Path: oden.abc.se!news.transpac.net!sunic!pipex!uunet!openlink.openlink.com!btr.btr.com!rem From: rem@BTR.Com (Robert Elton Maas, author of the MaasInfo files) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions,alt.internet.access.wanted,alt.internet.services,comp.infosystems.www.misc Subject: Single-FAQ: How to use WWW via e-mail and TELNET Date: 24 Dec 1994 22:18:04 GMT Organization: BTR Communications Company Lines: 170 Message-ID: <3di6ms$rl6@openlink.openlink.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: btr.btr.com Originator: rem@btr.btr.com Xref: oden.abc.se news.newusers.questions:2896 alt.internet.access.wanted:2050 alt.internet.services:3132 comp.infosystems.www.misc:4080 HowWWW.txt = How to use WWW via TELNET or E-mail, by Robert Elton Maas , last edited 1994.Nov.22 0517 PST If your local host has a local WWW (World-Wide Web) client such as 'mosaic' or 'lynx' or 'www' etc, you should use it instead of the methods described below. Table of contents: * Using TELNET to connect to a WWW browser * Getting WWW files via e-mail * Other, somewhat unrelated, topics *TELNET* If your local host doesn't have its own WWW client, but DOES provide outgoing TELNET service, and your local host or terminal emulator provides VT100 compatibility, then you can use TELNET to connect to a public WWW client ("browser"). Currently there are three that I've found to be working correctly for all my purposes. Below are the connection and login procedures for each, using Unix notation. On non-Unix systems you might need to use a slightly different syntax or pull down a menu or click a button etc. to start TELNET and select the host. telnet fatty.law.cornell.edu Login: www telnet info.funet.fi Login: www Select interface (return for back to main menu) ? lynx telnet www.edu.tw Login: www After you get that far, follow instructions until you see the initial WWW screen, which will mostly contain local information related to the default WWW server used at that particular host, then press the 'g' key and type in (or paste in if you're on a Macintosh or other suitable computer) the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for the WWW frame you really want to see. *EMAIL* If your local host doesn't even have TELNET with VT100 capability, but does have e-mail, you can obtain WWW files via e-mail as follows: mail listproc@www0.cern.ch www where is the URL you want to see. You'll get back the file processed for a scrolling terminal, with [number] just after the text associated with each link, then at the end of the message you'll find a list of those [number] references together with the corresponding URL being pointed to. But currently it doesn't seem to work correctly for HTML files on FTP archives (any URL starting with "ftp:" and ending with ".html") or Gopher archives ("gopher: ... .html"), screwing up line breaks when formatting such files. Also, all local references get trashed filename. For example, both bugs strike when I request the HTML version of this very file you're reading. Also, you can't get just part of a file this way: Requesting just a section from a file gets a very long delay followed by a completely empty return message. Fortunately all my files are copied to Texas where they are available via HTTP as well as FTP, so be sure to use the HTTP URL rather than the FTP or Gopher URL when requesting any of the HTML-format files. mail webmail@curia.ucc.ie GO where is the URL again. It returns the source of the HTML file, then the UUENCODEd version of the processed image, with NO end-of-line trashing but with no list of numbered URL references either. For the moment, the only way by e-mail to get a correctly processed 'display' plus list of numbered references for it, from a HTML-format file located on an FTP archive, seems to be to submit requests to BOTH servers, then UUDECODE just the screen portion of webmail@curia.ucc.ie's response and discard the rest, edit just the list of references from the end of listproc@www0.cern.ch's response so that all local references to have the correct filename, and append those two parts. But that hassle is unnecessary for my files if you just remember to get such files from the HTTP server in Texas instead of one of the FTP or Gopher servers. Other topics in other files, together with URL for each (watch this space in upcoming weeks for another pointer or two, such as how to get documentation for BITFTP & ftpmail): * The master HTML-format online version of this document, which is much more complete than this stripped-down plain-text version, having pointers to other useful sources of general information about network services that are accessible via WWW. If you have live TELNET service, connect to any of the TELNET-accessible public WWW browsers listed earlier, use the 'g' (Go URL) command, and feed in this URL: ftp://ftp.edu.tw/documents/Internet/MaasInfo/HowWWW.html Do *not* feed that URL to the WWW-by-email service unless you want to see a trashed reply. But if you have a local HTML-rendering program, or you are willing to read raw HTML source yourself, feel free to fetch this by FTPMAIL (see MailFTP.txt for info) so you'll get the source as-is without attempted conversion on the way. * A copy of that HTML-format complete version of this document, automatically copied about once a day from ftp.edu.tw (hence NOT showing any changes that occurred in the master version since the latest copying), and available via HTTP so as to avoid the line-break bug in the WWW-by-email service: http://pip.shsu.edu/ftp/MaasInfo/HowWWW.html Send this e-mail to get it properly formatted and mailed back to you: mail listproc@www0.cern.ch (No Subject field needed, will be ignored) www http://pip.shsu.edu/ftp/MaasInfo/HowWWW.html * The HTML-format version, but already converted for e-mailing (warning, might be several days out of date because I do this only once in a long while): ftp://ftp.edu.tw/documents/Internet/MaasInfo/HowWWW.DisRef ('DisRef' = DISplay + REFerences) Use this old pre-formatted copy ONLY if www0.cern.ch or pip.shsu.edu is down so you can't get the copy on the HTTP server formatted on the fly for you, and you want the info right now rather than waiting for the down system to come back up, and you aren't willing to read HTML source yourself. * How you can get THIS stripped-down text-only version, in case you forgot where this came from and you want to get the latest version, or you want to tell somebody else how to get it: - master copy, always the very latest version, but often not accessible: mail ftpmail@NCTUCCCA.edu.tw open mode ascii get /documents/Internet/MaasInfo/HowWWW.txt mail listproc@www0.cern.ch source ftp://ftp.edu.tw/documents/Internet/MaasInfo/HowWWW.txt - more-accessible automatic 'mirror' copy (up to a day old): mail ftpmail@ftp.shsu.edu open ftp.shsu.edu cd pub/MaasInfo/ get HowWWW.txt mail listproc@www0.cern.ch source ftp://pip.SHSU.Edu/pub/MaasInfo/HowWWW.txt - (Also occasionally posted in full to comp.infosystems.www.misc etc.) One last word: If you happen to see this posted to news.newusers.questions, that does NOT mean it's appropriate to ask questions about WWW in general or about WWW-via-email specifially in that newsgroup. I post it there only because I've seen a lot of questions about WWW in that group and I want to catch readers and divert them away to more appropriate sources of information about WWW. Questions about using WWW should be posted to one of these groups: comp.infosystems.www.users WWW user issues (Mosaic, Lynx, etc). comp.infosystems.www.misc Miscellaneous World Wide Web discussion. Questions about other services on InterNet (FTP, e-mail, DNS, etc.) should be posted to one of these: bit.listserv.help-net Help on BitNet and the Internet. alt.internet.access.wanted "Oh. OK, how about just an MX record for now?" alt.internet.services Not available in the uucp world, even via email. unless there's a more specific newsgroup dealing with the particular service, for example: alt.gopher Discussion of the gopher information service. comp.infosystems.gopher Discussion of the Gopher information service. alt.irc.questions How-to questions for IRC (International Relay Chat). etc.