HELP POPARCHIVE                                   Steve Knight, Oct 1991

This file maintained by Plug (see HELP * PLUG).


     The PLUG Source Code Archive -- now available by Anonymous FTP
     ==============================================================

 -- How to get at the archive
 -- If You've Never Used Anonymous FTP Before
 -- What to do with Compressed Tar Archives
 -- Important

One of the services that the Pop User Group provides is a public  source
code library. Until recently, the archive was only available on magnetic
tape or by  mail-server. However, we  can now provide  an anonymous  ftp
version. (This distribution  mechanism is  much easier  to maintain  and
more reliable in use than the other methods.)


-- How to get at the archive ------------------------------------------

If you already know  about ftp, then  all you need to  know is that  the
archive is in

    pub/plug.tar.Z
at

    hplose.hpl.hp.com   OR   15.255.59.1


-- If You've Never Used Anonymous FTP Before --------------------------

To get at the archive you have  to have access to a program called  ftp.
This program is  not the  most user-friendly beast.  However, you  don't
have to know much about it to get  at the PLUG archive. If you do  learn
about it then you will access to ftp archives all over the world.

Ftp allows you to access files on remote machines -- possibly  thousands
of miles away.  To start  ftp, you  should give  it the  address of  the
computer you  want to  access. In  this case,  you should  start ftp  as
follows

    % ftp hplose.hpl.hp.com

Several things can  happen at this  point. Possibly you  don't have  ftp
access, in  which  case  the  program  won't  exist.  Too  bad.  Another
possibility is that ftp cannot grok the address "hplose.hpl.hp.com".  In
this case, try it again with the raw numbers

    % ftp  15.255.59.1

and you *might* get lucky. Finally, you might actually make contact with
a remote computer.

This computer, which lurks  a mere 50m  from my desk,  will now ask  for
your name and password. Give "anonymous" as the name and your address as
the password  (anything will  do for  the password).  This special  name
gives you access to a public area of 'hplose'.

You should now be told that you are successfully talking to "hplose" and
a not very informative prompt waits for your next command. At this point
you can issue a few UNIX-like commands. In particular, you can  navigate
to the pub directory by typing

    > cd pub

and have look around with

    > ls

Now, it is very important to switch the ftp program into binary mode. If
you don't do this, your copy of the archive will be corrupted. (Oops.)

    > binary

This instructs ftp that you are going to start shipping text with  funny
characters. (Why ftp doesn't work in  this mode by default is a  mystery
to me.) You should now grab the archive.

    > get plug.tar.Z

This will  take  a  little  while.  The archive  is  not  large  in  its
compressed form but  ftp is  often slow. If  you want  to see  something
during this process you could issue the

    > hash

command BEFORE  the get  command. This  will generate  a hash  character
everytime another 1K is dragged across. The archive is approximately 1Mb
in size.

This dialog will terminate,  I hope, with  a message reporting  success.
Now exit from  ftp by typing  ^D or quit.  What you should  see in  your
current directory is the file

    plug.tar.Z

This is a compressed tar-archive.


-- What to do with Compressed Tar Archives ----------------------------

If you are on a UNIX machine, you should now type

    % uncompress plug.tar.Z
    % tar xvf plug.tar

The first command  uncompresses plug.tar.Z and  turns it into  plug.tar.
This is  a tar-archive.  So  you run  tar  to eXtract,  Verbosely,  File
plug.tar. The  v option  generates some  text telling  you about  what's
going on.

This should leave you with the file plug.tar and a directory hierarchy

    ./plug/...

If this is  the case, then  you have recovered  the source code  archive
correctly and can delete the tar archive.

    rm plug.tar


-- Important ----------------------------------------------------------

    Although members of PLUG have devoted their spare time and effort in
keeping the archive up to  date, its software must  be used on an  as-is
basis. Neither PLUG,  individual members  of PLUG,  or anyone  connected
with the archive can provide any guarantee or warranty as to the fitness
of use of the archive software.  Of course, we are interested in  trying
to keep the software  to a good  standard, and if  you have comments  we
would be interested in hearing them, this does not imply any  commitment
or service in responding to comments.

Disclaimer's like  this might  seem an  irrelevance. Alas  we live  in a
world where it is often necessary to  point out the obvious -- that  the
archive is  a collection  of unvetted  contributions --  to avoid  later
misunderstandings.


--- C.all/help/poparchive
--- Copyright University of Sussex 1992. All rights reserved. ----------
