Internet FAQ (Frequently-Asked Questions) This document contains a set of frequently-asked questions about the Internet and the other intermainframe networks (BITNET,UUCP). This question list has been slightly modified to be more meaningful to faculty/staff/ students at Penn State. These modifications have been made by Gerry Santoro (GMS@PSUVM.PSU.EDU) - please send any questions or commnets regarding this document to him. Q: How can I find out more about the Internet and Internet services? An excellent document, "Zen and the Art of the Internet", is available in hardcopy from Kinko's and Gnomon Copy in State College. It is also available at the Penn State Bookstore at University Park. A postscript version is available on the PSUVM file server PCLIB in the CAC-PC library and the MISC-TXT directory. If you are using PSUVM you can issue the command HELP INTERNET for access to a number of informative help files. If you are trying to send mail from one network to another and are unsure of how to do this [and can't find the answer from your local system administrator or this document] then you should get a copy of the "Internetworking Guide". The Guide is posted regularly to comp.mail.misc. The Guide is maintained by John J. Chew and is available for anonymous FTP from Ra.MsState.Edu in the file pub/docs/internetwork-mail-guide. Other questions about electronic mail should be directed to CAC Help Desk (HELPDESK@PSUVM.PSU.EDU). If you want to get a list of public access Unix sites, please see the Nixpub bulletin board list that is posted regularly to alt.bbs. The list is maintained by Phil Eschallier and is available for anonymous FTP from GVL.Unisys.COM in the file pub/nixpub/long. If you want to get a list of dial-up bulletin board systems, please get a copy of THELIST. THELIST is available for anaoymous FTP from wuarchive.wustl.edu in the directory /mirrors/msdos/bbslists. See the 00-index file for the current name. Questions or comments should be sent to alt.bbs.lists. Q: What is the Internet? The Internet can be defined as the set of all interconnected TCP/IP sites. In the United States, this is usually taken to mean any site connected to one of the regional networks which are joined together by the NSFNET. In the past the Internet was defined as the set of all sites that were IP reachable, but due to the splintering of the Internet into Commercial and Research&Education networks, and the increase in the number of secure Internet gateways, this is becoming less and less a valid definition. Q: How can I get access to the Internet? There are a number of ways that members of the Penn State community can get access to the Internet. These are: -account on PSUVM or other academic mainframe -microcomputer with IBC connection -microcomputer on LAN with PSU Data Backbone gateway and proper communication software -microcomputer at any CAC public microlab -asynchronous dial-in access through TN1 You may determine which access method is best for you by contacting you local department/college computing support representative (if one exists) or by contacting the CAC Help Desk at 863-1035. Q: How do I find out if Alpha Beta University is on the Internet? The most common way of finding this out is the WHOIS command. For example to find out if Washington University is on the network the command WHOIS WASHINGTON will list all the sites and registered users with washington in their naem. Please note that it must be a full word match - WHOIS WASH would not work. Once you have found the entry of interest you can use the WHOIS command to get further information on contacts. For example, the command WHOIS !WUSTL-DOM will give you names and USnail addresses to reach Washington University, St. Louis. Please note that the WHOIS command will only work if you are logged onto a Unix computer or workstation. However, from PSUVM you can TELNET to nic.ddn.mil and run the WHOIS database from there. Issue the PSUVM command HELP ADDRESS for more information. Another method to check on how to reach a college or university, is to check the college/university email directory maintained by Mark Kantrowitz . The directory listss the mail addresses of many schools. A copy is stored in the anonymous FTP file /pub/usenet/ soc.college/Student_Email_Addresses on the site pit- manager.mit.edu (18.72.1.58). If you don't have anonymous ftp access, you can get it by sending a message to "mail- server@pit-manager.mit.edu" with the subject "send usenet/ soc.college/Student_Email_Addresses". If you are using PSUVM you can use the NODELIST command to see a list of all active BITNET nodes. Issue the command HELP BITNET for more information. The command NODEINFO may then be used to get inforamtion about a particular BITNET node once the node name is known. Issue the command NODEINFO PSUVM to see an example. Q: Is there a list of all the sites on the Internet? No. The Internet [as of 01/92] is composed of more than 727,000 hosts. There are more than 100 hosts added per day and the rate of growth is increasing. There is no canonical list of sites and by the time you could generate one it would be out of date. The DDN NIC maintains a list of all the hosts registered as primary domain hosts but does not try to maintain a list of all of the subdomains or secondary hosts. The list is avaliable from nic.ddn.mil in the directory netinfo in the file hosts.txt. It contains only a small fraction of the hosts on the Internet and thus should not be used as a definitve reference. Q: How do I send mail to users on Prodigy? By opening an account ocn 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. Q: How do I send mail to users on Compuserve? The address should take the form of xxxxxx.yyyy@ compuserve.com where xxxxxx,yyyy is the Compuserve account number. To create an address, convery the comma in the account name to a period and append @compuserve.com. Q: How do I 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 the FidoNode looks like this: 1:105/302.0. Ususally, 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 is 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 '.' separating 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. Q: How do I send mail to the Internet from Fidonet? This is a bit more of a trick. You need to know your nearest Fidonet->Internet gateway. A quick way of telling would be to send mail from the Internet to your FidoNet site. The mail will automatically pop out to your nearest gateway. Sometimes nets do not have a local gateway. In that case, the mail will pop out the default gateway. Currently the default gateway is in Arizona. so if you live in the New England states and you are not served by local gateway, it amy be a bit of a long time before the mail will get to your FidoNet site. Once you know where your gateway is, you need to address the mail as such: 1] In the "To" field enter "Uucp". 2] The destination FidoNet node will be the gateway. 3] On the first line of your message you will enter "To: " ie. "To:pozar@kumr.lns.com" 4] Put a blank line after the Internet address line. 5] Enter the body of the message after the blank line. A message would look something like this: To: Uucp 1:125/555 From: Joe FidoNet User Date: January 31 1992 Subject: Testing 1-2-3 To: pozar@kumr.lns.com Hey Tim! what's shaking? Joe User Q: How do I find Jane Doe's e-mail address? The short answer: The most widely accepted way of finding another user's electronic address is to pick up the phone and call them. This works wonders!!! The long answer: There is no one standard way of locating user mail box information. There are in fact more than one "standard" for storing this information and very few locations use even one of these "standards". One method of finding users is WHOIS. The DDN NIC keeps a database of all administrative, technical, and zone contacts for domains. Examples of other institutions who use this method are Stanford University and The University of Virginia. WHOIS will only work if you are on a Unix mainframe or workstation. A second method fro finding users is "X.500". X.500 is the OSI directory service. It is the choice of the next generation. It is also huge, and an amazing resource hog. A third method of finding users is the WAIS "usenet- addresses" database of all users who post to USENET. This only works if the user has posted a message to USENET. A fourth method of finding users, if you're looking for somebody at a college or university, is to check to college/ university email directory maintained by Mark Kantrowitz . The directory lists the mail addresses of many schools, and (when available) how you can look for people at those sites. A copy is stored in the anonymous ftp file /pub/usenet/soc.college/Studen_Email_Addresses on the site pit-manager.mit.edu (18.72.1.58); if you don't have anonymous ftp access, you can get it by sending a message to "mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu" with the subject "send usenet/soc.college/Student_Email_Addresses". More information on these and other methods is available in the "FAQ: How to find people's E-Mail addresses" maintained by Jonathan I. Kamens and posted regularly to comp.mail.misc. This document is also available vis FTP from pit-manager.mit.edu (18.72.1.58) in the file /pub/ usenet/news.answers/finding-addresses. Q: Where can I find a list of Internet accessible bulletin boards? By reading the postings to this newsgroup- alt.bbs.internet. The current list of Internet accessible bulletin boards is maintained by Thomas A. Kreeger and is irregularly posted under the title "Zamfield's Internet BBS List". The list is also available via anonymous FTP from wuarchive. wustl.edu in the file /pub/Internet-BBS.list.[date-of-last- update]. Q: Where can I find a list of Internet accesible services? By reading the postings to this newsgroup- alt.bbs.internet. The current list of Internet accessible services is maintained by Scott Yanoff and is regularly posted under the title "Updated Internet Srevices List". The list is also available via anonymous FTP from csd4.csd.uwm.edu in the file /pub/inet.services.txt. The newsgroup alt.bbs.internet is available through NETNEWS on PSUVM. Q: What is FTP and how do I use it? FTP (File Transfer Protocol) allows a person to transfer files between two computers connected to the Intenet. Some systems on the Internet offer files through "anonymous" FTP. Anonymous FTP servers permits users to transfer files to/from the site even whem they do not have an account at the site. Not every site permits anonymous transfers and it is wrong to try systems that have not advertised the availabilty 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 . 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. ARCHIE is an online database of files available from anonymous FTP sites worldwide. See the CAC writeup on ARCHIE for more information. 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 "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 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 file. 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 sited will have a file with a name like ls-IR, 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 to you are located. Once you have finished getting the files of interest you shuold issue the "quit" command to close the FTP connection and exit the FTP program. See the CAC writeup on "Anonymous FTP from PSUVM" or issue the PSUVM command HELP FTP for more information. Copyright 1992 Aydin Edguer Permission to use, copy, modify, or distribute for no fee is hereby granted, provided that he copyrightnotice appear in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear. I make no representations about the suitability or accuracy of this document for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty Local Penn State modifications made by Gerry Santoro (GMS@PSUVM.PSU.EDU).