Like the previous Example 3, this page shows how an unmodified Midnight Commander can browse a remote file system through HTTP. This time, an HTTPFS server is HFS822, which implements a "file" system over a structured document: an RFC822 message.
As before, we start the Midnight Commander and enter at its prompt the following directory change command:
cd mc:adapterh/remhost/cgi-bin/
admin/HFS822-server.pl/
DeepestRoot/tmp/message1/
with the slash at the end of the "directory" name.
Here adapterh is a host running mcserv, and remhost is a site that contains an RFC822 /tmp/message1 in question. It is the same message as the one we used in Example 2.
| Left | File | Command | Options | Right |
| ...er.pl/DeepestRoot/tmp/message1 | ||
| Name | Size | MTime |
| /.. Body Content-Length Date From Received Subject To | 3584 1168 4 37 33 378 36 14 | May 18 1999 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 |
| Subject | ||
| ~ | ||
| Name | Size | MTime |
| /.. /.ncftp /http-vfs *.bash_profile extfs.ini lilo1.conf | 1024 1024 1024 1555 194 487 | May 4 20:12 Dec 18 09:58 May 7 16:56 Mar 30 14:00 Jan 22 16:05 Mar 11 16:20 |
| /.. | ||
| Hint: VFS coolness: tap enter on a tar file to examine its contents. ~> |
| 1Help | 2Menu | 3View | 4Edit | 5Copy | 6RenMov | 7Mkdir | 8Delete | 9PullDn | 10Quit |
The left pane of the Midnight Commander's window shows message1 as a directory full of files. We can view message headers as if they were ordinary files (select a file and press F3):
| File: Subject | Col 0 | 36 bytes [grow] | 100% |
final confirmation for FREENIX track |
| 1Help | 2UnWrap | 3Quit | 4Hex | 5Line | 6RxSrch | 7Search | 8Raw | 9Format | 10Quit |
After we exited the viewer and returned to the MC's dual panes, the file Subject was still selected as current. We then pressed F5 to copy the file from one pane to the other: from a pseudo-file system onto the real file system. The latter may be a remote HTTPFS system, even across a firewall. The RFC822 header Subject is a file, as far as the Midnight Commander is concerned. Here is a copy operation confirmation box:
| Copy |
| Copy file "Subject" with source mask: |
| * |
| [x] using shell Patterns |
| to: |
| /usr/local/home/oleg |
| [ ] follow sYmlinks [x] Dive into subdir if exists |
| [ ] Stable Symlinks |
| [ Ok ] [ Background ] [ Cancel ] |
Here is the result of copying the Subject file. The file showed up in the left pane. It becomes an ordinary file now.
| Left | File | Command | Options | Right |
| ...er.pl/DeepestRoot/tmp/message1 | ||
| Name | Size | MTime |
| /.. Body Content-Length Date From Received Subject To | 3584 1168 4 37 33 378 36 14 | May 18 1999 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 Mar 30 03:01 |
| Subject | ||
| ~ | ||
| Name | Size | MTime |
| /.. /.ncftp /http-vfs *.bash_profile extfs.ini lilo1.conf Subject | 1024 1024 1024 1555 194 487 36 | May 4 20:12 Dec 18 09:58 May 7 16:56 Mar 30 14:00 Jan 22 16:05 Mar 11 16:20 May 18 1999 |
| /.. | ||
| Hint: You can do anonymous FTP with mc by typing 'cd ftp://machine.edu' ~> |
| 1Help | 2Menu | 3View | 4Edit | 5Copy | 6RenMov | 7Mkdir | 8Delete | 9PullDn | 10Quit |
| Prev example | Back to the Paper |