THE WHOLE INTERNET USER'S GUIDE & CATALOG EDKROL O'REILLY & ASSOCIATES, INC. 103 MORRIS STREET, SUITE A SEBASTOPOL CA 95472 (800) 998-9938 (707) 829-0515 EMAIL: nuts@ora.com OR uunet!ora!nuts
TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Audience Approaching This Book Conventions Acknowledgements CHAPTER ONE i xix xxi xxii xxiii xxiii WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? 1 Something for Everyone 2 What You Will Learn 3 What If I Don't Know UNIX? 5 What You Need 6 What an Internet Connection Means 7 Getting Connected? 9 How This Book Is Organized 10 CHAPTER TWO WHAT IS THE INTERNET? 11 What Makes Up the Internet? 13 Who Governs the Internet? 13 Who Pays for It? 15 What Does This Mean for Me? 15 What Does the Future Hold? 15 New Standard Protocols 15 International Connections 16 Commercialization 16 Privatization 17
CHAPTER THREE HOW THE INTERNET WORKS 19 Moving Bits from One Place to Another 19 Packet Switch Networks 20 The Internet Protocol (IP) 20 The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) 23 Other Transmission Protocols 24 Making the Network Friendly 25 "Applications. 25 The Domain Name System 25 The Domain System Structure 26 Domain Name Lookup 28 Domain Name System Hints 29 CHAPTER FOUR WHAT'S ALLOWED ON THE INTERNET? 31 Legal Implications 31 Research, Education, and the Federal Dollar 32 Commercial Use 32 Export Laws 33 Property Rights 34 Politics and the Internet 35 Network Ethics 35 Individualism 36 Protecting the Internet 36 Security Consciousness 38 Passwords 39 Importing Software 40 Misconfigured Software 41 System Software Flaws 42 What If My Computer Is Violated? 42
CHAPTER FIVE REMOTE LOGIN 4 5 Simple Telnet 46 What's Really Going On 47 Telnet Command Mode 48 Non-standard Telnet Servers 51 Telnet to Non-standard Ports 52 Mimicking Alternate Clients 54 Telnetting to IBM Mainframes 54 CHAPTER SIX MOVING FILES: FTP : 59 Getting Started with FTP 60 Common Problems _ 62 Browsing on a Remote Machine 63 Directories in FTP 66 ASCII and Binary Transfers 67 Transferring Multiple Files 70 FTP Command Summary 72 Anonymous FTP 74 Handling Large Files and Groups of Files 76 Compressed Files 76 Moving a Whole Directory 78 Shell Archives 81 Other Archival Utilities 81 Special Notes on Various Systems 82 Target: Digital Equipment VMS Systems 82 Target: IBM/PC DOS Systems 85 Target: IBM/VM Systems 86 Target: Macintosh 88 Last Words: Some Practical Advice 89 vii
CHAPTER SEVEN ELECTRONIC MAIL 91 When Is Electronic Mail Useful? 91 Hints for Writing Electronic Mail 93 How Electronic Mail Works 95 It's All in the Address 96 Acquiring Electronic Mail Addresses 99 Choosing a System 100 The=UNIX Mail Program 101 Reading Your Mail 101 Sending Messages 103 A Shopping List of Features 105 Universally Supported Features 105 Aliasing 105 Folders 106 Forwarding ' 107 Inclusion of Text Files 108 Mailing Lists 109 Reply 109 locally Supported Features 110 CarbonCopies 110 Blind Carbon Copies 111 Signature Files 111 Unusual and Non-standard Features 112 Attaching Documents 112 Notification of Receipt 112 Notification of Reading 112 Message Cancel. 113 Sending Binary Data as ASCII 113 When Electronic Mail Gets Returned 115 Unknown Hosts 115 Unknown Recipients 118 Mail Can't Be Delivered. 118 Failures Involving Multiple Recipients ' 119 Last Ditch Help 120 Mail Lists and Reflectors 120 viii
/ File Retrieval Using Electronic Mail 123 Specialized Servers 124 Listserv Requests 124 The Ftpmail Application Gateway 125 CHAPTER EIGHT NETWORK NEWS: 127 News Groups and News System Organization 128 Getting Started 133 Setting Up nn 133 Reading News 135 What Is a News Item? 135 Using a News Reader 136 Steering a News Reader 139 Saving News Items 139 Controlling What You Read 140 Subscribing and Unsubscribing 140 Killing and Auto-selecting Items 141 Catching Up 144 rotl3 145 Posting Your Own Articles ' 146 Adding to an Existing Discussion 146 Starting a New Discussion 147 Replying Via E-mail 149 Other Hints and Conventions 150 Summary of Commands and Features 151 Command-line Options 151 Some Selection Mode Commands 153 Some Reading Mode Commands 154 CHAPTER NINE FINDING SOFTWARE 155 How Archie Works 156 Contacting Archie 157 Using Archie with Telnet 158 Searching by Filename 159 ix
Searching Using the Descriptive Index 162 Other Archie Commands 163 Archie Configuration Variables 163 Using Archie by Electronic Mail 164 Archie Using a Client 166 CHAPTER TEN FINDING SOMEONE 169 Why Isn't There One? 169 Mobile Users 170 Standards 170 Security and Privacy 171 What Is There? 171 Finding a User on a Specific System 171 Finger as a General Information Server 173 When Finger Fails 174 Whois " 174 The USENET User List 178 The Future: X.500 Directory Services 179 Native X.500 179 Fred Via Telnet 181 Fred Via E-mail 185 Fred as an Application 186 Knowbot Information Service 186 CHAPTER ELEVEN TUNNEUNG THROUGH THE INTERNET: GOPHER 189 The Internet Gopher 190 Finding a Gopher Client 192 How Gopher Works 193 Finding Internet Resources 194 Looking at Text Files 195 White Pages Servers 197 Moving to Other Servers 200 Index Searches 201 FTP Through Gopher 204
/ Using Telnet Through Gopher 208 Gopher Development 209 A Last Word. 210 CHAPTER TWELVE SEARCHING INDEXED DATABASES: WAIS 211 How WAIS Works 212 Getting Access 214 Formulating a WAIS Search 215 Refining a Search 221 When Searches Don't Go as Planned 222 Adding Sources 223 New Sources That Aren't in the Directory-of-Servers 224 Building Your Own Sources 225.CHAPTER THIRTEEN HYPERTEXT SPANNING THE INTERNET: W W W 227 Getting Started 229 The Web and Gopher 231 Using WAIS Resources 233 The WAIS Directory of Servers 235 Other Internet Resources 236 FTP Resources 236 Telnet Resources 237 USENET News 238 White Pages 238 Navigating the Web 238 Creating Your Own Home Page 240 Where the Web Is Going 241 Other Kinds of Documents 241 Making Your Own Links 241 Collaborating with Others 241 xi
Hypertext Editors 242 How Can I help? 242 CHAPTER FOURTEEN OTHER APPLICATIONS 243 The R Commands 243 Security and Validation 244 Remote Login 245 Escape Sequences 247 "Moving Files 247 Distributing Files 249 X Windows 251 Disk and File Sharing 252 Time Services 254 Fax Over the Internet 255 Diversions - 256 Conversations with Others 256 Talking 256 Chat 257 Multi-person Games 259 Robotic Librarians 259 CHAPTER FIFTEEN DEAUNG WITH PROBLEMS 261 xii The Ground Rules 262 Gather Baseline Information 264 The Battleplan 265 Know Hours of Operation. 265 Read the Error Message 266 Did You Change Anything? 267 Try a Different Destination 268 Try Your Neighbor's System 268 Try to Reach a Local System 269 Look Around Your Office 269 Check Your Local Connection 270 Dial-up Connections 270
/ LAN, PPP, or SLIP Connections 272 Some Consolation 272 Talking to Operations Personnel 272 Dealing with Coaxial Ethernets 273 Token Ring Notes 275 RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET 279 APPENDIX A Stalking the Wild Resource 279 Friends 279 Network News and Mailing Lists 280 Archie 280 Gopher 281 WAIS 281 The World-Wide Web 281 How We Did It 282 What Is a Resource? 282 Accuracy and Permissions. 283 Using the Catalog 283 Topics Covered. 284 The Whole Internet Catalog 285' GETTING CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET 333 Different Grades of Service 334 Dedicated Internet Access 334 SUP and PPP 335 Dial-up Access 336 UUCP Access 336 Access Via Other Networks 337 Telephone Connections 337 Service Providers 338 xiii
APPENDIX B INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CONNECTIVITY [ 349 APPENDLX C Summary of International Connectivity 350 Country Codes and Connectivity 350 ACCEPTABLE USE 353 The NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy 353 GLOSSARY 355 INDEX, ; 365 xiv