Acom Internet User Guide
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Acom Internet User Guide Aeom GrtK: URL [hl^.r>Simv«.ac3om.co.uk''aoorrv' Products w Vornf i htejds»aA t Ncy^lrava» t teittaM t f iU-v.'.y- ;'. •.! Va I't! At. At-f i.'till .'-iin^-.M'riT'»'*i<1*'"i'>^n<1>ll'llMHn^rirtlTi'r»"i'f"'W >1ii1iPiiK>Ti-<i-fifiir <'»l ^Vtewrtg "Acwm Gfotjppte" ! Table of Contents Introduction Acom Internet Background How do I get an Internet connection? Setting up Modem Configuration instructions Configuring the Internet server Setting up communications functions Configuring IMail Installing !Mail Setting the Post_In and Post_Out directories Configuring the Web browser Page caches Browser configuration Network configuration Managing the mail server Setting up users and user groups Managing newsgroups Allowing and disallowing Web URLs N^l statistics L flaying the server log Finger Quitting Connea Saving space Using Mail Starting IConnect Connecting with the mail system Sending mail Reading mail Forwarding a mail message Connecting with the Internet Logging off and Quitting Using the Web browser Starting the Web browser Overview Finding>starting and stopping links The browser menu Viewing locally-stored pages Using news Reading news Forwarding an article by email Following up an article Replying to an article (by email) Saving an article Starting a new thread Playing other multimedia data types BWing Java applets ISnbckwave World Wide Web pages What are Web pages? Creating Web pages Identifying resources - URLs Serving pages AppendixA: Acronyms and Smilies Acronyms Smilies ^pendix B; Writing Acorn Internet Command Scripts Ii>. oduction Protocols and Interfaces Anatomy of a logon script Writing your Own Scripts Handling Dynamic IPAllocation Scripting Language Conunand Set pppconnect for RISC OS Authentication Routing Bibliography Appendix C; Glossary Copyright notices Copyright © 1995,1996,1997,1998 Acom Computers Limited. All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may bereproduced ortransmitted, in any form orbyany means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording orotherwise, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without thewritten permission ofthecopyright holder and thepublisher, application forwhich shall be made to the publisher. Theproduct described inthismanual is notintended for use as a critical component in lifesupport devices or any systemin whichfailure could be expectedto result in personalinjury. Theproduct described inthismanual is subject to continuous development and improvement. All information of a technical nature and particulars of theproduct and its use (including the information and particulars in this manual) aregivenbyAcomComputers Limited in good faith. However, Acom Computers Limited cannot accept anyliability for anyloss ordamage arising from the use of any information or particulars in this manual. If you have anycomments onthis manual, please complete the form at thebackofthe manual and send it to the address given there. Ag^m supplies its products through an intemational distribution network. Your supplia* is available to help rcoolve any queries you might have. Within this publication, the term^BBCis used as an abbreviation for ^British Broadcasting Corporation'. ACORN,the ACORN logo, ARCHIMEDES and ECONETare trademarks of Acom Computers Limited. All other trademarks are acknowledged. Published by Acom Computers Limited Part Number 0484,854 Issue C, January 1998 1 Introduction Acorn Internet Acom Internet software gives you eveiythingyou need to browse the World Wide Web, send and receive email, and read and participate in global newsgroups. Controlling access and costs Acom Intemet software is easy to configure and to use. Great emphasis has been placed on control and observation,to ensure that users have access only to approved newsgroups, email addresses and Webpages. AcornIntemet software also helps you controltelephoneline costs, with frequency and lengthof connection being fully configurable. Reports on coimect times, news and email volume are available to the qw at any time. Background What Is the Internet? The Intemet is a global network of networks, with tens of millions of users world wide. It covers a wide range of services - electronic mail (email), bulletin boards, newsgroups, file transfer, remote logon and the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is a hypermedia-linked information server system which can handle "pages' of text, pictures and even audio. This entire network of pages can be potentially interlinked, with bnks on one page bringing related information that's on another page. Sitting at your computer, you can bring one page to y^r computer screen from a computer in Australia, read its contents, and then by clicking a mouse button, biiiig more pages of related information from a computer in Alaska. You traverse the Intemet by moving from one page to another via links - this is what is meant by surfing the net. [ /'j s. I kitcmedofral ConnwetMty vviatmi ^ CapytiiSffit«18S4 ^ a»eiliut>K>lli»«)iai B EtMomylUUCP.FWgNmwOSI) rtoCOfflWCftMty tfaojpjuWMKiataB Of the range of Internet services, AcornInternetsoftware provides the main ones- email, news and a Web ^browser'. The origins of the Internet The origins of Intemet go back to the mid-seventies, out of a need to connecttogetherthe US Defense Department ARPAnet and variousother radio and satellitenetworks. Withnuclearwar in mind, it had to be as tolerant of network breakdowns as possible, so was set up as a "peer-to-peer'network - each computer communicating with every other one as an equal. Data was sent in hitemet Protocol (IP) packets, addressed to the destination machine. same IP networking software came with Berkeley UNIX workstations, which proliferated in Local Area Networks in the eighties. It soon became clear that these local networks could be connected to the ARPAnet, so that every workstation on a site could access ARPAnet facilities. In the late eighties, the National Science Foundation (NSF) set up five supercomputer centres in the United States, and every university was connected to these centres via its own regional network. This NSFNET provided the basis of the present-dayIntemet network in the US, to which networksin the UnitedKingdom and other countries are connected. NSFNET, NASA Science Intemet and other US federal agency networks recently joined forces to form the National Research and Education Network (NREN). The Intemet was originally used by universities, research establishments, companies and govemment departments to communicate with each other and share resources. Increasingly, though, private subscribers are joining, via a growing number of service providers. core ofthe Intemet is a TCP/IP network, but many other non-IP networks (such as Acom Econet, BITNET and DECnet) have found ways to coimect to it. This means that almost anyone with a computer can join it, either via a gateway between their own network and the Intemet, or by leasing an account on a computer with a full connectionto the Intemet, and communicating via that computer, using a modem and telephone line. "The Intemet' has therefore come to mean not just the original TCP/IP network, but the global ccMnmunity of disparate interconnected computers. What is the World Wide Web? The World Wide Web (also known as WWW, W3 or simply "the Web") attempts to oiganise information on the Intemet as a set ofhypertext or hypermedia documents. In a hypertext document,if you want more information about a particularsubjectmentioned, you just click your mouse buttonover a highlighted wordor pictureto bring another, linkedpage of information to your screen. Hypermedia links will not only bring you a page to read but also bring images, and play video and sound clips - all at the click of your mouse button. Most pages on the WorldWide Web provide these built-in links to other pages. If all the early running in developing the Internet was made in the United States, the development of the WorldWideWeb has been a truly internationalphenomenon. It began as a networkedinformationproject of EnglishmanTim Bemers-Lee at CERN (the EuropeanLaboratoryfor Particle Physics in Switzerland) in 1989.The aim was to build a distributed hjrpermedia system, that is, a system where information of interest to the scientific research community and in different file formats- text, pictures, movies, and so on - was stored across many different computers in different locations, and which could be accessed by pointing and clicking. Once a graphical interface for the Web, Mosaic, was developed by the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Illinois, the project rapidly grew to cover more and more resources, computers and users across the Internet. In January 1993, there were just 50 WorldWide Web servers world-wide: by October 1993 this number had grown to 500. Currently, there are over 1000 World Wide Web servers in the UK alcMie. Who controls the Internet? The Internet is not run by one company, although some corporate networks that form part of it may be. There is a voluntary body, called the Internet Society (or ISOC), which appoints a council ofelders responsible for the technical management and direction ofthe Internet. But generally speaking the Internet is an informal, self-governing community. As in any social group, if members behave badly, the others shun them or let them know what they think about it. Your company or school may have its own Internet rules. Find out what they are, and be sure to follow them. There are a few general rules, however, that you should be aware of: Ommercial use When you join