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Re: msdos-i386 directory...



dwarf@polaris.net (Dale Scheetz)  wrote on 30.05.97 in <Pine.LNX.3.95.970530095950.2296F-100000@dwarf.polaris.net>:

> On 29 May 1997, Kai Henningsen wrote:
>
> > dwarf@polaris.net (Dale Scheetz)  wrote on 29.05.97 in
> > <Pine.LNX.3.95.970529133059.2616B-100000@dwarf.polaris.net>:
> >
> > > using Trumpet Winsock from windows tell me that they could not get the
> > > files from my site that were symbolic links, they only got the link. If
> > > this is a problem at my end, I need to understand what to do. My
> > > impression is that many DOS/Windows ftp clients don't have the facility
> > > of following links. I haven't had an opportunity to test these issues,
> > > since doing so would require setting up a machine and an account,
> > > neither of which do I have resources for at the moment.
> >
> > That doesn't make much sense - it's the server, not the client, that has
> > to follow that link. In fact, the server should not even be *able* to give
> > out the "pure" link.
>
> Well, my experience with dos and symlinks is minimal. I have only been
> reporting second hand information given me by other dos users.

Could you please ask them what specific software exhibits this problem? I  
still believe this is the exception, not the rule.

> However, I have experience in Linux with this issue and what you say above
> does not follow my experiences. For instance, I use mc and its virtual ftp
> file system to download the msdos-i386 directory. Its default is to
> download the links, not the files pointed to. There is an option on the
> copy dialogue box to follow symlinks but it is not the default.

It has to work to do this. It's nice to have when you can do symlinks,  
that's why mirror does this as well.

However, if you say "GET x", where x is a symlink to y, then you most  
certainly do get y.

The way mirror does it (and probably mc, as well) is that it parses a
"ls -l" listing, sees "x -> y" in there, and decides to create a symlink  
*instead* of downloading.

And of course, it makes absolutely no sense for a DOS FTP client to do  
this - there are no symlinks in DOS.

> While I agree that the server must be able to provide the "right thing" it
> seems to me that the client program is in control of what gets served.

In this case, actually nothing. The client doesn't give any command at all  
to the server when it decides to duplicate a symlink - because there is no  
command that would help you do it.

> Since dos doesn't know about links, I suspect that many dos programs
> simply ignore their existance, yielding the erratic results we see
> reported.

Again, this doesn't make sense. And I'm pretty certain that this doesn't  
happen for most DOS FTP clients. I've never seen this particular  
braindamage.

> > My guess - as I wrote in a parallel message - is that the ftp client tries
> > to be clever, and shoots itself in the foot. If I were a betting person,
>
> Dos programs don't ever need to be clever, which is normaly lucky since
> DOS doesn't support cleverness ;-)

Well, dumb FTP clients would just work.

> > I'd bet high odds that this is a bug in the client - and still good odds
> > that it's either only a single client, or all of those come from a common
> > code base.
> >
> > And all of them are probably visual ftp clients. I can't imagine a command
> > line client getting that wrong.
> >
> > Please, find a concrete scenario that goes wrong (which exact ftp client -
> > version, please - and which ftp server). We should find out what's really
> > going on, here, before this gets us bad publicity.
> >
> I don't think that there is a concrete scenario. The fact that I have only

I'm very certain there is.

I just made a quick test. The OS/2 commandline FTP client has absolutely  
no problems fetching symlinked files from ftp.debian.org (even with mget);  
the GUI variant (FTPPM) fails miserably to do anything useful (that is, it  
only produces error messages), because it can't parse the directory  
listing. (Interestingly enough, symlinked directories work just fine.) Of  
course, OS/2 could use long file names just fine on a HPFS partition :-)

GUI FTP clients are evil.

(Oh, I forgot. Netscape also works just fine. I guess you _can_ get it  
right ...)

MfG Kai


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