FTPmail

Last updated January 10, 2022

FTPmail is the term used for the practice of using an FTPmail server to gain access to various files over the Internet.^[1] An FTPmail server is a proxy server which (asynchronously) connects to remote FTP servers in response to email requests, returning the downloaded files as an email attachment. This service might be useful to users who cannot themselves initiate an FTP session—for example, because they are constrained by restrictions on their Internet access.

History

During the early years of the Internet, Internet access was limited to a few locations. High speed links were not available for most users, and online connectivity was rare and expensive. Download of large files (then considered to be over a few megabytes) was nearly impossible due to bandwidth limitations, as well as frequent errors and lost connections. The original FTP specification did not allow for a session to be resumed, and the transmission had to restart from the beginning.

FTPmail gateways allowed people to retrieve such files. The file was broken into smaller pieces and encoded using a popular format such as uuencode. The receiver of the email messages would later reassemble the original file and decode it. As the file was broken into smaller pieces, the chances of losing the transmission was much smaller. In case of loss of connectivity, the transmission could be restarted from that part. The process was slower but much more reliable. It also allowed people who accessed the Internet only through email using dial-up lines to download files that were located remotely. Unlike FTP, files could be transferred through FTPmail even if the user did not have an online Internet connection (for example, using BBSes or other specialized e-mail software).

Servers located at universities, such as ftpmail@sunsite.unc.edu and bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu, were popular. Some of these servers hosted software archives containing early versions of Linux and other GNU software. Access to these repositories via FTPmail was instrumental in allowing people from foreign countries to access these tools at a time where online connectivity was impossible from their location.

FTPmail services were common in the early 1990s, but dwindled in importance as more users gained direct internet access through SLIP, PPP and other Dial-up access internet protocols. FTP also has lost popularity in favor of other methods for file transfer, notably HTTP which is available to virtually all Internet users.

Procedure

An email is sent to a FTPmail server with the command to be performed, inserted as the body of the message. The server then processes the request by logging on to the remote site, retrieving the file, encoding it, and returning the result via email.

Basic commands used

Command	Function
`help`	Returns a help file.
`open [site[user[password]]]`	Connect to site.
`cd path`	Change directory to path specified.
`ls [path]`	List the contents of the directory.
`dir [path]`	List the contents of the directory
`get file`	Get a file, the path to save can also be *mentioned.
`size max[ K \| M ]`	Size when file is split before sending, the max size is Kb\|Mb.
`mode binary`	Binary mode: archives, binary files.
`mode ascii`	ASCII mode: nothing but ASCII text.
`quit`	End of ftp-by-email message.

Related Research Articles

A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.

Electronic mail is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant only physical mail. Email later became a ubiquitous communication medium, to the point that in current use, an e-mail address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries. Email is the medium, and each message sent therewith is called an email.

Within the Internet email system, a message transfer agent (MTA), or mail transfer agent, or mail relay is software that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another using SMTP. The terms mail server, mail exchanger, and MX host are also used in some contexts.

A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read the content of newsgroups.

In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 (POP3) is the version in common use.

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying, and typically submit outgoing email to the mail server on port 587 or 465 per RFC 8314. For retrieving messages, IMAP is standard, but proprietary servers also often implement proprietary protocols, e.g., Exchange ActiveSync.

An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.

Uploading refers to transmitting data from one computer system to another through means of a network. Common methods of uploading include: uploading via web browsers, FTP clients], and terminals (SCP/SFTP). Uploading can be used in the context of clients that send files to a central server. While uploading can also be defined in the context of sending files between distributed clients, such as with a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol like BitTorrent, the term file sharing is more often used in this case. Moving files within a computer system, as opposed to over a network, is called file copying.

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data connections between the client and the server. FTP users may authenticate themselves with a clear-text sign-in protocol, normally in the form of a username and password, but can connect anonymously if the server is configured to allow it. For secure transmission that protects the username and password, and encrypts the content, FTP is often secured with SSL/TLS (FTPS) or replaced with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web hosting services are sometimes called web hosts.

An application layer is an abstraction layer that specifies the shared communications protocols and interface methods used by hosts in a communications network. An application layer abstraction is specified in both the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) and the OSI model. Although both models use the same term for their respective highest-level layer, the detailed definitions and purposes are different.

UUCP is an acronym of Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers.

An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider, a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup. In its original more limited definition, it referred only to a commercial computer communication service in which paid members could dial via a computer modem the service's private computer network and access various services and information resources such as bulletin board systems, downloadable files and programs, news articles, chat rooms, and electronic mail services. The term "online service" was also used in references to these dial-up services. The traditional dial-up online service differed from the modern Internet service provider in that they provided a large degree of content that was only accessible by those who subscribed to the online service, while ISP mostly serves to provide access to the Internet and generally provides little if any exclusive content of its own. In the U.S., the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) portion of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has expanded the legal definition of online service in two different ways for different portions of the law. It states in section 512(k)(1):

(A) As used in subsection (a), the term "service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.
(B) As used in this section, other than subsection (a), the term "service provider" means a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefore, and includes an entity described in subparagraph (A).

In computing, the SSH File Transfer Protocol is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management over any reliable data stream. It was designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as an extension of the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) version 2.0 to provide secure file transfer capabilities. The IETF Internet Draft states that, even though this protocol is described in the context of the SSH-2 protocol, it could be used in a number of different applications, such as secure file transfer over Transport Layer Security (TLS) and transfer of management information in VPN applications.

Push technology, or server push, is a style of Internet-based communication where the request for a given transaction is initiated by the publisher or central server. It is contrasted with pull/get, where the request for the transmission of information is initiated by the receiver or client.

cc:Mail is a discontinued store-and-forward LAN-based email system originally developed on Microsoft's MS-DOS platform by Concentric Systems, Inc. in the 1980s. The company, founded by Robert Plummer, Hubert Lipinski, and Michael Palmer, later changed its name to PCC Systems, Inc., and then to cc:Mail, Inc. At the height of its popularity, cc:Mail had about 14 million users, and won various awards for being the top email software package of the mid-1990s.

Internet fax, e-fax, or online fax is the use of the internet and internet protocols to send a fax (facsimile), rather than using a standard telephone connection and a fax machine. A distinguishing feature of Internet fax, compared to other Internet communications such as email, is the ability to exchange fax messages with traditional telephone-based fax machines.

An offline reader is computer software that downloads e-mail, newsgroup posts or web pages, making them available when the computer is offline: not connected to a server. Offline readers are useful for portable computers and dial-up access.

Minnesota Internet Users Essential Tool (Minuet) is an integrated Internet package for DOS operating systems on IBM-compatible PCs.

A mailbox is the destination to which electronic mail messages are delivered. It is the equivalent of a letter box in the postal system.

References

↑ "Getting FTP Files via E-Mail". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Archived from the original on 13 April 2009. Retrieved 9 January 2010.