"vrfy" is one of the tools that I use to keep track of remote archive sites. It was created before archie was in widespread use and before mirror came along. I would have done it differently had those two tools been around. The objective of "vrfy" is to verify that a remote archive site actually contains the stuff that a particular posting says it does, and to provide for an orderly way of keeping track of things that you've discovered. It does both things imperfectly. The tar file contains a snapshot of the vrfy code (written in perl). --Ed emv@msen.com