archie/release/base/etc/email.help

		Archie Email Help (Version 3.2)

HELP for this archie email server, as of 11 April, 1994.

To perform an archie search via email, send mail to

	archie@<archie_server>

where <archie_server> is the name of an archie host, some of which are listed
below.

The "Subject:" header in mail sent to archie is treated as part of the
message body.

Command lines begin in the first column. All lines that do not match a valid
commands are ignored.

Empty messages are treated as "help" requests (this file). If no command
in a particular message can be recognized, the message is treated as
"empty" and this file will be returned.

The current (and complete) list of archie servers can be found with the
"servers" command (described below). A sample list is:

    archie.au            	139.130.4.6     Australia
    archie.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at  140.78.3.8	Austria
    archie.univie.ac.at		131.130.1.23	Austria
    archie.cs.mcgill.ca		132.206.51.250	Canada
    archie.uqam.ca		132.208.250.10	Canada
    archie.funet.fi      	128.214.6.102	Finland
    archie.univ-rennes1.fr	129.20.128.38	France
    archie.th-darmstadt.de	130.83.128.118	Germany
    archie.ac.il 		132.65.16.18    Israel
    archie.unipi.it		131.114.21.10	Italy
    archie.wide.ad.jp    	133.4.3.6       Japan
    archie.hama.nm.kr		128.134.1.1	Korea
    archie.sogang.ac.kr 	163.239.1.11	Korea
    archie.uninett.no		128.39.2.20	Norway
    archie.rediris.es		130.206.1.2	Spain
    archie.luth.se		130.240.12.30	Sweden
    archie.switch.ch		130.59.1.40	Switzerland
    archie.nctuccca.edu.tw			Taiwan
    archie.ncu.edu.tw    	192.83.166.12	Taiwan
    archie.doc.ic.ac.uk  	146.169.11.3    United Kingdom
    archie.hensa.ac.uk		129.12.21.25	United Kingdom
    archie.unl.edu       	129.93.1.14	USA (NE)
    archie.internic.net		198.49.45.10	USA (NJ)
    archie.rutgers.edu   	128.6.18.15	USA (NJ)
    archie.ans.net       	147.225.1.10	USA (NY)
    archie.sura.net      	128.167.254.179	USA (MD)


If you do not get mail back within 1 day or so, try using the "path"
command described below.


Mail destined for the ADMINISTRATION of individual servers should be
addressed to:

	archie-admin@<archie_server>

where <archie_server> is one of the hosts listed above. If you are having
a problem with a particular server, try sending mail to its administrator
first before contacting the general archie contact address below. They
may already be aware of the problem.

To request the ADDITION or DELETION of a site from the archie database,
send mail to:

	archie-admin@bunyip.com


To contact the IMPLEMENTORS of archie, send mail to:

	archie-group@bunyip.com


For your information anonymous FTP may be performed through the mail by
various ftp-mail servers. Send a message with the word 'help' in it to:

For BITNET/EARN sites ONLY:

		bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu

or (general access):

		ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com

for an explanations on how to use them.

Under version 3.2 the email client implements all the non-interactive
commands and variables of the telnet client. However, interactive
commands like "pager" are not supported as they don't make much sense in
the email environment.

For a complete explanation of the the archie system use the "manpage"
command to request a copy of the manual page, what follows is a short
summary of the valid email commands and variables.

NOTE: The "site" command of earlier versions of archie has been disabled
      under version 3.2 until it can be reimplemented with the new
      architecture of the system.

"Quick and dirty" summary
-------------------------

For those of you who want to get something done now and read the rest of
this later, send the email to an archie server with the line:

	find <foo>

(where <foo> is the name of the file you are looking for). You should get
a message back with results of your search. If you want to be a bit more
sophisticated, read on....


Commands
--------
In the commands that follow, parameters between '[' and ']' are optional.
The ellipsis ("...") signifies that the previous parameter can be repeated
multiple times. A '|' character means "or".


help [ <topic> [[ <subtopic> ] ...]]

		The "help" command by itself produces this message.

		An optional topic and subtopic(s) may also be given.  A
		list of words is considered to be one topic, not a list
		of individual topics. Thus, 

			help set maxhits

		requests help on the subtopic 'maxhits' of topic 'set',
		not on two separate topics.


find <pattern>  This command produces a list of files matching the pattern
		<pattern>.  The <pattern> may be interpreted as a simple
		substring, a case sensitive substring, an exact string or
		a regular expression, depending on the value of the
		variable search.

prog <pattern>	This is identical to "find" and is included for backward
		compatibility with older versions of the system.


list [ <pattern> ]

		Produce a list of sites whose contents are contained in
		the archie database. With no argument all the sites are
		listed. If given, the <pattern> argument is interpreted
		as a regular expression (see the archie manual page for
		an explanation of regular expressons) against which to
		match site names: only those names matching are printed.
		The format of the output can be selected through the
		output_format variable (described below).

		Note that the numerical (IP) address associated with a
		site name is valid at the time the site was last updated
		in the archie database, but may have changed subsequently.

mail <address>	Mail the results generated up until this command to
		<address>. This must be a vaid email address.

manpage [ roff | ascii ]

		Return the archie manual page. The optional arguments
		specify the format of the returned document. "roff"
		specifies UNIX troff (or nroff) format, while ascii
		specifies plain, preformatted ASCII output. With no
		arguments it defaults to ascii.

motd		Re-display the "message of the day", which is normally
		printed at the start of the returned message.

path <address>	Set the return email address to <address>. This overrides
		the default path which the system automatically generates
		by looking at the incoming mail header. This is actually
		an alias for "set mailto <address>" (see "Variables"
		below), and is included for backwards compatability.

servers		Display a list of all publicly accessible archie servers
		worldwide. The names of the hosts, their IP addresses and
		geographical locations are listed. IP addresses were valid
		at the time that this document was last updated.

domains		Give a list of the archie pseudo-domains that the archie
		server supports. See the manual page for an explanation
		of archie pseudo-domains.

set <variable> <value>

		Set the specified <variable> to <value>. See "Variables"
		below. 

show [ <variable-name>...]

		Without any parameters, display the status of all the
		user-settable variables, including such information as
		its type (boolean, numeric, string), whether or not it is
		set and its current value (if its type requires a
		value).  Otherwise show the status of each of the
		specified arguments. Useful for finding out what the
		default settings at a server are.

unset <variable>
		Unset the specified <variable>. The subsequent value of
		the variable is defined on a <variable>-specific basis.

version
		Print the current version of the email interface.

whatis <substring>

		Search the Software Description Database for the given
		substring, ignoring case.  This database consists of
		names and short descriptions of many software packages,
		documents (like RFCs and educational material), and data
		files stored on the Internet.

		Note that this database is currently maintained by hand
		and is certain to be outdated (the net changes on a daily
		basis).

Variables
---------

The archie email system has 3 types of variables.

1) Numeric
----------

Numeric variables may have preset internal ranges in which the value of
the variable must lie.


maxhits		Allow the "find" command to generate at most the
		specified number of matches (hits) (permissible range:
		0-1000). Default 100.

maxhitspm	Maximum number of files (hits) per filename located in
		the find command. See the manual page for more
		information. Range 0-1000. Default 100.

maxmatch	Maximum number of filenames to return with the find
		command. This is NOT the same as maxhits which limits the
		total number of files returned. See the manual page for
		more information. Range 0-1000. Default 100.

max_split_size  Approximate maximum size, in bytes, of a file to be mailed
		to the user. Any output larger than this limit will be
		split in pieces of about this size.  This can be set by
		the user in the range 1024 to ~2Gb with a default of
		51200 bytes. Some mail gateways will not allow results of
		over 100Kb and so care should be taken when setting this
		limit.

2) String
---------

String variables may have a predefined range of values.


compress	The kind of data compression the user can specify when
		mailing back output.  Currently allowed values are
		"none" and "compress" (standard UNIX compress program)
		with a default of "none"

encode		The type of post-compression encoding the user can
		specify when mailing back output.  Currently allowed
		values are "none" and "uuencode", with a default
		of "none". Note that this variable is ignored unless
		compression is enabled (via the compress variable).

language	Allows the user to specify the language in which the
		help, etc. is presented. Individual servers may be
		configured for a range of languages.

mailto		A valid address to mail the results back to. This overrides
		the address automatically generated by the archie system
		from the incoming mail header. Setting this variable is
		equivalent to using the "path" command.

match_domain	Restrict the returned files to sites in the
		colon-separated list of domains and pseudo-domains. See
		the manual page for further information.

match_path	Restrict the files returned in the 'find' command to
		contain the colon-separated list of pathname components.
		See the manual page for further information.
		
output_format 	Affects the way the output of "find" and "list" is
		displayed.  User settable, with valid values of "machine"
		(machine readable format), "terse" and "verbose", with a
		default of "verbose".

search		The type of search done by the "find" (or "prog") command.
		The list of valid values is given below in order of
		increasing search times. The given search string may
		match a directory or filename in the database.

		exact		String has to match exactly (including case)
		subcase		Substring match. Case sensitive.
		sub		Substring match. Case insensitive.
		regex		Regular expression (see ed(1)) search.
				Case sensitive. The archie manual page
				gives examples of regular expressions.
				

		There are also compound searches made up of combinations
		of the above search methods in sequence:

		exact_sub	Try "exact". If no matches found use
				"sub".
		exact_subcase	Try "exact". If no matches found use
				"subcase"
		exact_regex	Try "exact". If no matches found use
				regex.


		Note: unless specifically anchored to the beginning
		(with ^) or end (with $) of a line, regular expressions 
		(effectively) have ``.*'' prepended and appended to them.
		For example, it is not necessary to type

			find .*xnlock.*

		because

			find xnlock

		In this instance, the regex match is equivalent a simple
		substring match which should be used instead.

server		The archie/Prospero server to which the email interface
		connects when "find" or "list" commands are used. Usually
		defaults to "localhost" on most archie systems.

sortby		Set the method of sorting to be applied to output from
		the "find" command.

		The five permitted methods (and their associated reverse
		orders) are:

		none 	  Unsorted (default; no reverse order, though
			  'rnone' is accepted)

		filename  Sort files/directories by name, using lexical
			  order (reverse order: 'rfilename')

		hostname  Sort on the archive hostname, in lexical order
			  (reverse order: 'rhostname')

		size	  Sort by size, largest files/directories first
			  (reverse order: 'rsize')

		time	  Sort by modification time, with the most recent
			  file/directory names first (reverse order: 'rtime')

		
3) Boolean
----------

Currently the email interface to the archie system has no variables of
type "boolean".