ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
Leave the "subject:" line blank. Inside the message, there are several commands you can give. The first line should be
reply address
where "address" is your e-mail address. The next line should be
connect host
where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example: wuarchive.wustl.edu). Other commands you should consider using are "binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file so you can do something with it when it arrives). The last line of your message should be the word "quit". Let's say you want a copy of the U.S. constitution. Using archie, you've found a file called, surprise, constitution, at the ftp site archive.cis.ohio-state.edu, in the /pub/firearms/politics/rkba directory. You'd send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com that looks like this:
reply adamg@world.std.com connect archive.cis.ohio-state.edu binary compress uuencode get pub/firearms/politics/rkba/constitution quit
When you get the file in your mailbox, use the above procedure for copying it to a file. Run it through uudecode. Then type
uncompress file.name
to make it usable. Since this was a text file, you could have changed the "binary" to "ascii" and then eliminated the "uuencode" file. For programs, though, you'll want to keep these lines. One caveat with ftpmail: it has become such a popular service that it could take a week or more for your requested files to arrive.