4. The Mother Lode of Anonymous FTP Sites

Throughout this document, sites are listed for specific documents. Most are only indexes to more information. A big problem is searching through all this information to find what you want. One of the best search methods is Archie, described below.

Several sites contain large repositories of files and other sites that are the source for specific programs such as Kermit, the public domain file transfer program.

4.1. archie

One of the best ways of searching for a program available via anonymous FTP is with archie (Archive Server Listing Service), several of these servers scattered throughout the world. The fastest one I have found is the Advanced Network & Services, Inc. located in the United States.

Archie goes to every site that offers anonymous FTP files, collects the file structure from that site, and places it in a database it can search.

A real-life example. I was reading an article about Windows in the July 1992 issue of PC World, and it mentioned a shareware program called ZiPaper on page 212. The name of the program is zipapr.zip. I can use Archie to locate this program.

      Source:

      telnet archie.ans.net

      login as archie

      At the archie prompt type

      prog zipapr.zip

      The response is

      Host wuarchive.wustl.edu  (128.252.135.2)
      Last updated 17:22 13 July 1992

         Location:  /mirrors3/archive.umich.edu/msdos/mswindows/desktop
          FILE      rw-rw-r--   41984  Jan 30 1991  zipapr.zip

      This tells you the file is available via anonymous FTP to
      wuarchive.wustl.edu in the directory
      mirrors3/archive.umich.edu/msdos/mswindows/desktop and the file is
      zipapr.zip.

4.2. Washington University (anonymous FTP)

Washington University represents perhaps one of the most popular sites for software on the network. The Mirrors directory contains a copy of all of the wsmr-simtel20.army.mil files. Wsmr-simtel20- army.mil is the originator and keeper of major amounts of public domain software. Their site, however, is often overloaded and difficult to connect to.

You will find enough software in the Mirrors directory to keep you busy for the rest of your life. The MS-DOS and Macintosh subdirectories contain files for those specific machines.

      Anonymous FTP to wuarchive.wustl.edu
      cd mirrors

      cd msdos

      For income tax time cd taxes
      For unzipping files cd zip, type binary, and get pkz110eu.exe
      For education software cd education
      For graphics files cd giff, tiff or graphics

      cd macintosh

      For the Macintosh there are directories for applications, inits,
      sounds, reviews, and many more.

4.3. KERMIT (anonymous FTP)

Kermit is a public domain file transfer protocol available for just about all microcomputers, minicomputers, andmainframes. It is very popular and has been has been used at computer facilities everywhere.

      Anonymous FTP to watsun.cc.columbia.edu

      cd kermit
      get read.me

      For executable versions of kermit:

      cd bin

      get READ.ME file and read for specifics of what file to get.

      For the IBM PC, I get msvibm.exe after typing binary to activate
      the binary transfer mode.

4.4. NCSA Software for Network Access from PCs (anonymous FTP)

      Source:
      Anonymous ftp to ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
      cd NCSA_Telnet
      cd PC/Telnet  (for IBM PC Software)
      get telxxbin.zip where xx is the current version number
      (in binary format; I also suggest getting readme files)

      cd Mac/Telnet
      get telnet.x.sithqx where x is the current version number
      (in binary format; I also suggest getting readme files)

4.5. Other Popular Ftp Sites (anonymous FTP)

      Name of Site                What's there

      ftp.apple.com               Macintosh system software/technical
                                  notes
      ftp.cayman.com              Gatorbox archive site
      dragonfly.wri.com           Mathematica archive site
      mac.archive.umich.edu       Macintosh software
      sumex-aim.stanford.edu      Macintosh software
      rascal.ics.utexas.edu       Macintosh software
      ftp.acns.nwu.edu            Disinfectant archive site
                                  (virus software)
      microlib.cc.utexas.edu      GateKeeper archive site
                           (virus software)
      bert.cs.byu.edu             NCSA Telnet archive site (BYU version)
      ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu           NCSA Telnet archive site
      beach.gal.utexas.edu        F-Prot/Scan & Clean archive site
                           (virus software)
      cert.sei.cmu.edu            Virus Documentation
      msdos.archive.umich.edu     MS-DOS software
      ux1.cso.uiuc.edu            MS-DOS software    (PC-SIG CD)
      oak.oakland.edu             MS-DOS software
      wuarchive.wustl.edu         MS-DOS software
      cica.cica.indiana.edu       MS-DOS software    (Windows software)
      archive.cis.ohio-state.edu  UNIX software