Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Arch mirroring to Microsoft FTP Service

[Andy Tai]

Thanks for the information.  I briefly looked at the ftp code in tla (libarch/pfs-ftp.c), and it distinguishes between wu-ftp and ftp.  In the case of wu-ftp, -a is given after the NLST command.  So it seems a workaround is to treat Microsoft FTP in the same fashion as wu-ftp.

Being unfamiliar with the ftp protocol myself, I am just curious what is the reason why wu-ftp was treated separately (in the sense that for tla, did wu-ftp present enough differences from the standard ftp that one set of commands cannot be used for all ftp commands)?  Maybe older people in the list may remember the reason...

On 6/9/06, Jason McCarty <address@hidden> wrote:

I ran tla (1.3) get against an empty valid archive on a microsoft FTP
server ("Microsoft FTP Service (Version 5.0)") to see what FTP commands
it used, then I used netcat to manually run all the same commands,
adding the -a option to each NLST command.  Results:

  tla: NLST /bclg/wwwiup/testmsftp/.archive-version
  response:

  emulated: NLST -a /bclg/wwwiup/testmsftp/.archive-version
  response: .archive-version


I did a couple other tests too, not sure if they're relevant. Please
excuse any misuse of terminology.  To summarize, given an empty
directory as argument, NLST -a gives an empty response to the data
connection. Given a nonexistent file, it writes "550 -a: The system
cannot find the file specified." to the status connection. Given a
nonempty directory, it writes the names of all files in the directory to
the data connection without leading paths, separated by newline and
carriage return. Given an existing file, it writes the name of the file
to the data connection with no leading path.

Hopefully this is enough information for someone to add support for
MSFTP, or to decide it's too much trouble (as I did!). Oh, and NcFTP
appears to parse the ("ls -l"-like) results of LIST, for which MSFTP
appears to list all files. Probably not the route tla wants to go.

I didn't find the -a option to NLST documented anywhere with regards to
MSFTP, only other servers.

--
Jason McCarty <address@hidden>