http://unhinfo.unh.edu/unh/cis/NIS/Docs/Web/vms-internet-intro.htmlNote that unlike most web pages, this document has been designed as one moderately large file. While this makes the page a little slower to load, if hard copy is desired, the entire document can be printed out as a single piece.
Specific topics that are covered include:
The most visible and popular services of the Internet are:
Unlike conventional phone service, however, the University's Internet service is not metered, nor does the cost of service vary because of the distances involved or the time of day. What the University pays for is a `data pipe' between it and the Internet. The cost of such a pipe varies according to its size. By most standards, the University has a modestly large pipe connected to the Internet. A typical high speed modem is a straw by comparison and the difference is readily noticed when engaging in some activities, such as down-loading files.
Since this service is not metered, the University is not charged for any individual message or access. The pipe costs the same regardless of whether it is used a little, or a lot. However, as demand increases, the flow of information through the pipe will begin to slow down and can reach a point where people will regard the connection as too slow or apparently unreliable. Purchasing a larger pipe to solve this problem will cost proportionally more money. Likewise, increased Internet traffic implies an increase in disk space storage to hold the greater data flow, which in turn can increase equipment purchase, maintenance, and personnel costs.
The bottom line is that Internet services, as with any University resource, are to be used, but not abused. The occasional e-mail message to a friend or relative is not going to have much of an impact on the system resources or Internet traffic. Recreational uses, such as down-loading images or playing games, definitely will since, ironically, these activities tend to take the most resources to support.
In summary, the University System VAXcluster provides the tools needed to access virtually all available Internet services that do not require the presentation of graphics, video, sound, or non-ASCII text formats. While this limits access to much of the `fun' and `gee whiz' features of the Internet, the vast majority of the information services of professional value, the `meat and potatoes' if you will, are still available at your finger tips.
The key to using Internet electronic mail is the address. An Internet address has the following syntax:
somebody@domain
where "somebody" is usually the person's login name, and "domain" is
often the name of a particular machine and its place within the
network. This is a bit of an over simplification, but it is true for
probably 80% of the addresses you'll ever see. Here are some examples:
w_costa@unhn.unh.edu
This is the address for Bill Costa, on the machine Noether (UNHN) at
the University of New Hampshire (UNH) within the educational (EDU) top
level domain.
Bill.Costa@UNH.EDU
This is also an address for Bill Costa, but it's not clear what machine
the message is being sent to, only that it's going to UNH. As it
turns out, this is known as an e-mail alias.
When the message finally reaches the University, it will be the job
of a designated machine at that location to figure out where that
message really goes.
The right most part of the domain is called the top-level domain. Some of the top-level domains you will see include:
well.sf.ca.us
-- that is -- San Fransico, California,
United States. But because so many sites already existed with the old
domain names, it made no sense to change them.
One last note about Internet addresses; they are case insensitive. This means that:
bill.costa@unh.edu
Bill.Costa@UNH.Edu
BILL.COSTA@UNH.EDU
and any other variation you can think of would all be accepted as a
valid address.
If you are not very familiar with VMS EMAIL, training is offered on a regular basis that covers how to take advantage of this friendly but powerful program. If you already are using EMAIL, you only need two addition pieces of information to use VMS EMAIL on the Internet:
W_COSTA - on the same machine or within the cluster
UNHWFC::W_COSTA - to another machine that understands DECNET
SMTP%"Bill.Costa@unh.edu" - somewhere out on the Internet
The SMTP%""
is called an envelope. Think of this way, when you
send e-mail from your VAX account to another, it's a lot like those
funny brown Campus
mail envelopes. You don't need to put much of an address on the
outside because it is obvious that the message is for local delivery.
To send something outside of the University requires a full address and
a stamp. In VMS EMAIL,
SMTP%"some-Internet-address"
is like using a regular envelope with that full address and stamp.
Here's what it would look like to send a message to someone on Christa
with a CC: to someone else in the VAXcluster.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
| MAIL> send
| To: smtp%"wfc@christa.unh.edu"
| CC: w_costa
| Subj: Next meeting has been canceled due to lack of interest.
|
When you receive a message from someone out on the net, their return
address is automatically given the SMTP%"" stamp of approval. That
way you can use the REPLY command for that message and
have it work without even thinking about it.
Likewise, when you send a message out onto the net, your message's return address is automatically set to be your Internet address. So what is your own Internet address? Well you could send a message to a friend on the Internet, and then call her up to see what she got. Don't laugh! In the bad old days of Internet e-mail, that was sometimes the best way to find that out because of some of the amazing transformations that would take place as the message passed from machine to machine.
Fortunately e-mail standardized has gotten a lot better, so now all you need to know is your login name and the particular VAX that you use for that account. Although as it turns out, even that last part is not very important. First off, the Internet domains for the machines in the University System VAXcluster are as follows:
UNHA.UNH.EDU - Archimedes (r-ka-me-dees a.k.a. Archie)
UNHB.UNH.EDU - Bernoulli (ber-newl-lee a.k.a. Bernie)
UNHE.UNH.EDU - Euler (oiler)
UNHF.UNH.EDU - Fermat (fur-ma)
UNHN.UNH.EDU - Noether (noy-ther)
So if you log in as J_USER on Bernie, your Internet address is:
j_user@unhb.unh.edu
As it turns out, all of the VAXcluster nodes share the same e-mail
addresses. So it really doesn't make any difference which one
you choose -- any one of them will make sure you get your messages.
Finally it is important to point out that the SMTP%"" is not part of your Internet address! Again, you only need that envelope to get a message you're sending off of the VAXcluster and out over the net. It has nothing to do with your own address. Well, somebody on the VAXcluster could send you e-mail using your Internet address, and thus they would have to use the SMTP%"" envelope. But that's not your problem. And quite frankly, it'd be almost as silly a thing to do as putting a stamp on a piece of campus mail.
E-mail is the most ubiquitous application on the Internet. Electronic mailing lists allow almost any number of Internet users to share ideas and information about a topic of common interest using e-mail. Since so many folks already know how to use an e-mail program, it's a natural that this would be one of the most popular methods for this kind of communication on the Internet.
At its simplest, an e-mail list is an address that, when a message is sent to it, `explodes' that message back out onto the net, sending an individual copy to every e-mail address on that list. Originally e-mail lists where nothing more than just that. But now, programs like ListProc offer mailing list services that are much more versatile, and in addition, are quite adept at keeping the amount of junk mail sent to a minimum.
An advantage of e-mail lists is that since everyone receives his or her own copy of the message, it can be saved or deleted as desired. The disadvantage of e-mail lists is that on any given computer system, each message will be duplicated as many times as there are subscribers to that list on that system. For example, say 50 people on the VAXcluster subscribe to the (fictitious) list
Cool.Cyber.Cats@feline-friends.com
When a 200 thousand byte message is sent to the list (about 5 pages of
text), over a million bytes of storage will be consumed on the
VAXcluster disks to store 50 identical copies of that 1 message. This
storage
space will be recovered only as each individual deletes his or her
own copy of that message.
Still, e-mail lists provide a convenient method for sharing ideas and information. VMS EMAIL can be used to access electronic mailing lists that are hosted both on and off campus. As a VMS EMAIL user and member of the UNH community, you can also host your own e-mail list using the ListProc electronic mailing list management service provided at UNH.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
| MAIL> send
| To: smtp%"Cool.Cyber.Cats@feline-friends.com"
| CC:
| Subj: Siamese Rule!
|
Some important points to keep in mind amount electronic mailing lists
in general:
listname-request@address
In other words, to contact the list owner of Cool.Cyber.Cats,
you'd use:
Cool.Cyber.Cats-request@feline-friends.com
Note the SMTP%"" was left off for clarity, but you know by now that
you need to use the envelope for sending to any Internet address.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
| MAIL> send
| To: smtp%"ListProc@lists.unh.edu"
| CC:
| Subj:
|
| lists global
|
ListProc is a popular list management
software package used throughout the Internet community.
This command asks our
local list manager about all lists available via this software --
anywhere on the Internet. This will be a long list of lists! You can
also use a keyword to limit your search.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
| MAIL> send
| To: smtp%"ListProc@lists.unh.edu"
| CC:
| Subj:
|
| lists global university
|
This will ask for only those lists with the word "university" in the
title.
ListServ is another popular mailing list server program. It too is used to host hundreds, if not thousands, of mailing lists around the world. Check out:
http://www.nova.edu/InterLinks/listserv.html
If you don't know how to access web pages such as this, read the next
section below.
To learn more about how to use the ListProc list manager, send the following message:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
| MAIL> send
| To: smtp%"ListProc@lists.unh.edu"
| CC:
| Subj:
|
| help
|
Also watch for
training classes,
starting in the fall of '96.
When people talk about "surfing the net", they're probably thinking of the "World Wide Web". If the Internet was just e-mail, mailing lists, news groups, and FTP, there probably wouldn't be the current media excitement (and hype) about the Internet. The web is a relatively recent addition to the services available over the Internet, but it has without doubt attracted the most attention. That's because with it's emphasis on graphics, sound, and video, along with the easy point-and-click interface of a graphical web browser, it is probably the most accessible of the Internet services.
Of course, with all this emphasis on the glitz and glamour of colors, graphics, sound, and video, you might think that the web is of no use to a stodgy business computer system like the VAX. After all, conventional text-only terminals can't duplicate the features that microcomputer users now take for granted. While it is true that more and more web sites are exploiting the graphical possibilities of web pages, there is still a large amount of useful information (as well as the inevitable larger amount of junk) available to a text-only web browser like Lynx. In fact, except for graphics and sound, Lynx can do much of what the wildly popular Netscape browser can do. But admittedly Lynx is a bit harder to learn at first.
The following discussion explains the anatomy of a URL. While this is good information to know, especially as your use of the web become more sophisticated, it is not necessary to master this information to get started. In other words, if at first this all seems like Greek, don't sweat it. The Lynx web browser has already been configured to automatically attach you to a UNH or USNH home page. From this home base, you can easily begin your exploration of the net without knowing anything about URLs. Indeed, for a captive account, URLs are a moot point since a captive account Lynx user cannot enter one directly. Still, knowledge is power and in your travels on the web, you will see references to these animals sooner than later. Even a fuzzy understanding will help in your explorations.
protocol://host-name/directory-and-file-name
Examples of protocols include:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/url-primer.html
How? Glad you asked...
LYNX in the "Services"
field on the main screen. The home page for CUFS users
is the of the University System.
LYNX menu item
from the main menu. The home page for HRIS users
is the of the University System.
LYNX at
the command line prompt. The home page for non-captive
users is UNHinfo, the UNH home page.
If you already know the specific URL that you want to access, it can be entered as part of the command. For example, to connect directly to the University System home page, instead of going through UNHinfo first, the command would be:
+--------------------------------
|
| $ lynx http://swis.unh.edu
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1| UNHinfo - Campus-Wide Information System (p1 of 2) 2| 3| UNHinfo - Campus-Wide Information System 4| 5| [INLINE] 6| 7| University of New Hampshire 8| 9| 10| _________________________________________________________________ 11| 12| * Welcome to UNH and UNHINFO. 13| * UNH-Durham's Campus-Wide Information System 14| * The Internet 15| * University System of NH (incl CLL, Keene, and Plymouth) 16| * Elsewhere in New Hampshire 17| * What's New (14/MAY/96) 18| * Comments and suggestions 19| * Search - keyword search of all menus on the UNHINFO server 20| 21| 22|-- press space for next page -- 23| Arrow keys: Up and Down to move. Right to follow a link; Left to go back. 24| H)elp O)ptions P)rint G)o M)ain screen Q)uit /=search [delete]=history listA number of web page and Lynx features are illustrated on this page:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1| University System of New Hampshire (p1 of 4) 2| 3| *University System of NH* 4| 5| About USNH | USNH Offices' Websites | Mission Statement 6| 7| Campuses | People | System Resources 8| Elsewhere on the Web |On line 5 there are 3 links. With the first link (About USNH) selected, the natural impulse would be to press the right arrow key to move to the next link (USNH Offices' Websites) which is on the right. But that would instead activate that link, moving you to the `About USNH' page. Pressing the down arrow key will advance to the next link on the right since that is the next available link on this page. Until you get use to it, you'll make the mistake of using the right arrow key in situations like this, when you really meant the down arrow key to move to the next link. It may be useful to get in the habit of using the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key which can also be used instead of the right arrow to activate the currently selected link. (Remember, the space bar moves to the next screen, not the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key which moves you to the next page.)
As mentioned above, the last line of the Lynx display lists a set of common Lynx commands.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | H)elp O)ptions P)rint G)o M)ain screen Q)uit /=search [delete]=history list |Entering the single letter or character shown selects the command. You should not press the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key to complete the command; entering the single character by itself will activate it.
* The Internet
* Indexes (search engines) for keyword searching of the Web.
* Alta Vista Web and Newsgroup (USENET)...
...or by using the URL:
http://www.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query
Here's using the "simple query" page to perform a search on the subject of
mailing lists.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | AltaVista: Main Page
2 |
3 | Digital Equipment Corporation
4 |
5 | [AltaVista] [Advanced Search] [SIMPLE QUERY] [Surprise] [Help with
6 | Query] Search [the Web] and Display the Results [in Standard Form]
7 | "mailing lists"________________________________________ Submit
8 | Tip: Looking for recipes? Bargains? Try the newsgroups by selecting
9 | "Usenet" instead of "the Web".
10 |
This page illustrates a number of advanced features in a web page
`form' that can be handled by Lynx.
Line 5 contains four and a half links. Just kidding.
The text for the fifth link (Help with Query) is simply broken over two
lines.
Before...
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | AltaVista: Main Page
2 |
3 | Digital Equipment Corporation
4 |
5 | [AltaVista] [***********arch] [SIMPLE QUERY] [Surprise] [Help with
6 | Query] Search* the Web *and Display the Results [in Standard Form]
7 | "mailing list* Usenet *_______________________________ Submit
8 | Tip: Looking ***********? Bargains? Try the newsgroups by selecting
9 | "Usenet" instead of "the Web".
10 |
What appears to be the next link on line 6
(the Web) is not a conventional link at all, but rather a `pick list'.
Activating this link, that is, moving to it and pressing the right
arrow (or [RETURN]) key causes a pick list to be displayed as shown in
the "before" illustration above.
The text "the Web" is highlighted since that is the default value. But there is also the choice of "Usenet". To select that value, move the down arrow key to highlight that item and press [RETURN] to confirm the selection.
After...
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | AltaVista: Main Page
2 |
3 | Digital Equipment Corporation
4 |
5 | [AltaVista] [Advanced Search] [SIMPLE QUERY] [Surprise] [Help with
6 | Query] Search [Usenet ] and Display the Results [in Standard Form]
7 | "mailing lists"________________________________________ Submit
8 | Tip: Looking for recipes? Bargains? Try the newsgroups by selecting
9 | "Usenet" instead of "the Web".
10 |
The final result is shown in the "after" illustration above. Notice
that line 6 now says "Search Usenet and Display...".
(For the remainder of the example, the original value of "the Web" will
be used instead.)
The link "in Standard Form" is also a pick list with selectable values of "in Standard Form", "in Compact Form", and "in Detail Form".
Line 7 contains a fill-in blank. For our search, we will look for the phrase "mailing lists". If the quote marks were not used, the search would instead be for any web page containing the word "mailing" or "lists".
Finally, on line 7 the link "Submit" is selected and activated. A web page form should always have a `submit button' located somewhere -- usually at the end of the form. It is selecting that link that causes the form information to be processed.
Well this doesn't look like a narrow enough topic! The new web page generated by our query shows the first 10 documents out of a total of about 100,000! Within these documents, our search phrase was matched about 200,000 times.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
1| AltaVista: Simple Query "mailing lists" (p1 of 2)
2|
3| [AltaVista] [Advanced Search] [SIMPLE QUERY] [Surprise]
4| Search [the Web] and Display the Results [in Standard Form]
5| "mailing lists"________________________________________ Submit
6| Tip: When in doubt use lower-case. See Help for better matches.
7| Word count: mailing lists: about 200000
8|
9|
10|
11| Documents 1-10 of about 100000 matching some of the query terms,
12| best matches first.
13|
14| Chemical Mailing Lists
15| Chemical Mailing Lists. AMBER -- Amber users discussions.
16| Description: A mail reflector for users and people
17| interested in Amber. A major part of the...
18| http://apamac.ch.adfa.oz.au/OzChemNet/mailinglists.htm
19| - size 76K - 4 Aug 95
|
Still, AltaVista does its best to organize and display what was found.
The first match is shown above starting on line 14.
The text "Chemical
Mailing Lists" is a link to the page containing the text that matched
our query. The beginning text is displayed, along with the URL and
the size of the matched document.
An advanced query allows a more precise approach to doing a search. Consider the following query:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | AltaVista: Advanced Query
2 |
3 | [AltaVista] [Advanced Search] [SIMPLE QUERY] [Surprise] [Help with
4 | Query]
5 |
6 | Search [the Web] and Display the Results [in Standard Form]
7 | Selection Criteria: Use only Advanced Search Syntax with AND, OR,
8 | NOT and NEAR.
9 |
10 | "list of lists" near ("electronic mail" or "mailing list")__________
11 | ____________________________________________________________________
12 | ____________________________________________________________________
13 |
14 |
15 | Results Ranking Criteria: documents containing these words will be
16 | listed first.
17 | If left blank, the matching documents will not be sorted.
18 |
19 | master or global or universal or internet___________________________
20 |
21 |
22 | Start date: ____________ End date: ____________ e.g. 21/Mar/96
23 | Submit Advanced Query
24 |
This looks for the phrase "list of lists" that appears in the text
near either the phrase "electronic mail" or "mailing list". The second
fill-in blank allows the matches to be ordered based upon possible
relevance.
This time we came up with something a little more
manageable. Here are the results with the first two matching items:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Documents 1-10 of 68 matching some of the query terms, best matches
| first.
|
| No Title
| Surfing the INTERNET: an Introduction Version 2.0.2 December
| 15, 1992 c. 1992 Jean Armour Polly. Material quoted from
| other authors was compiled from...
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/www/nav/intro/int002 - size 59K -
| 9 Jun 93
| http://wiretap.spies.com/Gopher/Library/Techdoc/Network/
| surfing.int - size 59K - 6 Jan 93
|
|
| The Online World: Chapter 10
| The Online World resources handbook's text on paper, disk
| and in any other electronic form is © copyrighted
| 1995 by Odd de Presno. -- [INDEX] -...
| http://login.eunet.no/~presno/bok/10.html - size 65K - 20
| Apr 96
|
Searching is a powerful way of locating useful information on the
Internet.
Be sure to check out the other indexes listed in the UNHinfo Internet
menu.
USENET is a network of servers that maintain a list of interest groups, also known as news groups, and store the information that has been posted to each group. Each server stores these postings for a finite period of time.
News groups are divided into seven major hierarchies, plus the infamous `alternative news groups' that are distributed almost as widely. A news group name is in the form of:
category.subject.sub-topic.sub-topic...
The seven major news categories are:
alt.cellular-phone-tech alt.fan.james-bond
alt.locksmithing alt.activism
alt.atheism.moderated alt.child-support
alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk alt.culture.us.asian-indian
alt.education.disabled alt.politics.democrats.house
alt.sports.baseball.bos-redsox alt.humor.puns
alt.music.big-band alt.home.repair
alt.literacy.adult alt.education.university.vision
unh.comp.admin unh.cis.announce
unh.comp.misc unh.academic.senate.discussion
unh.cs unh.games.mind
unh.cs.grad unh.humor
unh.flame unh.games.doom
unh.general.announce unh.sr.pathfinder
unh.lame unh.comp.pda.newton
unh.misc unh.res.ra
unh.misc.forsale unh.res.minis
unh.math unh.usenet.test
unh.grad.students unh.sports.basketball
unh.games.paintball unh.forsale
unh.games.rpg.earthdawn unh.wanted
unh.res.congreve unh.cs.cs780
unh.org.philosophy.club unh.religion
unh.res.gables unh.religion.magick
Usenet postings are stored on the local server. Since postings take up disk space, they cannot be kept indefinitely. On the UNH server, the following guidelines are used:
With news groups, however, there is no single point of control. There is an informal code of conduct that is encouraged by the USENET community of users. But since there is no central body that controls USENET news groups, these are the only `rules' that exist. When someone violates this informal code, various individuals will inevitably take it upon themselves to inform the violator of their transgression. Sometimes the correction is gently applied, sometimes not. While real harm is very rarely done to folks who do not follow this code, it is still the polite thing to do and probably a good idea.
VNEWS is (unfortunately) a Unix style news reader. Commands are entered as a single letter or symbol and the character case does make a difference. As if that wasn't bad enough, the help is poorly organized and the first time you run the program will probably scare you out of your wits! This is not a program for the occasional user. It is, however, flexible and powerful enough for regular users who are willing to spend a little time in practicing in its use.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
| $ setup vnews
|
| For usage information, issue the command:
| $ help vnews
| and also see:
| $ type/page doc:vnews.doc
| and this directory:
| $ dir usenet:
|
| VNEWS has been defined as a command for the rest of your
| terminal session. For more information type:
|
| $ HELP VNEWS
| $
|
VNEWS is not a standard part of the VMS operating system. Use the
UNH SETUP command to define the VNEWS command, making it available for
the duration of your terminal session.
If you use VNEWS regularly, you will probably want to put this SETUP
command in your LOGIN.COM file.
XX.NEWSRC which will contain the name
of every news group known to the UNH server. That's all fine and
well except that after creating this file, it proceeds to ask you,
one-by-one, which groups you want to subscribe to. Not a practical
approach with over 4,000 groups available!
The following is a recommended approach to starting up VNEWS for the first time.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
| $ setup vnews
|
| ...... messages displayed as shown above ......
|
| $ vnews
|
When you enter the VNEWS command, the terminal screen will clear and
after a few moments, the following text will appear:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
| Welcome to VNEWS V1.50 of 11-JAN-1996 13:35
|
| Reading your XX.Newsrc file from SYS$LOGIN: ...
|
| Connecting to remote news server news.unh.edu ...
| 200 mozz.unh.edu InterNetNews NNRP server INN 1.4 20-Mar-93 ready
| (posting ok).
|
|
This confirms that the news reader (VNEWS) was able to locate the local
news server (news.unh.edu). The message "posting ok" means that this
server will allow you to post to, as well as read from, the news groups
it serves. If this is the first time you have run VNEWS (or if your
XX.NEWSRC file was accidentally deleted), you will see a message similar
to the following:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Retrieving status of all groups from server...
| Your news server currently has 4056 news groups available.
|
| Since I could not find your XX.NEWSRC file, I am assuming
| that this is your first time running news. Most news
| servers have over a thousand groups, so you may not want
| to individually subscribe to all of them. If you want to
| look at them all, just type y or n to each group name as
| it gets shown. If you want to have them all, just
| type q/s. If you want to have none of them, type q/u.
| I recommend that you type q/s, and then edit your
| XX.NEWSRC file, and change the colon (:) after each name
| (which indicates that you want to read that group) to an
| exclamation point (!, which indicates that you do NOT
| want to read that group, on any group which you are not
| interested in reading.
| Or, you could do it the other way: type q/u, and then
| change !s to :s for the groups you do want to read.
| Warning! When you type q/u or q/s, you will get a
| very long list of groups. Nothing wrong here, just
| the normal business of the day.
| OK! Here we go...
|
| New group alt.3d subscribe [ynh?q]
|
At this point, enter the text:
q/u
and then sit back for 2 or 3 minutes as each news group quickly
scrolls by. Do not be alarmed! This is, believe it or not, normal
for this program. With luck you will never have to see this
happen again. When the show is over, you will need to enter another "q"
(for quit) to exit out of VNEWS.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
| :
| :
| rec.autos.makers.jeep+willys not subscribed.
| rec.aviation.aerobatics not subscribed.
| rec.crafts.textiles.marketplace not subscribed.
| alt.games.ultima.dragons not subscribed.
| rec.arts.anime not subscribed.
| soc.politics.marxism not subscribed.
|
|
| DONE, action: q
|
| Closing News server connection...
|
| Updating XX.Newsrc in SYS$LOGIN: ...
| Purging old XX.NEWSRC files out of SYS$LOGIN: ...
|
| VNEWS done after 21 minutes.
| You read 0 messages (0 groups) and composed 0 answers.
|
| $
|
At this point you now have a file in your home
directory (XX.NEWSRC) that
contains every news group currently available.
If you are comfortable with editing files, you may want to try the
second option outlined above, that is, editing
your XX.NEWSRC file to select the news groups you want.
The approach
outlined here, however, does not require any file editing.
At this point you are ready to select the news groups you want to
subscribe to. To do that, you need to know the names of the groups
available.
This can be done by printing out your XX.NEWSRC file (about 66 pages),
or by visiting the web sites:
http://www.liszt.com/cgi-bin/news.cgi
and
http://www.tile.net/tile/news/viewlist.html
A third technique is to search your own XX.NEWSRC
file yourself. Try the following:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| $ search xx.newsrc education
| alt.education.bangkok!
| alt.education.bangkok.cmc!
| alt.education.bangkok.databases!
| alt.education.bangkok.planning!
| alt.education.bangkok.research!
| alt.education.bangkok.student!
| alt.education.bangkok.theory!
| alt.education.disabled!
| alt.education.distance!
| misc.education!
| misc.education.language.english!
| misc.education.science!
| alt.education.email-project!
| misc.education.medical!
| misc.education.home-school.christian!
| misc.education.home-school.misc!
| alt.education.university.vision2020!
| misc.education.adult!
| misc.education.multimedia!
| alt.education.home-school.christian!
| alt.education.higher.stu-affairs!
| alt.education.alternative!
| clari.news.education!
| clari.news.education.releases!
| bionet.plants.education!
| clari.news.education.higher!
| $
|
Note that the exclamation point at the end of each line is
not part of the news group name. Do not enter it when
referencing a news group in a command.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| $ vnews
| :
| :
| :
| DONE, action:
|
To subscribe to a group, enter "g" for the "go" command followed by
the name of the group. For example, to subscribe to education discussion
group, the command would be:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| DONE, action: g misc.education
| Subscribed to group misc.education, hit to continue.
|
When you press the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key, the screen will clear and
VNEWS will prompt you for a command to apply to this news group.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | Group misc.education available: 22200 - 50594 unread: 28395
2 |
3 |
4 | GROUP misc.education action:
5 |
|
Line 1
shows the name of the group currently selected, the message
id numbers known to the server, and how many of these messages you have
not seen yet. Yes, that really says 28,395 messages. But remember,
usually only some fraction of these will be available since ALT.*
postings are only kept for 5 days on the UNH server.
Line 4 is VNEWS prompting for a command to apply to this group. Just pressing the [RETURN] or [ENTER] key will cause VNEWS to find and display the first available message you have not read yet.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Group misc.education available: 22200 - 50594 unread: 28394
| article 22200 29-MAY-1996 17:08:50.34
|
| From: leydorwb@ucbeh.san.uc.edu
| Newsgroups: misc.education
| Subject: need help quick on financial aid!!!
| Message-ID: <1994Sep19.112213.4494@ucbeh>
| Date: 19 Sep 94 11:22:13 EST
| Distribution: world
| Organization: University of Cincinnati
| Lines: 3
|
| Are there any newsgroups dealing with student loans, or collection
| services
|
| -Brad
|
| End article 22200 action:
|
At the end of each article, VNEWS prompts for the next command. For
the moment, let's just keep pressing the [RETURN] key.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| End article 22200 action:
| Skipped unavailable articles 22201-37339
|
| End article 37339 action:
|
Because old articles are discarded after 5 days,
VNEWS discovered that articles number 22,201 through 37,339 are no long
available and has skipped them. Pressing the [RETURN] key again will
read the next article, etc.
When subscribing to a news list for the first time, it is sometimes best to make a fresh start of it. This is done with the "catch-up" command:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| End article 37342 action: c
| Do you really want to mark everything as read? [yn] y
|
|
VNEWS will go on to the next group you are subscribed to that has
any unread messages. When you have read or caught up on all of your
messages, VNEWS prompts with:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| DONE, action:
|
Just pressing the [RETURN] key at this point will exit out of VNEWS.
So in summary, once you have subscribed to some news groups, using
VNEWS can be as simple as just pressing the [RETURN] key until you
have read everything. But what if you are subscribed to a very active
news group, or one that only has a few specific topics of interest?
When prompted for action on an article for a given news group, the
directory command (d) lists the subjects of all the unread articles in
the group:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
| End article 37758 action: d
---- screen clears ----
| Group misc.education available: 22200 - 50595 unread: 12837
| article 37758 29-MAY-1996 17:34:52.11
|
| 37759 Re: Teaching and testing
| 37760 Re: How to teach mathematics (or other subjects)
| 37761 Re: Whole Language Gains a New Supporter
| 37762 Using the Web to apply to college or university
| .
| 37764 Re: Calculator usage?
| 37765 Internet Relay Chat - Undernet
| 37766 Re: Teaching and testing
| 37767 Looking for admissions info U.K.
| ---More---
|
To read any message, enter its ID at the prompt (you do not have to
scroll through the entire directory before selecting a message).
When you read a message in this manner, you'll notice that if you do
another directory, only those messages you have not read yet will be
displayed. A gap in the number sequence, such as:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 37765 Internet Relay Chat - Undernet
| 37766 Re: Teaching and testing
| 37769 Looking for admissions info U.K.
|
indicates that messages numbers 37767 and 37768 have been read. In
contrast, a
missing message number indicated with a period:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 37762 Using the Web to apply to college or university
| .
| 37764 Re: Calculator usage?
| 37765 Internet Relay Chat - Undernet
|
indicates a message that has expired or otherwise been removed from the
system -- but has not been read by you.
Use the "?" command for help within VNEWS. Here is a list of some of the available commands organized by command type. Note that unlike a native VMS application, upper and lower case commands are different! Items surrounded by square brackets ([]) are optional. Do not enter the brackets themselves.
S [addr] send a copy via e-mail
S/c [addr] send a copy via e-mail with CC to me
s [filename] save to a file in my directory
P print article
f followup to news group
F [addr] followup & reply by mail
R [addr] reply by mail only
F/c followup & reply by mail with CC to me
R/c reply by mail only with CC to me
p [group] post a new article to the news group
x use a simple cypher to hide an offensive message
c catchup, marking all articles as read
m/g mark group unread
g pattern go (and subscribe to) group
u unsubscribe from current news group
M move group (do ? for help at "Insert where?" prompt)
q quit current group, go on to next
d/g [pattern] group directory
h help
Q! quit without updating XX.NEWSRC file.
N autoanswer N to catchups
Y autoanswer Y to catchups
This service provides a quick and convenient way to copy files from one computer system to another, over the Internet. FTP is installed and available on both the VAXcluster nodes as well as the UNH academic Unix systems. FTP is also a common utility for microcomputer systems.
Normally an account name and password are needed to use FTP on a remote node. Some systems, however, make available public libraries which allow a special access known as "anonymous FTP". To log into such a site, use the word "anonymous" as the username and your e-mail address as the password. Popular anonymous FTP sites often limit the number of concurrent connections for anonymous connections. You may find that after logging in this way, a message will inform you that the limit has been exceeded and to try again later.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | $ ftp christa.unh.edu
2 | unhb.unh.edu MultiNet FTP user process V3.5(117)
3 | Connection opened (Assuming 8-bit connections)
4 | <christa.unh.edu FTP server (Digital UNIX Version 5.60) ready.
5 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> login wfc
6 | <Password required for wfc.
7 | Password:
8 | <User wfc logged in.
9 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> dir
10 | <Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls (132.177.165.2,3443).
11 | total 484
12 | drwx------ 2 wfc mis 512 Feb 16 10:22 Doc
13 | drwx------ 4 wfc mis 1024 Feb 14 1995 FTP
14 | -rw------- 1 wfc mis 109035 Feb 23 20:03 sample-large.html
15 | -rw------- 1 wfc mis 2625 Feb 23 17:52 sample.html
16 | -rw-r--r-- 1 wfc mis 2595 Feb 23 19:41 sample.netscape
17 | <Transfer complete.
18 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU>
|
Attach to Christa (line 1)
and login to that system (lines 5 & 7).
Use the directory command (line 9)
to see what files are available on
the remote node.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> get sample.html
2 | To local file: sample.html
3 | <Opening ASCII mode data connection for sample.html
4 | (132.177.165.2,3444) (2625 bytes).
5 | <Transfer complete.
6 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU>
|
Copy the file "sample.html" from Christa (the remote node) to the VAX
(the local node) using the "get" command (lines 1 and 2).
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> ldir
2 |
3 | DISK$USER:[W_COSTA]
4 |
5 | CLASS.DIS;6 1 25-FEB-1994 11:51 [W_COSTA]
6 | DELETE.ME;8 1 15-AUG-1995 19:51 [W_COSTA]
7 | DELETE.ME;7 1 15-AUG-1995 19:51 [W_COSTA]
8 | EXERCISE.COM;1 1 11-MAY-1994 13:29 [W_COSTA]
9 | LONG.LTR;1 11 10-FEB-1993 08:45 [W_COSTA]
10 | SAMPLE.HTML;1 6 29-MAY-1996 17:58 [W_COSTA]
11 | WEEKLY.CALENDAR;2 17 24-FEB-1995 12:14 [W_COSTA]
12 | WEEKLY.CALENDAR;1 17 24-FEB-1995 12:11 [W_COSTA]
13 |
14 | Total of 55 blocks in 8 files.
15 |
16 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU>
|
Examine the contents of the
local directory with the ldir command (line 1).
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> put weekly.calendar weekly.cal
2 | <Opening ASCII mode data connection for weekly.cal
3 | (132.177.165.2,3445).
4 | <Transfer complete.
5 | CHRISTA.UNH.EDU> quit
6 | <Goodbye.
7 | $
|
Copy the local file "WEEKLY.CALENDAR" to Christa as "weekly.cal".
For a list of available commands, type HELP at the FTP
prompt, or type HELP FTP at the $ prompt.
TELNET allows you to logon to a remote node from your terminal session on VMS. It goes without saying that you must have an account and password on that remote system. While TELNET is a convenient method to quickly logon to a remote system, you should use the UNH terminal server for long terminal sessions on nodes within the UNH network since this is much faster in terms of response time, as well as more efficient in terms of resource usage.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | $ telnet foo.bar.com
2 | Trying... Connected to FOO.BAR.COM, a VAXSTATION 3100 running VMS.
3 |
4 | Welcome to my VAXstation, please be gentle with it!
5 |
6 | Username: Merlin
7 | Password: its_magic
|
To logon to a remote node, enter its Internet address as part of the
TELNET command.
For a list of available commands,
type HELP TELNET at the $ prompt.
An e-mail alias is an address registered within the UNH.EDU domain that is independent of any given account on any given machine. For example,
Bill.Costa@unh.edu
w_costa@unhb.unh.edu
AliasMgr@unh.edu
help
ASCII is a text format understood by virtually all types of computer systems. In ASCII a numeric value is assigned to each character in the English alphabet, as well as common punctuation symbols (. , ; : * & % $, etc.) and numeric digits 0-9. For example, the capital letter "A" is assigned the value 65, the letter "B" 66, etc. Special invisible characters are also defined to indicate the end of a line, tabular spacing, and the start of a new page. A file containing just ASCII text is often called "plain ASCII" or "plain text". ASCII does not provide a universal set of codes for common word processing effects such as bold or underlined text, font sizes, justification, etc. Nor does it provide diacritical marks often needed for non-English European languages. Virtually every word processing program and text editor, however, can import and export files in ASCII since it serves as a simple, but universal, format for file sharing. ASCII text, as produced by VMS EMAIL and the EVE text editor, is the best choice for use in electronic mail when you do not specifically know what particular software programs are available and used by your correspondent.
ListProc is an electronic mailing list management system that will be available for use by UNH students, faculty, and staff beginning on or about the beginning of the Fall '96 semester. For more information about using this software, send an e-mail message to:
ListProc@lists.unh.edu
help
A company that provides connection to the Internet `backbone' and similar services.
A local area network is a network that joins together machines within a limited geographical area such as a building or a campus. The term Intranet is sometimes used to describe a local area network that uses Internet protocols for communications, rather than a proprietary protocol such as NOVELL, AppleTalk, or DECNET.
A humorous term used to describe someone who monitors an electronic mailing list or news group, but has yet to make a posting. For example,
"As a long time lurker on this list, I think the time has finally come for me to put in my own two cents. The example that was given by abc@foobar.com in his most recent posting is just plain wrong! And further more..."
MIME is an Internet standard for transferring non-ASCII data via e-mail. Programs, such as e-mail readers and web browsers, that can understand and display MIME encoded messages, are called MIME-aware applications. VMS EMAIL is not MIME aware, nor are there any tools or programs currently installed on the University VAXcluster that can be used for interpreting such messages.
This is an Internet standard for sending electronic mail. This protocol makes it possible for virtually any kind of computer (PCs, Macs, VAXen, Suns, HPs, IBMs, Primes, etc. etc. etc.) to share electronic mail.
A URL uniquely identifies an information resource on the Internet. See section What is a URL? for more information.
Covers technical information and concepts about how the Internet is organized and works. While the examples in this book are aimed primarily at users of the Unix operating system, the Internet tools available on the University System VAXcluster were modeled after popular Unix software and thus many of the specific examples given will work as shown.