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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+\centerline{\bf The Aston \TeX\ Server}
+\smallskip
+\noindent
+For network users who can send mail but not transfer files, accessing
+remote archives is a problem. The conventional way to do this is to
+use `mail servers' on the machines holding the archives. These are
+programs which read mail messages directed to a specific username on
+the archive machine, with the message consisting of commands to the
+mail server. The server processes the commands which are usually
+requests to send files to the requestor as mail messages.
+
+The mail server described here accepts several commands,
+described in the following sections. In each case, the commands to
+the server are specified in the body of the mail message. This is a
+little different from many other mail servers, which require the
+command to be in the `subject' field of the mail message.
+
+
+\section{Where is the \TeX\ Archive Mail Server?}
+The \TeX\ archive's mail server is accessed by sending a mail request,
+containing a valid {\tt mail-server} command, through \JANET\ to
+\begintt
+TEXSERVER@UK.AC.ASTON.TEX
+\endtt
+Note that {\tt texserver} operates without any operator interaction:
+your mail is never seen by human eyes (unless the archive maintainer
+is deliberately doing so), so it is essential that you get your requests
+right. I\lowercase{NVALID REQUESTS ARE SIMPLY IGNORED}!
+
+People occasionally experience difficulties with getting mail to, or
+replies from, {\tt texserver}. For this reason, {\tt texserver}
+generates a `your message received' reply when it receives your
+request. The actual request is then queued for processing (which may
+happen up to an hour later).
+
+
+
+
+\section{Getting Help}
+This help message can be acquired by sending the following message to
+{\tt texserver}:
+\begintt
+ignored-text
+---ignored-text
+return-address
+HELP
+ignored-text
+\endtt
+{\tt texserver} ignores everything in the body of the message until a line
+containing three hyphens as its first non-blank characters is met.
+This is because many mail messages (particularly those which pass
+through protocol converters at gateways) develop a header showing its
+path through the various mailers.
+
+Following the three-hyphen separator, the return address should be
+specified on the next non-blank line. This must be the address {\it
+from\/} {\tt texserver} {\it to\/} you, in the usual network format
+(for people who don't know this, it is explained in a later
+section). The next non-blank line should contain only the word
+{\tt HELP} (or {\tt HELP} with a language qualifier--see below),
+specified in lower, UPPER or MiXeD cases. Any subsequent lines are
+ignored.
+
+This help message is also available in a variety of other languages.
+The appropriate language version is specified simply by adding a
+`command qualifier' to the {\tt HELP} command---so that, for
+example, {\tt HELP/DANISH} or {\tt HELP/DANSK} will select the
+Danish-language version of the help text. The following qualifiers are
+currently supported:
+\begintt
+/DANISH |it or |tt /DANSK
+/DUTCH |it or |tt /NL or /NEDERLANDS
+/FRENCH |it or |tt /FRANCAIS
+/GERMAN |it or |tt /DEUTSCH
+/ITALIAN |it or |tt /ITALIANO
+/JAPANESE
+/SPANISH |it or |tt /ESPAGNOL
+/SWEDISH |it or |tt /SWEDE
+\endtt
+You can truncate the qualifier to the point of uniqueness, so that
+{\tt HELP/FRE} selects French and {\tt HELP/DE} German. But do so
+carefully, for {\tt texserver} will simply ignore ambiguous
+commands such as {\tt HELP/FR}. And make sure you spell the qualifier
+correctly!
+
+If you request {\tt HELP} in a language other than English, but
+receive the English message instead, it's because there is not
+yet a translation into the requested language. Perhaps you
+would care to consider making the translation yourself, and mailing
+it back to the author. Your contribution will, of course, receive
+due acknowledgement.
+
+It is well worth transferring the help text to yourself as a first
+experiment of the system; this will ensure that you understand how to
+format messages for {\tt texserver} and to specify network addresses on
+VAX/VMS.
+
+
+\section{Generating Directory Listings}
+You can acquire a directory listing of the archive or a part of
+the archive by sending the following message to {\tt texserver}:
+\begintt
+ignored-text
+---ignored-text
+return-address
+DIRECTORY directory-specifier
+ignored-text
+\endtt
+You will understand the form and purpose of most elements of the message
+from the above discussion of the help, so they won't be explained
+again. The {\tt DIRECTORY} command, which can be specified in any
+case and truncated to {\tt DIR}, should be given a directory
+specification as its argument, conforming to the VAX/VMS directory
+syntax (see below). If omitted, a listing of the directory
+{\tt [TEX-ARCHIVE]} is returned.
+
+Normally, the files listed by the {\tt DIRECTORY} command can be used as
+the basis of a {\tt FILES} command (described in a later section),
+which requests files to be transferred. VMS wizards can, however,
+put qualifiers to the DCL {\tt DIRECTORY} command {\it following\/}
+the argument. The most useful one is probably {\tt /SIZE}, which
+returns the file size in units of 512-byte blocks.
+
+To make full use of the {\tt DIRECTORY} command, you need to know
+about VMS filenames. Firstly, a filename consists of three parts,
+the {\it name} itself, the {\it extension} (file-type) and the
+{\it version number}, specified as
+\begintt
+name.extension;version
+\endtt
+Both the name and extension may be up to 39 characters each,
+consisting of alphanumerics, dollar, underscore and hyphen. Upper and
+lower case letters are not distinguished. Note, however, that `name'
+is not the same as `name.', since {\tt texserver} (and the VMS mailer)
+applies a default extension to the former but not to the latter. If
+the version number is omitted (in which case the semi-colon
+punctuation is not required), VMS automagically selects the highest
+(most recent).
+
+Files, of course, reside in directories. These are specified in
+square brackets. Like Unix and many other operating systems,
+directories under VMS are hierarchical. Sub-directories are specified,
+within the square brackets, following the parent directory name and
+separated by periods. Hence,
+\begintt
+[TEX-ARCHIVE.PUBLIC]
+\endtt
+is a valid directory name and
+\begintt
+[TEX-ARCHIVE.PUBLIC]PRIVATE.TXT;42
+\endtt
+a file within it.
+
+Of course, directories reside on discs and discs on nodes on
+networks\dots but that is getting needlessly complicated.
+
+The other thing you need to know about is wildcards. There are three
+of them:
+\halign{\quad \tt#&\qquad#\hfil\cr
+ * &matches zero or more characters\cr
+ ? &matches exactly one character\cr
+ ... & matches a sub-directory tree\cr}
+
+Hence, the {\tt texserver} command
+\begintt
+ DIRECTORY [TEX-ARCHIVE...]*.TXT
+\endtt
+will find all versions of all files with an extension of
+{\tt .TXT} (conventional for text files) in the directory
+{\tt[TEX-ARCHIVE]} or any of its sub-directories and return the output
+to you (if you got the return address right).
+
+
+\section{Locating Files}
+If you know the name of a file which you want to retrieve, but not the
+directory in which it resides, the {\tt WHEREIS} command can be used
+to find it. For example, to locate all {\WEB} files in the archive
+(\WEB\ is the programming language in which \TeX\ is written, being a
+combination of \TeX\ input and Pascal), you would use a command like:
+\begintt
+ignored-text
+---ignored-text
+return-address
+WHEREIS *.WEB
+ignored-text
+\endtt
+You may use the same wildcard specifiers as in the DIRECTORY command.
+
+
+\section{Searching Files}
+You can search through files in the archive for a given string of
+characters. This is useful, for example, when you know something is
+present in the archive, but not exactly which files are relevent. The
+{\tt SEARCH} request has the following format:
+\begintt
+ignored-text
+---ignored-text
+return-address
+SEARCH directory-specifier search-string
+ignored-text
+\endtt
+The directory specification should have the same format as for the
+`directory' request. The search string can be any arbitrary series of
+characters, but if it includes one or more of the characters |'"/@#| the
+whole string should be enclosed in double quotes (and double quotes in
+the search string specified twice consecutively). For example,
+\begintt
+search [TEX-ARCHIVE...]*.TXT text
+\endtt
+searches all files in the archive with an extension of {\tt .TXT} for
+the string of characters `text'. (Note that the search
+is case-insensitive.) To search for the string |/"text"|,
+one would use
+\begintt
+search [TEX-ARCHIVE...]*.TXT "/""text"""
+\endtt
+to `escape' the quote character, which has a special meaning to DCL.
+
+\section{Transferring Files}
+Now that you can generate listings of the contents of the archive,
+extracting files from it is child's play! Simply edit the listing
+returned by the {\tt DIRECTORY} or {\tt WHEREIS} commands into the
+following form:
+\begintt
+ignored-text
+---ignored-text
+return-address
+FILES
+filename
+filename
+.
+.
+.
+\endtt
+Any number of filenames may follow the {\tt FILES} command. Each
+filename must be specified on a separate line; each file will
+normally be returned as a separate mail message. Wildcards are
+{\it not\/} supported by the {\tt FILES} command.
+
+
+There is a limit to the size of a {\sc mail{}} message which can be sent
+through many gateways. For this reason, large files resulting from
+{\tt texserver} requests are automatically split up and send in a series
+of parts. You will normally have to concatenate these parts (in the
+correct order!) before they will be of use.
+
+\section{Specifying the Return Address}
+The syntax used for network addresses is the one used throughout most
+of the networking community, |user@site|. For example, for \JANET\
+users, requests from `orinoco' at site |uk.ac.wimbledon.common| should
+have a return address of
+\begintt
+orinoco@uk.ac.wimbledon.common
+\endtt
+Note that the VMS mailer folds the return address to {\sc upper} case unless
+it is enclosed in double quotes (this is a common source of trouble
+for mail being returned to {\tt uucp} sites).
+
+For |BITNET| users, you need to send the mail out via the |EARN| gateway:
+\begintt
+user%machine.site.BITNET@EARN-RELAY
+\endtt
+Note that the order of specifying domains {\it is\/} important to the
+|EARN| mailer. The syntax is similar for other networks accessed via
+the |EARN| gateway.
+
+Requests from north America (e.g., those with |.EDU| addresses) should
+also use the |EARN| gateway, since the |NSFNET-RELAY| gateway is not
+available for UK-to-US traffic:
+\begintt
+user%machine.site.EDU@EARN-RELAY
+\endtt
+Other users should try |EARN| in the first instance (it seems to be
+pretty clever). If that fails, consult a local networking guru. If
+that fails, mail the archive maintainers, who should be able to put you
+in touch with someone who can help. If all else fails, you're on your
+own!
+
+There is a document, compiled by Tim Clark of the University of
+Warwick, which goes into significant detail regarding the routing of
+mail from the UK through gateways. This is available in \LaTeX\ form
+from the archive as file
+\begintt
+[TEX-ARCHIVE.ARCHIVE-UTILS]GATEWAYS.TEX
+\endtt
+
+Any comments, queries, suspected bugs, etc should be addressed to the
+author, not to the maintainers of the archive it serves. (If any
+query doesn't get answered within, say, a week, please re-submit it;
+the author's network connection is rather flaky!) Note that the
+author is {\it not\/} a networking Wizard.
+
+As usual with public-domain software, no commitment is given as to the
+quality of this software: it may not do what this help says it does.
+
+
+\section{Bibliography}
+Terry A. Welch, 1984, A Technique for High-Performance Data
+Compression,
+ IEEE Computer vol 17, no 6, pp.8--19.
+
+\author{Adrian Clark}
+\endinput