly short (19 Kb) ASCII file
describing the layout of the site at wuarchive.wustl.edu, and
BRIDGETU.ZIP, a longer (112 Kb) binary file containing a
shareware bridge game called "BridgePal," located at a site at
the University of Georgia (server.uga.edu).
 
Here's the full message I used to get README; comments are keyed
to the bracketed numbers following each line (which are *not*
included in the message):
----------
  reply 72662.1377@compuserve.com             [1]
  connect wuarchive.wustl.edu                 [2]
  ascii                                       [3]
  chdir /                                     [4]
  get README                                  [5]
  quit                                        [6]
-----------
 
[1]  This entry tells the server where to send the status reports
     and, ultimately, the file.  If there is no "reply" entry,
     the default will be the return address of your message.
     Since glitches occasionally appear in the return address, it
     is safest to use the "reply" entry, with your CompuServe
     UserID in "Internet format," as shown.
 
[2]  Tells the server the name of the computer on which your file
     can be found for anonymous ftp.  (wuarchive.wustl.edu is a
     very popular ftp site, but it suffered a major crash on
     January 13, 1994; as of this writing, it had not yet been
     restored.)
 
[3]  Specifies that the file is in ASCII format.  The alternative
     is "binary".  The default here is "ascii", but getting into
     the habit of specifying the type of file is probably good
     practice.
 
[4]  Tells the server the name of the directory in which your
     file can be found.  (In this case, it is the root
     directory.)  NOTE that UNIX directory path separators are
     *forward* slashes, as opposed to the backslashes used in the
     DOS world.
 
[5]  Tells the server the name of the file to be obtained.
     *NOTE* that UNIX is case-sensitive, so README, readme, and
     Readme would be three different files!
 
[6]  Tells the server the request is complete and that anything
     else in the message may be ignored.  This entry is not
     required, but it is probably a good idea, particularly if
     CIS Mail is adding a "Distribution" line to the end of your
     messages.
 
Now, here is what the message requesting BRIDGETU.ZIP--a longer,
binary file--looked like:
----------
  reply 72662.1377@compuserve.com         [1]
  connect server.uga.edu                  [2]
  binary                                  [3]
  chdir /pub/msdos/games                  [4]
  uuencode                                [5]
  chunksize 100000                        [6]
  get bridgetu.zip                        [7]
  quit                                    [8]
----------
 
[1]  See above.
 
[2]  See above; server.uga.edu is a site at the University of
     Georgia.
 
[3]  Specifies that this is a binary file.
 
[4]  Tells the server that the file is located in the directory
     /pub/msdos/games (note the forward slashes).
 
[5]  Specifies that the server should "encode" this binary file
     as an ASCII file, using the standard UNIX uuencode system.
     (See notes below on uuencode/uudecode.)  Note that this
     encoding will add about 35% to the size of the file.  The
     default, if uuencode is not specified, is a routine called
     btoa (binary-to-ASCII).
 
[6]  Usually, the server will split the file into sections
     ("chunks") for mailing.  This entry tells the server the
     maximum size which should be used for each chunk.  The
     default is 64000, but since the gateway between the
     Internet and CompuServe Mail now allows files up to 2MB in
     size, you may use anything up to 100000, which is the
     maximum accepted by ftpmail.  (The instructions in
     FTPMAIL.HLP which advise setting chunksize=49000 may be
     ignored; they were written before the gateway increase to
     2MB.)  Leaving this entry out--as we did with the README
     file above--will cause no harm; you just get your file in
     "chunks" of no more than 64Kb each.  BRIDGETU.ZIP is about
     112Kb to start with; uuencoding it brings its size to
     something like 151Kb, so it will be delivered in two
     messages (or "chunks").
 
[7]  Tells the server to get the file named bridgetu.zip.
 
[8]  See above.
 

                        UUENCODE/UUDECODE
                        -----------------
 
A few words about uuencode/uudecode:
 
Many of the files available for anonymous ftp are in binary
format, but Internet mail, including mail from the Internet to a
CompuServe address, is limited to ASCII text files.  The most
common way of solving this problem is to use an encoding/decoding
routine, such as UNIX' well-known uuencode/uudecode to put the
binary file in ASCII form (uuencode) and later to restore the
ASCII to binary (uudecode).  These programs are available in
executable form on most Internet hosts, and the decwrl.dec.com
server will, if the parameter is specified, uuencode binary files
before sending them to your CompuServe address.  Since each three
bytes of a binary file are uuencoded as four ASCII characters, a
uuencoded file will be about a third again as large as the binary
file on which it was based.  (Actually, because of overhead, the
uuencoded file winds up being 35% larger than the binary.)  Thus,
when you receive a binary file via ftpmail, it will be in
uuencoded ASCII format.  You can restore it to binary form with
the enclosed UUDECODE.EXE program; for the curious or the
compulsive, UUDECODE.DOC gives the full details of how
UUDECODE.EXE works, but its actual use is quite simple:
 
   a.  If the uuencoded file in your CompuServe mailbox is
contained in a single message, simply save the message as a file
with the TAPCIS F10 command.  (NOTE: If the message is too large
be handled by the TAPCIS message reader, you will see a "Message
too large for free memory" warning issued by TAPCIS.  In this
case, you should extract the message from your MAIL.MSG file with
an external text editor and save it as a file.  If you do not
have such an editor or do not wish to use one, setting
chunksize=50000 should ensure that no single message is too large
for the TAPCIS message reader.)
 
   b.  Then, from DOS, issue the following command
 
          UUDECODE <filename>
 
   c.  The uudecode program will automatically detect the
beginning and end of the uuencoded file contained in the message,
will convert it to binary, and--not unlike TAPCIS writing a
B-Mailed file as MAILnn.BIN--will write it to disk with the name
FTPMAIL.  You can then rename FTPMAIL to its "real" name with the
DOS REName command, and the file is ready to be used.
 
   d.  If the uuencoded file you receive is larger than 100,000
characters, it will be spread over several messages.  In this
case, you should use a text editor to save the individual
messages as separate files (perhaps giving them names such as
<file>1.UUE, <file>2.UUE, etc.).  You can then issue the DOS
command
 
          UUDECODE <file>
 
and UUDECODE will work its way through the individual files,
automatically stripping out the headers and other extraneous
material, and will write the resultant binary file to disk with
the name FTPMAIL, as above.  (NOTE: Should it appear that
UUDECODE has become "confused" by a multipart file, you can use
your text editor to remove the headers and assemble all the
parts--in the proper order--into a single uuencoded file, which
can then be uudecoded per paragraphs b and c, above.
 

                         COMPRESS
                         --------
 
UNIX has a "compress" routine for minimizing the size of a text
file. Compressing a file will make it a binary file and add ".Z"
to its filename (in UNIX) or change the last letter of the
filename extension to "Z" (in DOS). Thus, if you see a file at an
ftp site which has the extension .Z, you will know that it has
already been compressed; as indicated in the FTPMAIL.HLP file,
you can also tell decwrl.dec.com to compress a file before
sending it to you.  (There may not be much to be gained by
compressing a text file, however, as much of what you gain with
compress may be lost by the subsequent necessity to uuencode the
resultant binary .Z file.)
 
Decompressing can be done in one of two ways, using
COMPRESS.EXE, which is included in this package. You can enter:
 
                      COMPRESS -d [infile]
 
or you can DOS copy COMPRESS.EXE to a new file called UNCOMP.EXE
and enter:
 
                      UNCOMP [infile]
 
(In both cases, <infile> is the name of the compressed file.)
 
For more information on the full capabilities and options
available with COMPRESS.EXE, see COMPRESS.DOC.
 

                          THE TAR PITS
                          ------------
 
Another form of file archive which you may encounter in the UNIX
world is the tar (<t>ape <ar>chive), which is *roughly*
equivalent to the ZIP and ARC files with which we are familiar in
DOS.  If you acquire a *.tar file by anonymous ftp, you can
unarchive it using the TAR.EXE utility included in this package.
The simplest syntax is:
 
                      TAR -xvf [infile]
 
The process can be even further simplified by using the enclosed
TARX.BAT batch file and entering:
 
                       TARX [infile]
 
For details on the functioning of TAR.EXE and its associated
batch files, see TAR.MAN.
 

                    FINDING FILES WITH ARCHIE
                    -------------------------
 
The astute will have noted that all of the foregoing presupposes
that the user already knows the exact name of the file being
sought, its precise location in the host's directory structure,
and the Internet address of the host which allows anonymous ftp.
If you are lucky, you will have obtained this information via the
grapevine or from a friend with Internet access.  But what if you
do *not* know these details?  Well, all is not lost, as there is
an Internet service known as "Archie" which can "look up" the
location of files based either on partially or fully known
filenames or on keyword.  (You can think of Archie as being
analogous to CompuServe's IBMFF function.)  Although it is most
efficiently used with a direct connection from the Internet,
Archie can be accessed by C-Mail!
 
For full details on Archie and its use, I strongly recommend
that you get a copy of Ed Krol's "The Whole Internet Catalog &
User's Guide," but here is a quick-and-dirty summary:
 
You access Archie by sending a C-Mail message to one of the
several Archie servers located worldwide.  Ed Krol suggests that
you use the server located closest to you geographically, but
since you are going to access Archie from CompuServe, this means
that you are "located" in Columbus, Ohio, even if you happen to
be logging on from Brisbane, Australia. Thus, I suggest you use
one of the following US addresses to reach an Archie server:
 
    INTERNET:archie@archie.unl.edu         (Lincoln, NE)
    INTERNET:archie@archie.rutgers.edu     (New Brunswick, NJ)
    INTERNET:archie@archie.sura.net        (College Park, MD)
 
Once again, an "official" help file is included in this package
as ARCHMAIL.HLP. This particular version of the file came from
archie.rutgers.edu, and I am grateful to Jeremy Hall for bringing
it to my attention; the information in it should apply to all of
the Archie servers.
 
The C-Mail message you send to the Archie server will be similar
in form to the ones sent to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com for anonymous
ftp, as shown earlier.  Let's consider two cases: in the first,
you know the name of the file you want; in the second, you want
to do a search on a keyword.  In both cases, you may use any
anything you want in the Subject: line of your message, as it
will be ignored by the Archie server.
 
First, let's say you want to know where BRIDGETU.ZIP might be
available for anonymous ftp.  You would send the following C-Mail
message to one of the Archie servers:
-----
  path 72662.1377@compuserve.com                [1]
  find bridgetu.zip                             [2]
  set maxhits 15                                [3]
  quit                                          [4]
-----
[1]  Tells the Archie server the address to which the reply
     should be sent.  The default is the return address on your
     message, but better safe than sorry....
 
[2]  Tells the server the name of the file being sought.  A full
     filename (with extension) is not necessary, but it will
     provide a more focused response.  Using just "bridge" in
     this instance would have resulted in getting a *lot* of
     irrelevant responses -- every file in the index with the
     string "bridge" in its name!  This entry is no longer case
     sensitive.  Although most filenames out in Internet land
     are in lower case, there might be a few in upper case.
 
[3]  Tells the server to report only the first fifteen "hits" in
     response to this query.  This is a useful command if you are
     looking for a common file and want to avoid being flooded
     with responses.
 
[4]  Tells the server to ignore everything that follows in this
     message.
 
 
To do an Archie search based on a keyword (e.g., "compression"),
your C-Mail message would look like this:
-----
  path 72662.1377@compuserve.com                [1]
  whatis compression                            [2]
  quit                                          [3]
-----
 
[1]  See above.
 
[2]  Tells the server to list all files and directories which
     have been indexed under the keyword "compression"
 
[3]  See above.
 
 
In either case, I would suggest that you attempt to focus your
search as narrowly as possible; there are an awful lot of files
available out there, and your response may be much larger than
you had anticipated.  There is a 'set compress compress' and a
'set encode uuencode' command that can be used with an Archie
search, which will result in your response being compressed with
the UNIX "compress" utility into a <filename>.Z file, which is
then uuencoded.  The uuencoding is no problem, as we have seen
earlier, and COMPRESS.EXE (with its -d switch) can be used to
decompress the resulting .Z file.  Further details on 'set
maxhits nnn,' 'set compress compress,' 'set encode uuencode,' and
other commands accepted by Archie servers can be found in
ARCHMAIL.HLP.
 

                             L'ENVOI
                             -------
 
That's about it, but as a final reminder, don't forget that:
 
     a.  UNIX file names are case sensitive.
 
     b.  UNIX directory path separators are *forward* slashes.
 
     c.  Virus checking of uploaded files may not always be as
     thorough on all anonymous ftp sites as it is on CompuServe.
     While site administrators are conscientious, and chances of
     "catching" a virus from a file acquired by anonymous ftp are
     pretty slim, it might be advisable to scan any executables
     downloaded with anonymous ftp before running them.
 
     d.  Many anonymous ftp sites and Archie servers have a limit
     on the number of users who can be logged on at one time.  If
     your request arrives when the site or server is saturated,
     you will probably get a message informing you of this fact,
     in which case you should re-initiate the whole procedure
     with a new C-Mail message.
 
     e.  If you are on the CompuServe Standard (Basic) Plan, you
     will be paying for all messages sent to *or received from*
     the Internet, at the rate of $0.15 for the first 7500
     characters and $0.05 for each additional 2500 characters.
     This can add up pretty quickly; a 150Kb file from the
     Internet, for example, would cost you $3.00, plus about
     $0.15 each for any status reports sent you from decwrl.  If
     you anticipate heavy use of the ftpmail service, you may
     wish to consider opening a secondary CIS account under the
     Alternative Plan and using it for this purpose.
 
     f.  DISCLAIMER:  Although I have done my best to include
     accurate information and functional tools in this package, I
     can take no responsibility for any consequences of your use
     of these materials.
 
 
Happy ftp'ing!
 
                    Dick Kahane
                    72662,1377
                    Sysop, TAPCIS Forum
 
 
 
=========================================================================
=========================================================================
=========================================================================
Below is the help file referenced above:
=========================================================================
=========================================================================
=========================================================================

  -- Help --
>>> $Id: help-text,v 1.7 1993/05/05 00:49:43 vixie Exp $
>>>
>>> ftpmail is not a supported service. From time to time it stops working;
>>> we will tend to it when we get the time. Outages of a week or more are not
>>> abnormal.

>>> commands are:

        reply <MAILADDR>        set reply addr, since headers are usually wrong
        connect [HOST [USER [PASS [ACCT]]]]
                                defaults to gatekeeper.dec.com, anonymous
        ascii                   files grabbed are printable ascii
        binary                  files grabbed are compressed or tar or both
        chdir PLACE             "get" and "ls" commands are relative to PLACE
                                        (only one CHDIR per ftpmail session,
                                        and it executes before any LS/DIR/GETs)
        compress                compress binaries using Lempel-Ziv encoding
        compact                 compress binaries using Huffman encoding
        uuencode                binary files will be mailed in uuencode format
        btoa                    binary files will be mailed in btoa format
        chunksize SIZE          split files into SIZE-byte chunks (def: 64000)
        ls (or dir) PLACE       short (long) directory listing
        index THING             search for THING in ftp server's index
        get FILE                get a file and have it mailed to you
                                        (max 10 GET's per ftpmail session)
        quit                    terminate script, ignore rest of mail message
                                        (use if you have a .signature or
                                         are a VMSMAIL user)

>>> notes:

        -> you should send complaints to the ftpmail-admin address.  our
           postmaster does not handle ftpmail problems and you can save her
           the trouble of forwarding your complaints by just mailing them to
           the right address.  the "ftpmail-request" address is gone; don't
           use it.

        -> the "index" command depends on the "SITE EXEC INDEX" feature of
           some ftp servers.  Gatekeeper.dec.com originated this feature,
           and ftp.uu.net duplicated it (with a format change to the output,
           naturally).  Wuarchive.wustl.edu also has this feature, though
           their index seems to be empty.  The source for an ftpd that
           supports this feature is on Gatekeeper.DEC.COM in /pub/DEC/gwtools.

        -> a password of "" or '' will be sent as a null string.  if you need
           this you will know it, if you don't, you won't.

        -> the "Subject:" of your request will be contained in the "Subject:"
           of all of ftpmail's responses to you regarding that request.  You
           can therefore use it to "tag" different requests if you have more
           than one outstanding at any given time.

        -> you must give a "connect" command, default host is
           gatekeeper.dec.com, default user is anonymous, default
           password is your mail address with a hyphen prepended.

        -> binary files will not be compressed unless 'compress' or 'compact'
           command is given; use this if at all possible, it helps a lot.
           note that many files are already compressed.  if you use any of
           the binary-file qualifiers (compress, compact, uuencode, btoa)
           without setting 'binary' first, your session will abort in error.

        -> binary files will always be formatted into printable ASCII
           with "btoa" or "uuencode" (default is "btoa").  if you don't
           use the "binary" command, ftpmail will cheerfully try to mail
           you the binary data, which will absolutely, positively fail.

        -> all retrieved files will be split into chunks and mailed.  the
           size of the chunk is 64000 characters unless you change it with
           the "chunksize" command.  CompuServe users will need to set this
           to 49000.  there is no way to set it higher than 100000, so please
           don't ask.

        -> if you ask for more than 10 files in a session, you will receive
           an error message and your entire request will be rejected.

        -> VMS/DOS/Mac versions of uudecode, atob, compress and compact
           are available, ask your LOCAL wizard about them if you can't
           locate them (but try gatekeeper.dec.com in /archive/pub/VMS
           if you're still using a VMS system.)

        -> several mail unsplitters are hiding on gatekeeper.dec.com in
           /pub/mail/ua/misc/unsplit.  there is one in c, one in perl,
           and one in VMS DCL.

        -> there is no way to request only certain parts of a file and we
           do not plan to add one in the near future, so please don't ask.

        -> there is no way to delete things from the queue or to find out
           the status of things in the queue, and we do not plan to add
           either feature in the near future, so please don't ask.

>>> examples:

        -> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get a root directory listing:
                connect
                ls
                quit

        -> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get the README.ftp file:
                connect
                get README.ftp
                quit

        -> connect to gatekeeper.dec.com and get the gnuemacs sources:
                connect
                binary
                uuencode
                chdir /pub/GNU
                get emacs-18.58.tar.Z
                quit

        -> connect to ftp.uu.net as anonymous and get a root directory list:
                connect ftp.uu.net
                binary
                chdir /index/master
                get by-name.Z
                quit

Ftpmail was written by Paul Vixie.

  -- End of Help --

