This is NASA/HEASARC's Anonymous ftp Area on legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov NOTICES AND WARNINGS (1) At certain times, particularly during weekday daytime (in the Eastern Time Zone of the US) hours, many users will be copying files: please be considerate of other users, and do not initiate more than 1 or 2 parallel sessions, especially requesting datasets from the same filesystems, e.g., RXTE, as this may reduce system response times (for everyone including the person with multiple sessions!) considerably. (2) The HEASARC ftp server may be disabled for your site. Even if so, you can still access the contents of our ftp area via the http (web) server; on the Web, the top-level of the ftp area is: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/ If you are trying to copy a file at ftp://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/etc/etc/file.xx you should modify this URL to http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/etc/etc/file.xx (3) The current version of our ftp server wu-ftpd has a change in the results of the "ls" command compared to earlier versions: it will list only files NOT subdirectories. To examine the complete contents of any directory including subdirectories, use either the "ls -l" or "dir" commands NOT the "ls" command. (4) There is a feature in our ftp server that lets users "get" the contents of an entire directory, and all of its subdirectories, using a single command, e.g., "get dir_name.tar.gz" will create and then send to the user a gzipped tar file of every file in the dir_name directory tree, including all the files in all of its subdirectories. BE CAREFUL USING THIS COMMAND: ALWAYS CHECK THE CONTENTS OF THE DIRECTORY FIRST, e.g., using the "ls -Rl" command from the top-level of the directory in question, or else you may inadvertently copy many unwanted Gigabytes of files to your computer! ****************************************************************************** This online service is maintained by the HEASARC (High Energy Astrophysics Science Archival Research Center), a facility of the Astrophysics Science Division (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) and the High Energy Astrophysics Division (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory). Please send any general comments, questions or problem reports using the HEASARC Feedback form at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/Feedback . Additional information about our services can be found in the HEASARC Journal `Legacy', which is published periodically by the HEASARC. Legacy back issues can be examined at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/journal/journals.html or obtained by request from request@legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov. Much more information about the HEASARC data holdings and software than is presented in the current file can be found at the HEASARC Web site http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/ If using this service has made a significant contribution to your research project, we would appreciate your making the following acknowledgment in any resulting publication: "This research has made use of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center." **************************************************************************** Notes on the HEASARC's ftp site (1) We have enabled the feature that allows a user to get the contents of an entire directory and all of its subdirectories in a single command, e.g., get dir_name.tar.gz will send you a gzipped tar file of the directory called dir_name. BE CAREFUL: BEFORE USING THIS COMMAND, CHECK THE CONTENTS OF THE DIRECTORY, e.g., use the `ls -Rl' command in the top-level of the directory, or else you may inadvertently copy Gigabytes of files. The `total' listed for each subdirectory by the `ls -Rl' command is the total size of all of the files in the subdirectory in units of 512 bytes (i.e., half kilobytes): e.g., if total = 2000, this means that the subdirectory contains 1 Megabyte. Some of our directory trees, e.g., asca, rosat, xte, have contents of many Gigabytes so use the get dir_name.tar.gz command very cautiously! (2) The heasarc/dbase/dump directory contains dumps of all the browsable catalogs and datasets that the HEASARC has on-line, in the form of gzipped ASCII files. Thus, if a user wants the entire SAO catalog: cd heasarc/dbase/dump dir heasarc_sao* binary get heasarc_sao.dat.gz The user will have to use the gunzip utility on this file on his/her own machine to turn the gzipped (binary) file into an ASCII file. If the user does not have access to gzip/gunzip, then they should type: cd heasarc/dbase/dump dir heasarc_sao* get heasarc_sao.dat and ftp will gunzip the file `on the fly', i.e., restore to ascii form and then send it to you. The disadvantage of this, of course, is that the file transfer will be slower because of the larger file size. The format in which a catalog (say called catname) has been dumped is contained in a file in the directory heasarc/dbase/pr_files that is called catname_par.dat.Z (i.e., in compressed format). Thus to obtain the format for the SAO Catalog: cd heasarc/dbase/pr_files dir sao* get sao_par.dat and ftp will uncompress the file and then send it to you. These catalog files can be very big (sao.dat.gz is 14.4 Mbytes, for example, and gunzipped will be even bigger) so always check the size of a catalog using the dir command before getting! Also, there will generally be a time lag of several days between the creation or revision of a database and its appearance in this dump sub-directory; typically, we create these database dump files once a week. To ensure that one is getting the `latest' version compare the creation date of the dump file with the creation date of the corresponding BROWSE database: the date stamp on the dump file should be after the date stamp on the BROWSE database. (3) A short ascii text file (FTP_HINTS) in this directory contains a discussion of common problems (and their solutions) and some (hopefully useful) hints that might help an inexperienced user of anonymous ftp accounts. (4) The file FTP_ARTICLE contains an updated version of an article that appeared in "Legacy: the Journal of the HEASARC" in 1993, and provides a general overview of the Anonymous FTP Account on LEGACY.