0. Contents
===========
1. Introduction
2. FTP command list
3. Important sites
4. A Sample Session
5. The .netrc File
6. Archivers
7. The Archie Database
8. Mailservers
9. Transferring to Amiga



1. Introduction
===============

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, the program (ftp) with the same name
allows you to gain access to some other machines and store and/or retrieve
files.  If you have a UNIX account with internet access and that box knows
the command 'ftp', you're almost done.  If not, you have to get the files by
mail, see chapter 'mailservers'.

Normally one needs an account on the remote machine to use it, but a number
of machines have a setup that allows everybody to log in as the user 'ftp' or
'anonymous'.  When you log in using the anonymous account you should type
your home login name as the password, especially when you upload.  After
doing so you may retrieve all files found in the public areas there.



2. FTP command List
===================

The most important commands you'll need within ftp are:

open <site> Connects to a remote site, valid addresses see below
bin         Sets the connection to binary mode for transfer of non-text files
get <rem>   Receives the <remote> file. Can't do multiple files
mget <pat>  Receives the files indicated by <pattern> or listed as args
put <loc>   Transmits the local file <loc>
mput <loc>  Transmits the files indicated by <pattern> or listed as args
dir <pat>   Lists files in the current dir of the remote machine
ls <pat>    Lists (short) the files
cd <dir>    Changes the current directory on the remote site
lcd <dir>   Changes the current directory on the local site
mkdir <dir> Creates a new directory on the remote site
prompt      Toggles file confirmation for mget/mput
hash        Toggles progress report when downloading
close       Closes connection to the remote site
bye         Quits the FTP client

Some specialties you should know in addition.  The 'get' command allows you
to add a second argument that indicates the name to store it under.  You can
use that to enter '-' or '|more' as the local name to view text files that
are on the remote machine.  Example:  'get README |more' (no blank in front
of more!). The latter may not work on some UNIX flavors.

Also note that the ls and dir command only takes one argument, this can be
either an option or a pattern, but not both.  The second argument is again
interpreted as the name to store the output under.



3. Important Sites
==================

Location    Name                     Address         Directory
--------    ----                     -------         ---------
Switzerland amiga.physik.unizh.ch    130.60.80.80    pub/aminet/    
Switzerland litamiga.epfl.ch         128.178.151.32  pub/aminet/    
Scandinavia ftp.luth.se              130.240.16.3    pub/aminet/    
Germany     ftp.uni-kl.de            131.246.9.95    pub/aminet/    
Germany     ftp.uni-erlangen.de      131.188.1.43    pub/aminet/    
Germany     ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de      130.149.17.7    pub/aminet/    
Germany     ftp.th-darmstadt.de      130.83.55.75    pub/aminet/    
Germany     ftp.uni-paderborn.de     131.234.2.32    pub/aminet/    
USA         ftp.wustl.edu            128.252.135.4   pub/aminet/    
USA         merlin.etsu.edu          192.43.199.20   pub/aminet/    
USA         oes.orst.edu             128.193.124.2   pub/aminet/    
Australia   splat.aarnet.edu.au      192.107.107.6   pub/aminet/ (off peak)

USA         wuarchive.wustl.edu      128.252.135.4   systems/amiga/
Finland     nic.funet.fi             128.214.6.100   pub/amiga/
USA         ux1.cso.uiuc.edu         128.174.5.59    amiga/fish/
USA         grind.isca.uiowa.edu     128.255.19.233  amiga/
GERMANY     ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de   137.226.4.105   pub/amiga

Note that the first group sites together are called 'AmiNet'.  They mirror 
each other which means they have the same files.  Also, there are a lot of 
other FTP sites around, but they're usually mentioned where required.

Both ux1 and grind have a full collection of Fish disks as their main 
feature, so whenever I mention a program that is to be retrieved from a 
Fish disk, you can get it there.


4. A Sample Session
===================

This is an example FTP session. What you have to type is in [angle] brackets
on a separate line.

~> 
   [ftp]

ftp> 
     [open 130.60.80.80]
Connected to amiga.physik.unizh.ch.
220 amiga FTP server (Version 5.60.97 Wed Dec 9 22:23:21 MET 1992) ready.
Name (amiga:umueller): 
                       [ftp]
331 Guest login ok, send your userid as password.
Password:
          [kdalton]
230- Welcome to amiga.physik anonymous FTP server
230-      .....
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> 
     [cd pub/aminet]
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> 
     [get RECENT |more]
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for RECENT (5676 bytes).
| Recent uploads to amiga.physik.unizh.ch [130.60.80.80] on 11-Dec-1992
| The last 7 days' uploads, newest first. Blank line=new day, + = long .readme
|
|File                Dir        Size Description
|------------------- ---        ---- -----------
tiff2iff.lha         gfx/conv     7K Converts TIFF files to Amiga IFF
DNetIRCpic.lzh       comm/net    16K Demo picture of DNet IRC
DNetIRC.lha          comm/net    88K+IRC intuition DNet client (dnetlib.o neede
ICoons_Nofp.lzh      gfx/3d     172K+Spline based object modeller (no 68881 nee
1993.lha             mods/u4ia  109K+ProTracker Module By U4ia called '1993'
skick321.lha         os20/util   37K+Soft-kicker under OS 2.0 - new release
monoxyde.dms         demo/mega  477K+MONOXYDE - new demo by Vanish
baudbandit1.4b.lha   comm/misc   16K+Version 1.4b of baudbandit.device
jed206b.lha          util/edit  144K+programmable, programmers editor. OS2.0+
--More--
         [q]
226 Transfer complete.
local: |more remote: RECENT
5763 bytes received in 4.5 seconds (1.2 Kbytes/s)
ftp> 
     [cd game/think]
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> 
     [bin]
200 Type set to I.
ftp> 
     [get t-triz.lzh]
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for t-triz.lzh (56496 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: t-triz.lzh remote: t-triz.lzh
56496 bytes received in 0.43 seconds (1.3e+02 Kbytes/s)
ftp> 
     [bye]
221 Goodbye.
~> 


5. The .netrc File
==================

You can put a file named .netrc in your homoe directory and make it contain
all information about how to log in at your favourite FTP site, it'll be done
automatically.  After you create it, you have to 'chmod 600 .netrc' or it
won't be accepted.  Here's an example, changed the password to your login
name.  And never forget to add a blank line after the last command!

machine amiga.physik.unizh.ch
login ftp
password kdalton
macdef init
bin
cd pub/aminet


6. Archivers
============

Most files on FTP sites store their files in archived (compressed) format.
You can recognize the archiver used by the ending of the file name.  These
are the most important ones:

Suffix  Archiver        Filename on Aminet

.lzh    LhA             LhA_e138.run
.lha    LhA             LhA_e138.run
.zoo    Zoo             zoo2-10.lzh
.zip    Zip             unzip-4.1.lzh
.dms    DMS             dms111.sfx
.run    (LhA)           -
.sfx    (LhA)           -
.tar.Z  tar, compress   tar-compress.lzh

The AmigaDOS versions of those archivers can be found on the AmiNet sites
(see above) in the directory pub/aminet/util/arc/ and to give you a start,
LhA is also stored in self-extracting form (.run or .sfx), just execute it to
extract it.  .run files are in fact .lha files with a special header.

UNIX versions of most of these archivers are available. You can get them
from amiga.physik.unizh.ch in the directory /pub/aminet/misc/unix/, or
if they're not there, use archie (see below) to find them. The files names
are:

LhA  lha-1.00.tar.Z  
Zoo  zoo-2.10.tar.Z
Zip  unzip41.tar.Z
Dms  dmscheck.c.Z


7. The Archie Database
======================

There is a database of all files on all FTP sites worldwide, called 'archie'.
They have a mailserver, a telnet service, and a client software.  Telnet to
archie.sura.net and log in as 'archie', or send a mail containing HELP in its
body to archie@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca .  You'll get more info that way.


8. Mailservers
==============

Some sites allow sending them magic mails which make them FTP things from
other sites, uuencode them and send them to you.  Others only send the files
stored locally at that site.  Here are the most important mail servers, send
a mail containing HELP in its body to find out more about them (note that
German links are slow, generally):

ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
mailserver@nic.funet.fi
ftp-mailer@ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de
mrcserv@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca
mail-server@ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu


9. Transferring to Amiga
========================

After you have the files on your UNIX account, you need to get the files
home.  If you have a modem-connection to your account, there are two
possibilities:  ZMODEM and UUencode.  The better one is using the program
'sz' which sends files using the ZMODEM protocol.  If it's not present on
your site, you can get it from krynn.efd.lth.se:/pub/modem/rzsz9107.tar.Z and
compile it, or use archie to find a version specific for your UNIX flavor.
IF that's not possible, type 'uuencode <filename fileane' to get your file
typed to the screen.  That output you store in a capture file of your
terminal program and uudecode it (uudecode can be found on Fish Disk 92).

If you don't have a modem, you can try to find a workstation with 3.5" Drive
as the Sun4 computers have.  There you can either use the mtools (try 'man
mcopy') to store the files in MSDOS format and retrieve them using MSH (Fish
Disk 382), or you use gnu tar (UNIX version to be found on decuac.dec.com,
/pub/binaries/gnutar-1.10.tar.Z) to store files to the disk in .tar format
using the command 'gtar cfvM /dev/rfd0c'.  Then you restore the files with
gnu gtar (amiga.physik.unizh.ch:pub/aminet/util/gnu/gtar110.lzh) and the FLAT
device (Fish Disk 535) and MSH (or any other PC format reading tool).  Mount
FLAT:, and then enter 'gtar xfvM flat:MSH' or replace the MSH by the name of
your emulation tools.


If you'd like some additional info to be included in this FAQ, contact
ftp@amiga.physik.unizh.ch.  -Urban Dominik Mueller