How to use the DECWRL archive service (last updated 12 May 88)
Brian Reid
recipes can be retrieved by mail using the archive server. Its mailbox is
archive...@decwrl.dec.com
or {att,ucbvax,decvax,hplabs,sun}!decwrl!archive-server
[The archives are also available via anonymous ftp from gatekeeper.dec.com]
If you send the server a message saying "help", this is what it will say:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This message comes to you from the archive server at decwrl.dec.com,
archive...@decwrl.dec.com. 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.
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If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try something,
then send the server a message containing the line
send index recipes
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the recipes
in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
recipes that you want:
send recipes corn-stew potato-soup cheese-bread
etc. If you want recipes in clear-text format (i.e. not encoded in a text
formatting language) then you should ask for recipes from the "cleartext"
subdirectory, like this:
send cleartext corn-stew potato-soup cheese-bread
etc. If you want the alt.gourmand software and macros and such, say this:
send program full.shar
If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive...@decwrl.dec.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation, try
sending to {someplace}!decwrl!archive-server, e.g.
sun!decwrl!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
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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 programs
or
index recipes
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 programs" and "send index programs" 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 recipe african-stew
or
send program rckeep
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 recipe choc-chip-1 choc-chip-2 choc-chip-3
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get one recipe and one program, you must use two
"send" commands, one beginning "send recipe" and the other
beginning "send program".
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. 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.
Note: decwrl does NOT have a uucp link to seismo. A command like
path seismo!someplace!name
will guarantee that you do not receive the response. We do have
a link to seismo.css.gov (and all other Internet sites), permitting
path seismo.css.gov!someplace!name
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 your...@site.uucp, e.g.:
path per...@place.uucp
As you probably know, the pathalias data is sometimes wrong, but it
is often right.
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of recipes that are in the archive. Send this message:
To: archive...@decwrl.dec.com
Subject: hi there
send index
2) Get the chocolate-chip-cookie recipes from the archive (you have learned
their file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive...@decwrl.dec.com
Subject: send recipe truffles
send recipe choc-chip-1 choc-chip-2 choc-chip-3 choc-chip-4
send recipe choc-chip-5 choc-chip-6 choc-chip-7
3) Get the eggnog recipes, and send them over the best path to my site:
To: seismo.css.gov!decwrl!archive-server
path myn...@site.uucp
send eggnog1 eggnog2 eggnog3
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 decwrl
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 myn...@site.uucp
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 recipes 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.
FAIRNESS:
The archive server contains many safeguards to ensure that it is not
monopolized by people asking for large amounts of data. The mailer is set up
so that it will send no more than a fixed amount of data each day. If the
work queue contains more requests than the day's quota, then the unsent files
will not be processed until the next day. Whenever the mailer is run to send
its day's quota, it sends the requests out shortest-first.
If you have a request waiting in the work queue and you send in another
request, the new request is added to the old one (thereby increasing its
size) rather than being filed anew. This prevents you from being able to
send in a large number of small requests as a way of beating the system.
If you request 10 recipes together, you will get substantially higher
priority than if you make 10 requests for 1 recipe each.
The reason for all of these quotas and limitations is that the delivery
resources are finite, and there are many tens of thousands of people who
would like to make use of the archive.