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This manual is intended to be used as a supplement to an authoritative reference on Kermit, such as the KERMIT User Guide (fifth edition. New York: Columbia University Center for Computing Activities, 1984) or KERMIT: A File Transfer Protocol (Bedford, Massachusetts: Digital Press, 1987), both by Frank da Cruz. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic Kermit concepts, such as “local” and “remote” Kermits, and is familiar with the use of a “typical” Kermit. Copies of Kermit documentation and sources for other Kermit implementations can be obtained from them by writing to:
Kermit Distribution
Columbia University Center for Computing Activities
612 West 115th Street
New York, NY 10025
MAINKERMIT at a Glance
| Local operation | * |
| Remote operation | Yes |
| Login scripts | No |
| Transfer text files | Yes |
| Transfer data files | Yes |
| Wildcard send | No |
| File transfer interruption | Yes |
| File name collision avoidance | No |
| Can time out | * |
| 8th-bit prefixing | Yes |
| Repeat count prefixing | Yes |
| Alternate block checks | Yes |
| Terminal emulation | * |
| Communication settings | * |
| Transmit BREAK | * |
| Support for dialout modems | Yes |
| IBM mainframe communication | Yes |
| Transaction logging | Yes |
| Session logging | No |
| Debug logging | No |
| Packet logging | Yes |
| Act as server | Yes |
| Talk to server | Yes |
| Advanced server functions | Yes |
| Local file management | Yes |
| Command/Init files | Yes |
| File Attribute packets | Yes |
| Command macros | No |
| Raw file transmit | No |
| * Depends on capabilities provided by the operating system. | |
MAINKERMIT has been designed to run interactively. Although no wildcard send is currently allowed, a list of files can be specified to be sent as a batch. Also, because File Attribute packets have been implemented, text and data files can be intermixed when two MAINKERMITs are talking to each other.
Currently, very little is done in the way of file name translation.
File names are converted to lower case unless literal-names has been
set. Nothing is done about converting directories from one form to
another, or making sure that the target file name is legal for a given
system.
1.2. File Names and Types
MAINKERMIT was designed to be a highly portable, full-featured
Kermit, which can reliably transfer both text and data files. Due
to the implementation of File Attribute packets, a mixture of text
and data files can be batched and sent with no user intervention.
1.3. File Transfer
When running MAINKERMIT in local mode, some information is printed
during the course of a file transfer. When a File Header packet is
received or sent, the file name is printed. During the transfer, a
dot is printed for every five Data packets.
Table 1–1 lists
other information shown.
Table 1–1. Information Displayed during File Transfer
| . | Five Data packets |
| Z | End of file |
| S | Short packet received |
| N | NAK received |
| T | Timeout |
| C | Checksum Error |
The keyboard is not active during the transfer, except for normal operating-system specific interrupts, such as CTRL-C or CTRL-T.
It is possible to abort a MAINKERMIT
file transfer by typing the keyboard
interrupt character (CTRL-C on many systems).
1.4. Operation
The MAINKERMIT default prompt is MAINKERMIT>, indicating that
Kermit is waiting for a command. This prompt can be changed by the
user to minimize confusion when switching from one system to another.
In general, a command line is a command verb followed by an optional
list of arguments, separated by spaces. Commands can be typed in from
the keyboard, or taken from a file (see the TAKE command,
Section 2.11). When MAINKERMIT is first started,
the file kermit.ini is looked for on the current directory,
and if present, commands are
executed from it. Command files can be nested.
MAINKERMIT is slightly different from most other Kermits in that file transfer requests can be queued. The TEXT, PTEXT, and DATA commands allow the user to enter such a request and specify the file type. The SEND or GET command starts the transfer of the queue. It is possible to distinguish between text and data files during transfer because File Attribute packets have been implemented. The user must note, however, that few other Kermits have implemented this feature. If the other Kermit does not support File Attribute packets, the file is still sent, but may be treated incorrectly.
MAINKERMIT can also be used in a mode similar to other Kermits, where the file type is set with SET FILETYPE and file names are specified in the SEND command.
Chapter 2 describe the commands to MAINKERMIT in detail.