Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site uiucdcsb.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcsb!richards From: richards@uiucdcsb.UUCP Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: ftp Message-ID: <19300032@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Date: Sun, 17-Feb-85 00:53:00 EST Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.19300032 Posted: Sun Feb 17 00:53:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 17:05:14 EST References: <7902@brl-tgr.UUCP> Lines: 36 Nf-ID: #R:brl-tgr:-790200:uiucdcsb:19300032:000:2110 Nf-From: uiucdcsb!richards Feb 3 23:53:00 1985 What you are looking for depends on what you want to know about FTP. If you are interested in the user level interface, you need to find a document that is specific to your implementation (such as the "man" page for ftp(1) for 4.2 BSD Unix, or it's equivalent for Tops-20, etc). If you are interested in the underlying protocol and capabilities, you are looking for a document called "RFC-765" (Request-for-comment) written by John Postel, called "File Transfer Protocol", circa June 1980. It is available from the Network Information Center, either by anonymous FTP (chicken-and-egg problem here, eh?) as fileRFC765.TXT, or by mailing a request to NIC@SRI-NIC.ARPA. They also publish an index to all the RFCs available. For most references to using FTP to access files, you have to be connected via a network (or connected networks) supporting the "internet" protocols (TCP and IP) to the remote host. The best known instance of this is the ARPAnet, although any local area network running 4.2BSD Unix also supports this mode of communication (along with other vendors OSes, so they don't feel left out...). A polling type network such as USENET or CSNET will not support the FTP protocol, which requires a port (socket) type connection mechanism to connect/communicate in real-time. References to "anonymous" FTP means that a particular host which supports the FTP protocol has a designated signon they have made public (the FTP protocol requires a remote user to identify themselves just as though they were logging in to the host) for the general network user community to access files they wish to make available. I don't know if more should be said here about the accepted conventions for signons -- if you have FTP running and can access ARPA or some other network that has a gateway to the network the remote host is on, you should contact someone at that host to get more information on how to proceed. Paul Richards University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dept of Comp Sci UUCP: {pur-ee,convex,inhp4}!uiucdcs!richards ARPA: richards@uiuc.arpa CSNET: richards%uiuc@csnet-relay