🚀 go-pugleaf

> hypothetical rftp program

As an internet service provider, I would like to have this rftp
service available to MSEN customers.  It would seem to dovetail quite
nicely with comp.archives, since there's all that verified location
information sitting there right handy to be used.

The spec should cover at least the following:
- format of remote files (e.g. sprite.berkeley.edu:/mx.tar.Z)
- specification of alternate delivery mechanisms, e.g. uuencoded and
  mailed, queued at some grade for delivery, immediate call-back, left
  in a spool to be picked up later.
- action to take on error (do nothing, do an archie search, do a
  comp.archives search)
- mirror site treatment -- if someone fetches a file from the
  australian simtel20 archive, it should be OK to pick that file off
  your local disk if you are a mirror site or if your cache is
  correct.
- package specifications -- if you have the comp.archives catalog at
  hand, you should be able to ask for "mh" and get back the right thing.
- verification and limiting -- remote sites need to be able to see
  what they are going to be getting to make sure they have enough disk
  to handle it, and put limits so that request of over 5M
  (accidentally perhaps) could be flagged.

Further input is encouraged; to get it right there's a lot of details
to attend to.

The "MSEN Archive Service" addresses just these sorts of needs; I know
just about exactly what I want to do, just waiting on some agreements
to be made and on sufficient resources to make them happen.  Working
on a writeup of what it'll look like, will post when that's ready.

--
Edward Vielmetti, moderator, comp.archives.  emv@msen.com

comp.archives is a production of MSEN Inc.