Welcome to alt.internet.services!
This group was designed to handle information about services available on the internet for people who have internet accounts and want to explore beyond their local computers and take advantage of the information and services available.
This file has been updated.
The 'services' are:
- things you can telnet to
- things you can FTP
- things mentioned on the various lists posted periodically
The 'services' are *not*:
- utility programs like telnet, ftp, mail, and uudecode on your
system (programs like telnet are vastly different than a
place you can telnet to) * basic new user questions
To begin, I'm putting this near the top so people can see it. Most people do not have the slightest clue what alt.internet.services is for, and ask almost random questions.
This is *NOT* alt.internet.general.questions, alt.internet.help, or alt.internet.new-users. Before asking a question here:
- Ask someone locally! The guy siting next to you, your
professor, the system administrator. 9 times out of 10 you
won't have to post. * read news.newusers * look through your .newsrc file for a more appropriate group. Questions about mail can go to comp.mail.misc. Questions about access can go to alt.internet.access.wanted. And so on. alt.internet.services is *not* some kind of default group to go to if you can't find any others. * ask yourself: is this question about a service I can access thought the internet like the ones on the periodically posted lists?
There's a wide range and variety of stuff available, and more pouring in every day! Please do not send *me* services – post them or something. Send additions, suggestions, comments, snide remarks to me abut this FAQ or how to improve it. Remember it's still under construction for the most part.
Note that this welcome does not list services. It instead alerts you to the lists of services that are regularly posted on the group. Special thanks to Aydin Edguer, whose excellent alt.bbs.internet FAQ gave me some basics for this one, too.
What is "FAQ"? A _F_requently _A_sked _Q_uestion Where do I get FAQs?! From a newsgroup called net.answers
Here's an index of topics covered
- Stuff that should be discussed
- Stuff NO ONE WANTS TO SEE
- Some lists that are posted you should look for
- What is…
…archie
...IRC ...MUD, MUSH, etc * How do I... ...send mail to CompuServe? ...send mail to users on Prodigy? ...send mail to users on Fidonet? ...get a name resolved?
- Brief FTP Primer
Stuff that should be discussed:
* posts about new stuff you can do on the net
special services like weather reports and databases and library catalogues and...
systems that allow public connections, in the spirit of the old, classic bbs systems
clients/servers like archie, IRC, MUD, MUSH, etc.
Stuff NO ONE WANTS TO SEE:
* pleas for access to the internet – these will be ignored! There are
two groups which can help you, though, so please direct your posts there.
alt.internet.access.wanted
- this group was created because a lot of traffic about
- needing internet access was showing up in the WRONG groups,
- because it had no where to go. Now it has somewhere and
- should go there!
Some lists that are posted you should look for:
* This welcome, which outlines the basic nature of the group and will
steer you towards what the posts should be about.
* The Internet Services list by Scott Yanoff - an indespensible guide
to services avaialble.
What is…
…archie?
Archie is a service that automatically checks sites for anonymous FTP, and if they have that service available, it catalogues the items you can get from the site. You can either connect to archie via telnet, and Scott Yanoff's list tells sites that you may connect to, or you may compile a client on your own computer and interface archie through that.
…IRC?
IRC is the Internet Relay Chat, a service where users can "talk" via typing to people around the world. A sample client is available, please see Scott Yanoff's services list for details.
There are newsgroups specifically devoted to IRC, so please refer to them for more information. (alt.irc, for example)
…MUD, MUSH, etc?
These are Multi-User, text based, virtual reality games. Each one is very different from the other, and there are an astounding number of variations on the MUD theme. Please see rec.games.mud for more information about them – there is a very good FAQ posting there that will explain them (or at least there used to be! :))
How do I…
NOTE: there is a group, comp.mail.misc, which is a good place to take e-mail related questions such as the ones below.
…send mail to CompuServe?
Users at CompuServe have numbers like XXXXX,YYYYY – so to send them mail, use the address XXXXX.YYYYY@compuserve.com and your mail will go straight to them.
…send mail to users on Prodigy?
By opening an account on Prodigy.
Prodigy does not currently have any external connections and has announced no plans to ever add external connections. It is therefore impossible to send mail to a Prodigy user from any system other than Prodigy. [Aydin Edguer] Prodigy has spoken of a two phase plan to connect Prodigy to all major networks including the internet. The first phase is a simple mail gateway which "should" be in place by Sept 92, the second phase is a wider range of network products. (When I pressed them, they really did not know what that meant, but they alluded to News, ftp, irc, and muds.) [Scott C. Kennedy, who applied for a job with them]
…send mail to users on Fidonet?
First you need to know the name of the person and node number of the Fido-Net system that the person uses.
The address of a FidoNode looks like this: 1:105/302.0. Usually the 1: and .0 are left off, but they are there by default. (In Europe the Zone is 2: and in the Pacific Basin it is 3:.) That address can be translated as "Zone 1, Net 105, FidoNode 302, Point 0." or p0.f302.n105.z1. Add the FidoNet domain of .fidonet.org to the end of that, chop off the p0 (it a default since the point number is zero) and you have f302.n105.z1.fidonet.org - the "Fully Qualified Domain Name" of a FidoNet BBS.
Another example is 2:105/4.3 which would be written as p3.f4.n105.z2.fidonet.org
Notice that we specified the point number since it was a number other than zero.
FidoNet uses full names of the callers. Multi-part name folks (eg. First Last, ie. "Tim Pozar") will have a period '.' seperating their names. So, lets say you wanted to send mail to Tim Pozar at 1:125/555.0, you would address your letter to:
Tim.Pozar@f555.n125.z1.fidonet.org.
[Tim Pozar]
…get a name resolved?
Your local host should have a name resolver…but if it doesn't, you can always send mail to the address resolve@cs.widener.edu with a body of
site foo.com site some.where.else
and you'll receive a mail message with the IP addresses for each site listed. [Brendan Kehoe] (I assume the reverse is also true, IP → name)
Brief FTP Primer
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows a person to transfer files between two computers connected to the Internet. Some systems on the Internet offer files through "anonymous" FTP. Anonymous FTP servers permits users to transfer files to/from the site even when they do not have an account at the site.
Not every site permits anonymous tranfers and it is wrong to try systems that have not advertised the availability of such a service. This is similar to walking up to a strange house and trying the windows and doors to see if any are open.
To find a list of sites that permit anonymous FTP, you can monitor the newsgroup comp.archives. You can also read the "Anonymous FTP List" maintained by Tom Czarnik aftp-list@netcom.com. The list is regularly posted to comp.sources.wanted and is available via anonymous FTP from pit-manager.mit.edu in the files /pub/usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/sites*.
In general, the "Anonymous FTP List" should be used as a last resort when trying to locate information. There are a _large_ number of anonymous FTP sites on the Internet, and it is much too time consuming to try to search each site when trying to find information. There are other tools, such as Archie, that help you to locate sites that carry a specific package.
It is beyond the scope of this FAQ to try to cover all the ways to locate sources on the Internet. More information about how to find sources and sites is posted in the comp.sources.wanted FAQ "How to find sources". It is available for anonymous FTP from pit-manager.mit.edu in the file: /pub/usenet/comp.sources.wanted/H_t_f_s_(R_T_B_P).
Perhaps the best way to learn how to use FTP is the read the manual pages [if any] that are on your system. Lacking such documentation, the following summary should help. More information is available in other FAQs.
To use FTP, a command similar to "ftp hostname" is used; where hostname is replaced by the name of host you wish to contact. If the computer knows how to contact that host, you will next be presented with a "Name:" prompt. At this point, if you are using anonymous FTP, you should enter the username of "anonymous". On some sites "ftp" will also work as an anonymous username. If the system recognizes the username as an anonymous entry then you should receive back a "331 Guest login ok" response followed by a "Password:" prompt. At this prompt you should enter your email address for the password. It's not necessary, but it's a courtesy for those sites that like to know who is making use of their facility. At this point you should be presented with a "230 Guest login ok" response or something similar. If for some reason things did not work you may receive a "530 Login incorrect" response. Type in "quit" at the "ftp>" prompt and try again. If it fails a second time, contact someone at your site for help.
Once connected to the other site and authenticated, you have a number of commands available to you. Some FTP commands are the same on most computers, but others are not. Most versions of FTP will list the commands available if you type "help". The standard commands include:
dir list the files in the current directory cd Change directory binary Switch to binary mode. For transferring binary files. ascii Switch to ascii mode. For transferring text files. It will automatically translate CR/LF and NL between systems. ASCII mode is the default mode. get copy a file from the remote computer to yours
Typically, a directory called 'pub' is where the interesting things are stored. Some sites will have a file with a name like ls-lR, that contains a complete list of the files on that site. Different systems have different organizations for their files and you may need to do some exploring to find where the files of interest you are located.
Once you have finished getting the files of interest you should issue the "quit" command to close the FTP connection and exit the FTP program.