3.117 on ListServ, part 2 (75)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Tue, 13 Jun 89 20:48:06 EDT


Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 117. Tuesday, 13 Jun 1989.

Date: Tue, 13 Jun 89 09:37:24 IST
From: David Sitman <A79@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Listserv and lists, part 2

Communicating with Listserv
---------------------------

You can send commands to Listserv to join and leave lists, get files, get
information on lists and files, and query and change personal options.
You can communicate with Listserv by sending mail, a file, or an
interactive message.

Any user on any electronic mail network anywhere in the world which has
access to Bitnet/NetNorth/EARN can send mail to Listserv. You can send
more than one command to Listserv in a single mail message; each command
must be on a separate line, with no blank lines between commands,
starting on the first line of the mail body. Listserv will ignore the
"Subject: " line of the header if it exists.

Listserv determines your address from your mail. In some cases, e.g., when the
mail passes throught several networks, the address that Listserv uses
to reply is not successful. Listserv expects that the header lines of your
mail ("Date: ", "From: ", etc.) will follow the
standard RFC822. If your local mailer does not obey this standard,
then Listserv will not process your commands.

>From within Bitnet/NetNorth/EARN you can also send commands to Listserv
in a plain file. As with mail, you must start on the first line and not
skip lines between commands.

If you are on Bitnet/NetNorth/EARN and can send interactive messages,
then this is the fastest and most efficient way to send commands to
Listserv. As always with interactive messages, this will work only when
there is an open line between you and the Listserv machine. E.g., if you
are on an IBM computer running VM/CMS, and you want to get a list of the
HUMANIST files, you can enter:

TELL LISTSERV AT UTORONTO INDEX HUMANIST

If you are on a Vax VMS system, you may be able to use the following
interactive procedure. Enter:

SEND/REMOTE UTORONTO LISTSERV

you should get the prompt:

(UTORVM)LISTSERV:

then type the Listserv command, e.g.:

INDEX HUMANIST

or the following:

SEND MESSAGE UTORONTO LISTSERV INDEX HUMANIST

Note: there seems to be some difficulty with the name conversion of
HUMANIST's host computer from UTORONTO to UTORVM. The two are NOT
identical. Interactive messages sent to LISTSERV AT UTORVM don't work for
me.
-------------------------

Note that David Sitman's articles on ListServ are available on the
file-server, s.v. LISTSERV DESCR-1 and LISTSERV DESCR-2. They may be
downloaded in the usual manner, for which consult your Guide to
Humanist.