UK Academic Community Directory Group Minutes of Meeting on 10th December, 1990 Paul Barker Organisation: UCL Document Location: UCL _A_B_S_T_R_A_C_T Minutes of the Ninth Meeting of the UK Academic Community Directory Group held at University College London on Monday, 10th December, 1990. March 22, 1991 UK Academic Community Directory Group Minutes of Meeting on 10th December, 1990 Paul Barker Organisation: UCL Document Location: UCL Present: Shafiq Ahmed Nottingham Brian Bailey Brighton Poly Adrian Barker Bloomsbury Paul Barker UCL (Secretary) Syngen Brown Kingston Poly Brian Bullen Stirling Julie Cook Oxford Shirleen Craig Heriot-Watt Jim Craigie JNT (Chair) Ian Dickinson Warwick Susan Feng Imperial Andrew Findlay Brunel David Goodman UCL Mike Guy Cambridge Martyn Hampson Imperial Allan Hawson Kings Julia Hill Heriot-Watt Robert Hogg Bradford Peter Houlder Kent Steve Kille UCL Max Lang Southampton Caroline Leary Sussex Richard Letts Salford Buddy Liyanage Reading Damanjit Mahl Brunel Peter Mills Manchester Peter Morton Exeter Julian Onions X-Tel Pava Pavanantham Surrey Darrell Plant UCL Colin Robbins X-Tel Mike Roe Cambridge Graham Rule Edinburgh Kel Shorey Strathclyde - 2 - Linda Skordellis ULCC Rodney Tillotson RAL Steve Titcombe UCL Apologies for absence from: Colin Cooper Glasgow Bob Day RAL Karen Goswell RAL Stuart Keir Sussex _1. _A_p_p_r_o_v_a_l _o_f _t_h_e _A_g_e_n_d_a The following agenda was agreed upon: 1. Introductions 2. Review of minutes of the meeting held on 5th September 1990. 3. Matters arising. 4. Quipu implementation status report 5. Quipu support status report 6. Brunel's user interface implementation status report 7. Status of other known Directory implementations 8. Directory pilot sites status reports 9. Report on the RARE Working Group 3 and RARE Directory Project 10. Report on COSINE Project 11. Report on IETF Directory Group 12. Document on Explanation of the Directory for administrators 13. Draft COSINE Naming Architecture 14. Design of a simple user interface 15 Discussion of Data Protection Act issues with representative from Office of Data Protection - 3 - Registrar 16. Letter to Registrars 17 Proposal for use of X.500 for bibliographic purposes 18 Presentation on security 19. Any other business 20. Date of next meeting _2. _A_p_p_r_o_v_a_l _o_f _m_i_n_u_t_e_s _o_f _p_r_e_v_i_o_u_s _m_e_e_t_i_n_g There was a speculative action concerning the exploration of the idea of either Brunel or X-Tel taking over the running of the directory-group and directory-pilot mail lists. Jim Craigie, the current manager of the lists, felt that any such action clearly ought to involve him in some way! Jim Craigie and X-Tel would discuss the timeliness of shifting the lists to Directory supported lists. _3. _M_a_t_t_e_r_s _A_r_i_s_i_n_g Steve Brabner of British Telecom _m_i_g_h_t be invited to the next meeting to talk about COHORT 500, and X.500 and British Telecom in general. It was hard to pre-judge how useful such a presentation might be, as no-one had a clear picture of what British Telecom were doing with X.500. Jim Craigie would try and organise a talk by Steve Brabner for the next group meeting. However, if it transpired that such a presentation was only likely to be of specialised interest, a meeting with a smaller group might be arranged. No attempt had been made to find out about the licensing and availability of the OSIWare X.500 implementation. It was almost certainly still not generally available. although it was known to have been on beta test at some 10 sites. Julia Hill had completed the note on X.500 for Data Protection Officers, but not completed the short note for administrators. A few comments had been received on the longer document for administrators. Andrew Findlay had not produced a draft code of conduct on usage of the Directory. There was a conflict of interest for someone trying to produce user interfaces to be also thinking about restrictions on their use. Rodney Tillotson agreed to take over a modified task, and would collate ideas and notions from existing codes of conduct concerned with related areas. All should provide him with suitable pieces of sample text. - 4 - Following from the discussion on abuse of the Directory, Steve Kille promised to provide for consideration a new attribute which would allow a person to indicate that they wished not to receive "junk mail". The rubric on obtaining and applying the 6.1 upgrade had been re-publicised by Colin Robbins. However, it appeared that a number of sites had either failed to apply these patches, or had applied them but failed to update the version number in their DSA's entry. Colin was going to point out this failing to all the appropriate sites. (There was also some discussion on software patches - comments made here have been folded into the section on the Quipu support contract.) The tool for converting rfc822 addresses into X.400 addresses had not been written. Such a tool was reliant on parts of the PP software. This action would be postponed until a more propitious moment. Actions from the previous meeting not discussed here are taken as being completed or dropped, or are discussed more fully later in these minutes. _4. _Q_u_i_p_u _i_m_p_l_e_m_e_n_t_a_t_i_o_n _s_t_a_t_u_s _r_e_p_o_r_t Since the last meeting, a number of areas had been, and were being, worked on: o Interoperability - support for standard references and spot shadowing o EDB Management tools o Enhancements to directory probe o DSA mastering its own entry, and storing a number of dynamic attributes about that DSA in its own entry o Asynchronous DUA implemented o Work on storing NRS information in the Directory o New daemon for incoming OSI calls - iaed. Information about local services is read from the directory rather than the isoservices file. o Quipu now uses PEPSY rather than PEPY (the ASN.1 coder/decoders are now table driven). This means smaller binaries, which compile faster and load more quickly. o More performance tuning - a major contribution has been received from Tim Howes of Michigan. - 5 - o Security features (a la X.509) would soon be available. ISODE-7.0 would probably be available by March 1991. _5. _Q_u_i_p_u _s_u_p_p_o_r_t _s_t_a_t_u_s _r_e_p_o_r_t Since the last meeting, support of Quipu had been fully taken over by X-Tel. Colin Robbins made some comments about the application of patches. If a patch was circulated to the directory-pilot list, this patch HAD to be applied, unless otherwise indicated. There was a general discussion about the problem sites had in determining whether they had applied all the patches that they should have. Some sort of patch numbering system had to be introduced to clarify the situation. This would be in place following the release of ISODE-7.0. It was noted that the patch program was reasonably sophisticated and should not re-apply patches already applied, at least not without some sort of warning. X-tel were asked if they could give a recommendation as to which version of SUNOS sites should be running. X-Tel declined to do this - ISODE and Quipu are designed to run on a variety of software platforms. However, a preferred platform might be indicated at the time of the release of ISODE-7.0. A number of sites were unclear about the situation with regard to hardware and software maintenance. The situation was confusing because each site was left to make its own maintenance arrangements - this was obviously cheaper and less onerous for sites who already have SUNs than for those for which the Directory machine was their first SUN. The panoply of maintenance options available presented a confusing choice to novices and X-Tel were asked to produce a note giving some guidance as to what levels of support were on offer and what might be appropriate. Some concern was expressed about the status of SUN's warranty on the machines if they were set up by X-Tel rather than a SUN engineer - the wording on some document gave cause for alarm. In practice, this did not seem to be a problem, as SUN were well aware of the situation where X-Tel were setting up a number of machines, and shipping them on. The most important fact was whether the machines were correctly registered with SUN having been finally delivered. A check would be made to ensure that this was happening. It was noted that all documents pertaining to the directory pilot in the UCL document store were now replicated at X- Tel. Details about how to access the UCL and X-Tel document - 6 - stores are included in Appendices to these minutes. _6. _B_r_u_n_e_l _u_s_e_r _i_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e _i_m_p_l_e_m_e_n_t_a_t_i_o_n _s_t_a_t_u_s _r_e_p_o_r_t There wasn't much visible progress since the last meeting, but lots had been going on of course! An updated version of pod was available from Brunel and UCL. For those people not sure whether they have the most up-to- date version of pod, it was suggested that pressing Control-Shift-Middle_button would reveal the version number if it was a recent version! The latest version of pod could do mail domain-order flipping if required. Work had proceeded with a DUA to run on PCs. Quoting from Brunel's DUA progress report: _A _p_r_o_t_o_t_y_p_e _D_U_A _h_a_s _b_e_e_n _w_r_i_t_t_e_n _t_o _r_u_n _u_n_d_e_r _M_S-_W_i_n_d_o_w_s. _T_h_i_s _u_s_e_s _a _s_e_r_i_a_l _p_o_r_t _t_o _c_o_n_n_e_c_t _t_o _a _D_i_s_h _d_r_i_v_e_r _o_n _a _U_N_I_X _m_a_c_h_i_n_e. _A _s_i_m_p_l_e _p_r_o_t_o_c_o_l _a_l_l_o_w_s _D_i_s_h _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s _t_o _b_e _i_s_s_u_e_d _a_n_d _t_h_e _r_e_s_u_l_t_s _p_a_s_s_e_d _b_a_c_k _t_o _t_h_e _W_i_n_d_o_w_s _a_p_p_l_i_c_a_t_i_o_n. _T_h_e _u_s_e _o_f _m_u_l_t_i_p_l_e _p_l_a_t_f_o_r_m _w_i_n_d_o_w_i_n_g _l_i_b_r_a_r_i_e_s _i_s _b_e_i_n_g _c_o_n_s_i_d_e_r_e_d. _W_o_r_k _o_n _t_h_e _f_u_l_l _i_m_p_l_e_m_e_n_t_a_t_i_o_n _o_f _t_h_e _D_U_A _w_i_l_l _c_o_m_m_e_n_c_e _w_h_e_n _t_h_e _O_S_I _s_t_a_c_k _b_e_c_o_m_e_s _a_v_a_i_l_a_b_l_e. _T_h_e _t_e_a_m _a_t _E_d_i_n_b_u_r_g_h _i_s _c_u_r_r_e_n_t_l_y _d_e_v_e_l_o_p_i_n_g _a _n_u_m_b_e_r _o_f _t_o_o_l_s (_H_e_l_p _s_y_s_t_e_m, _V_i_r_t_u_a_l _M_e_m_o_r_y _M_a_n_a_g_e_r..) _w_h_i_c_h _w_i_l_l _b_e _i_n_c_l_u_d_e_d _w_h_e_r_e _a_p_p_r_o_p_r_i_a_t_e, _w_h_e_n _t_h_e_y _b_e_c_o_m_e _a_v_a_i_l_a_b_l_e. _W_o_r_k _o_n _t_h_i_s _i_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e _h_a_s _n_o_w _s_t_o_p_p_e_d, _p_e_n_d_i_n_g _t_h_e _a_r_r_i_v_a_l _o_f _c_o_d_e _f_r_o_m _E_d_i_n_b_u_r_g_h. Some experimentation had been done with the new asynchronous programming interface. Initial experience suggested that it performed well and allowed the formulation and resolution of powerful queries. Other points are noted in Brunel's progress report. These include work on X Dir; the query engine doing email to DN translation; developing a specification for a personal address book service; consideration of a proposal to store Diary information in the Directory. A number of sites commented that for a mixture of technical reasons (often lack of disk space) and political reasons (suspicious attitude to public domain software), it was hard to build DUAs on their main client machines. It was admitted that ISODE was by no means slim-line, but pointed out that "cleaning" the source tree made the disk problem less intractable. Andrew Findlay promised to investigate which subset of ISODE was required online to support the building and running of DUAs. A question was asked about DUAs for Macintoshes. A version - 7 - tried some months ago, which ran a remote dish on a UNIX host over a serial line, was unsatisfactory. The chair pointed out that John Dyer had invited people to tender for a Mac DUA development, but there had been no response. Maybe X-Tel might be interested ... ? Steve Kille reported that the dish interface had been ported onto VMS and this had to be evaluated. The availability of this port would be discussed with its author at the next WG3 meeting. _7. _O_t_h_e_r _D_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y _i_m_p_l_e_m_e_n_t_a_t_i_o_n_s There was again little concrete to report here. The OSF had adopted Siemens X.500 system. X/OPEN had produced an API for both X.400 and X.500. Unisys had demonstrated X.500 at the Open Systems Exhibition. A demonstration of the RETIX system had been witnessed, and it appeared to be extremely slow. _8. _R_e_p_o_r_t_s _f_r_o_m _D_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y _P_i_l_o_t _s_i_t_e_s This discussion followed the framework of the summary of site reports, collated into an excellent summary by Bob Day. Not all sites had emailed reports to the list. With due solemnity, "Big Black Marks" were awarded to Bath, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester (although the Manchester report did emerge after it was correctly addressed!). A "Small Black Mark" was awarded to Kings, who had not really yet joined the pilot, just to keep them on their toes! Very few problems had been experienced with the Directory software. It was suggested that the problem experienced by Rutherford where their DSA stopped for reasons unknown might be caused by something other than a DUA or DSA trying to connect to their DSA. Imperial reported a problem where the dsc interface looped sometimes if a pad connection was not broken cleanly. Paul Barker said that he would investigate the problem. Several people made favourable comments about Rutherford's osiwotsits interface software. This software would be made available from the UCL archive, and might be incorporated into future versions of Quipu. There was some discussion about the probing of DSAs. The feeling was expressed that probes should alert DSA managers - 8 - when their DSAs were persistently unavailable. A question was asked as to whether IXI addresses were probed, as no IXI addresses were shown in the probe summary. Currently, probes form a considerable percentage of Directory usage. To help differentiate this system usage from "real" usage, it was suggested that probes should be named following some convention. _9. _R_e_p_o_r_t _o_n _R_A_R_E _W_G_3 This was not the most convincing report! Steve Kille said that WG3 had not met since the last Directory Group meeting, but this was promptly gainsaid by Jim Craigie who also attends the WG3 meetings. The report was modified to say that not a lot of import came out of the meeting. A new mail list had been set up, osi-ds@uk.ac.ucl.cs, which was a merge of the existing wg3 and ietf-osi-ds lists. _1_0. _T_h_e _C_O_S_I_N_E _p_r_o_j_e_c_t This project, to coordinate a pilot European Directory Service, had started in October 1990 and was due to run until December 1992. The project has four main funded partners: UCL, ULCC, X-Tel and Netherlands PTT. UCL were the main contractor. The project was employing a full-time project manager, David Goodman (who was introduced to the meeting), working at UCL. In addition, there are a number of other non-funded partners: INRIA, JNT, DFN, SURFNet, SUNET, FUNET, UNINETT. There are a number of major tasks in the project. These are: o Configuration DSA - Glue together national pilots - Operate configuration DSA - Coordinate "knowledge" - Name registration - US access o Centralised DUA - Support for organisations not running a local Directory, who are also unable to access national facilities. - Provide central publicly available read-only service - 9 - - Enhance existing software - Data management software o Interoperability - Facilitate open interworking - Naming architecture maintenance - Support: protocol, distributed operation, testing o External support - Coordination of implementation reference sites - Connection of COSINE organisations - Help to establish new pilots - Evaluate implementations o Technology transfer - Transfer of information with PTTs - Evaluation of X.500 - Plans for migration to X.500 _1_1. _R_e_p_o_r_t _o_n _I_E_T_F _D_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y _G_r_o_u_p The Internet Engineering Task Force on Directories was concerned with the transition to an OSI Directory Service. A series of documents had been produced which detailed requirements over and above X.500 for running a Directory Service. Of particular importance are notes on: o Replication - Quipu's mechanisms would be used as the basis until standardised procedures were specified. o The mapping between DNS/NRS domains and X.500 o Naming architecture (see later section) o User-friendly naming It was hoped that the IETF and WG3 groups would liaise closely in the development of pilot services. _1_2. _D_o_c_u_m_e_n_t _o_n _E_x_p_l_a_n_a_t_i_o_n _o_f _t_h_e _D_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y _f_o_r _a_d_m_i_n_i_s_t_r_a_t_o_r_s - 10 - Apologies were offered by Julia Hill for the fact that this was not quite ready. The document would essentially be a tidied-up version of a note produced for a seminar at Durham on "Telecommunications in Higher Education". _1_3. _D_r_a_f_t _C_O_S_I_N_E _N_a_m_i_n_g _A_r_c_h_i_t_e_c_t_u_r_e This was circulated to all before the meeting. Comments on the updating mechanisms and the architecture itself were welcomed. Suggestions for additions to the naming architecture should follow the specified format. _1_4. _D_e_s_i_g_n _o_f _a _s_i_m_p_l_e _u_s_e_r _i_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e Following a challenge set at the previous meeting of the Directory Group to produce a design for a very simple user interface, Paul Barker had just managed to get a design circulated in time for the meeting. The design that had been produced was very much a child of the dsc interface, but took many ideas considerably further. There was general nodding that this design should be implemented, and the matter was left for discussion between Brunel, X-Tel and UCL. _1_5. _D_i_s_c_u_s_s_i_o_n _o_f _D_a_t_a _P_r_o_t_e_c_t_i_o_n _A_c_t _i_s_s_u_e_s _w_i_t_h _r_e_p_r_e_s_e_n_t_a_t_i_v_e _f_r_o_m _O_f_f_i_c_e _o_f _D_a_t_a _P_r_o_t_e_c_t_i_o_n _R_e_g_i_s_t_r_a_r Jonathan Bamford from the Office of Data Protection Registrar answered a number of questions on Data Protection issues. The net result of the discussions seemed to be that universities have little cause for concern with regard to registering the Directory under the DPA. However, the issues which people often have in mind when they are anxious about compliance with the DPA are still very much live issues: but these are matters of privacy or, for example, not wishing to endanger the security of certain individuals. A number of interesting points were raised during the discussions: It was important that a data subject should have a reasonable perception of how data concerning them was likely to be used. It was better for universities to be as open as possible about their intended use of the data. Data processing intentions do change over time, viz the Directory, and it was advisable that data subjects were informed of any substantial changes. _W_h_a_t _r_i_g_h_t_s _d_o_e_s _a_n _i_n_d_i_v_i_d_u_a_l _h_a_v_e _w_i_t_h _r_e_g_a_r_d _t_o _a _u_n_i_v_e_r_s_i_t_y _p_u_t_t_i_n_g _t_h_e_i_r _t_e_l_e_p_h_o_n_e _a_n_d _r_o_o_m _n_u_m_b_e_r _i_n_f_o_r_m_a_t_i_o_n _i_n _t_h_e _D_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y? Not much! It is the - 11 - university which "owns" this information, or ascribes it to an individual. As long as the DPA is complied with, individuals seem to have very little rights over data about them. Some sites were worried that if they relied on a single DPA registration, then a DPA problem with respect to one of their services might require all their services to be shut down until the problem was remedied. This was not the case - it would only require the shutting down of the single service. In any case, the procedures involved in such a case were quite lengthy, and the DPR was a reasonable man if people acted in good faith! There was no problem with replication, as this did not alter who "controlled" the data. A lot of anxiety was and has been expressed about third parties making lists from the Directory. It was noted that junk mail could be inhibited by making an appropriate indication to the mailing preference service (there are also apparently telephone and facsimile preference services). Prompted by a suggestion from Andrew Findlay, Jonathan Bamford agreed that it probably would be useful to have an attribute in the Directory which indicated whether one wished not to receive "junk mail". If such a directive was then ignored, this might then constitute unfair processing. While the DPA preference services gave some control over the use of data in the U.K., there was less control over access from outside the country. The DPR did have powers to prevent abuse from outside the country by means of a "transfer prohibition order", but this power had not yet been exercised. It was noted that there was a move towards harmonisation of Data Protection legislation in Europe by 1993. This probably implied some tightening of the U.K.'s existing legislation. _1_6. _L_e_t_t_e_r _t_o _R_e_g_i_s_t_r_a_r_s _o_n _c_h_o_i_c_e _o_f _I_n_s_t_i_t_u_t_i_o_n _N_a_m_e_s Loud hurrahs were the order of the day - the long awaited draft was available for comment. Several people expressed the view that it seemed too technical for registrars. The author defended himself by saying that registrars should enlist the assistance of their technical experts to help them decipher the more technical sections. Some typos were pointed out. Jim Craigie agreed to make some modifications to the note, including the provision of appendices giving a proforma and a set of examples. - 12 - _1_7. _P_r_o_p_o_s_a_l _f_o_r _u_s_e _o_f _X._5_0_0 _f_o_r _b_i_b_l_i_o_g_r_a_p_h_i_c _p_u_r_p_o_s_e_s A proposal for a project for examining the suitability of X.500 as a bibliographic database was circulated to the group. The British Library would be approached for funding. The project required one or two other sites (apart from UCL) as principal partners. Discussions were proceeding with some interested parties but nothing as yet finalised. In addition, several sites would be required to provide a volume of bibliographic data, in order to provide a realistic demonstration of X.500 as a bibliographic database. Comments on the proposal were welcomed and should be sent to Paul Barker. Any site wishing to participate should communicate their interest to Paul Barker as soon as possible. _1_8. _P_r_e_s_e_n_t_a_t_i_o_n _o_n _s_e_c_u_r_i_t_y At the last meeting it was clear that Directory security was an area which baffled most sites in the pilot. It was proposed that UCL and X-Tel provide a presentation on security issues. The Quipu course, which took place shortly after the last meeting of the group, covered security in some detail, and the notes which were provided with the course represent the clearest practical exposition of access control available. Mike Roe, who has worked extensively on security within Quipu, provided a further presentation on access control at the meeting. It was important to note that sensitive information should not be stored in the Directory, as the current security mechanisms were not sufficiently strong. It was also noted that one could experience different behaviour when searching the Directory over DSP, as opposed to DAP. This was due to the fact that DSP not backed up by strong authentication could not be trusted: it was too easy to fake a DSA and break the security. He was asked by several people to make the slides available. _1_9. _A_n_y _o_t_h_e_r _b_u_s_i_n_e_s_s None. _2_0. _D_a_t_e (_a_n_d _p_l_a_c_e) _o_f _n_e_x_t _m_e_e_t_i_n_g. Thursday, 21st March, 1991, in the Staff Dining Room, in the - 13 - basement of the Windeyer Building, Middlesex Hospital, Cleveland Street, WC1 (about 5 mins walk from UCL Computer Science department) _2_1. _A_c_t_i_o_n_s _b_e_f_o_r_e _t_h_e _n_e_x_t _m_e_e_t_i_n_g. JC & X-Tel To discuss transferring directory group lists from rutherford to directory based lists. JC To invite Steve Brabner of British Telecom to talk about COHORT 500 JC To find out about the licensing and availability of the OSIWare X.500 implementation JMH To provide a (no more than) 2-page guide to X.500 for administrators RT To collate existing material on codes of conduct to help the group to formulate a Directory usage code of conduct. all To provide Rodney Tillotson suitable examples of codes of conduct RT Rodney Tillotson to send Rutherford's Directory mail responder to X-Tel for distribution. RT To send Rutherford's DSA-checker to the directory-pilot list. CJR To warn sites who don't appear to be running the Quipu-6.1 upgrade JC Letter explaining sites' responsibilities with regard to hardware and software maintenance on the Directory machines. X-Tel To devise a scheme for numbering patches X-Tel To provide a note describing principal maintenance options X-Tel Check that there is no problem machines getting registered for maintenance correctly with SUN if they come via X-Tel AF To provide details of what subset of ISODE was required to support the building and running of DUAs. all Anybody interested in developing a DUA for a - 14 - Macintosh? MRR To provide copies of the slides he used in his presentation on access control - 15 - _A_p_p_e_n_d_i_x _A (_A_c_c_e_s_s_i_n_g _U_C_L _d_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y _p_i_l_o_t _d_o_c_u_m_e_n_t_s) The following topics may be obtained from the info-server using a request in the form: request: dirpilot topic: For example: From: Joe.Soap@somedomain To: info-server@uk.ac.ucl.cs Subject: Anything you like request: dirpilot topic: minutes1.txt This archive contains documents ... FILENAME.txt for plain text format FILENAME.ps for postscript FILENAME.ms for troff -ms Note that not all the files are available in all the formats. Look in the directory for ISODE itself and any updates to the main source tree. FILENAME.shar for shar files The files are also available by NIFTP and FTAM. FTAM to 00000511160013, username = anon, no password NIFTP to uk.ac.ucl.cs, binary mode, username = guest, password = (Your mail address in the form user@site) filenames should be prepended with (Note that the angle brackets and capital letters are vital) The "index" file contains a list of documents and brief descriptions of those documents. - 16 - _A_p_p_e_n_d_i_x _B (_A_c_c_e_s_s_i_n_g _X-_T_e_l'_s _d_o_c_u_m_e_n_t _s_t_o_r_e) There is a README file in the base directory which has the following information. -------------------------------------------- This is the anonymous directory for X-Tel. Each sub-directory should have a README contained within which has more details. Each directory also has a ls-ls file listing just that directory The following directories are present. README - this file ls-lsR - a full listing of all files found here. pp/ - PP source code, documentation and BUG list pp-tables/ - PP tables - copied from ucl. dirpilot/ - A copy of the dirpilot documentation isode/ - Source code and patches for ISODE and quipu + BUG list src/ - source for misc useful things. -------------------------------------------- Both the pp/ and isode/ directories contain a file called BUGS which lists known bugs in the currently released versions of the software. The pp directory also contains the x-tel standard table distribution and an example config.sh file for unix-niftp. The archive can be reached with the following commands FTAM address of #259/Janet=00002100102999 username "ANON", no password at present, the ftam ls command is broken, but get's work. The ls will be working again soon though. (Of course if you have ISODE 6.4 or later, you can just type ftam gb,xtel and it will look us up in the directory.) NIFTP address of uk.co.xtel username "guest", password= I suggest you retrieve ls-lsR to see what is available. We hope shortly to put the more interesting documents into the directory.