Anonymous FTP Archives are a popular method of making material available to the Internet user community. The IAFA Templates [1] specify a range of indexing metadata that can be used to describe the contents and services provided by such archives. This information can be used directly by the user community when visiting parts of the archive, and automatic indexing tools can gather and index this information, thus making it easier for users to find and access it.

IAFA Templates provide a metadata standard for describing:

FTP Site Information (etc. hostname, admin, access-times, access-policy)
Logical Archive Information (similar to site information, but specific to a part of the archive)
Automatic File Update Information
Documents, Datasets, Mailing List Archives, Usenet Archives, Software Packages, Images and other objects (e.g. title, author, description, biliography, copyright)

Iafa Templates

See Also: