Q24a: How does anonymous ftp work?
A24a: Anonymous ftp is a method of making files available to anyone on the Internet. In brief, if you are on a system with ftp (e.g. Unix), you type "ftp fractal.mta.ca", or whatever system you wish to access. You are prompted for your name and you reply "anonymous". You are prompted for your password and you reply with your email address. You then use "ls" to list the files, "cd" to change directories, "get" to get files, an "quit" to exit. For example, you could say "cd /pub", "ls", "get README", and "quit"; this would get you the file "README". See the man page ftp(1) or ask someone at your site for more information.
In this FAQ, anonymous ftp addresses are given in the URL form ftp://name.of.machine/pub/path [138.73.1.18]. The first part is the protocol, FTP, rather than say "gopher", the second part "name.of.machine" is the machine you must ftp to. If your machine cannot determine the host from the name, you can try the numeric Internet address: "ftp 138.73.1.18". The part after the name: "/pub/path" is the file or directory to access once you are connected to the remote machine.
Q24b: What if I can't use ftp to access files?
A24b: If you don't have access to ftp because you are on a UUCP, Fidonet, BITNET network there is an e-mail gateway at ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com that can retrieve the files for you. To get instructions on how to use the ftp gateway send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com with one line containing the word "help".
Warning, these archives can be very large, sometimes several megabytes (MB) of data which will be sent to your e-mail address. If you have a disk quota for incoming mail, often 1MB or less, be careful not exceed it.