Here some comments about files and packages you will find on this FTP
server:

  - Filenames that end in ".Z" are compressed to decrease DASD space and
    transmission time.  Typically, a utility called "uncompress" will
    restore them.  You can either inflate the file with the utility or
    use the function built into its three archival utilities:  cpio, tar, 
    and pax with the use of the '-z' option.

  - Filenames that end in ".gz" are compressed by gzip and must be inflated
    with gzip's gunzip utility.  gzip is not included with MVS but you can port 
    it very easily (see instructions at 
    http://www.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/bpxqp1.html).  The archival utilities 
    (pax, tar, and cpio) cannot use gzip directly but you can avoid inflating 
    the file on disk by using gzip's zcat utility (sometimes referred to as 
    gzcat) in a pipeline:

        gzcat foobar.tar.gz | pax -r

  - A filename that contains "cpio", "tar", or "pax" normally
    indicates an archivial utility was used to create the file and
    that the file "contains" one or more files inside it.  The cpio
    utility can be used to read "cpio" files, the tar utility can be
    used to read "tar" files, and the pax utility can be used to read
    "cpio", "tar", *or* "pax" files.

    Since pax can read archive files written by any of the three
    utilities, I will give an example of reading a file with only pax:

           pax -rf foobar.pax

  - A filename that contains "shar" normally indicates the file is a
    "shell archive".  This is a shell script that may be executed by the
    shell to automatically unwind all the files in the archive.

           sh foobar.shar

  - cpio, tar, and pax archive files on this disk will typically contain
    EBCDIC data.  The archive files themselves should be considered to
    be binary.  If you are unwinding these files on OpenMVS, you will
    want them to be in EBCDIC so no changes are necessary.  If you wish
    to unwind the files on an ASCII-based system, you will need to
    perform translation on the files before you can use them (perhaps
    using the "dd" utility with an option "conv=ascii").

  - You should take care to use BINARY transmission options when dealing
    with non-text files such as archives produced by cpio, tar, or pax
    or any filename ending in ".Z".  Specifically, make sure you perform
    FTP "get"s in binary mode and and OPUTs with the BINARY option.
    Failure to do this will corrupt your file and force you to repeat
    one or more steps you performed to obtain the file to begin with.

John Pfuntner
john_pfuntner@tivoli.com