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

[Thomas Lord]

Andy Tai wrote:
> 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...

Grabbing my cane and walking up to the podium...

The FTP protocol definition is very weak, for our purposes.
It doesn't say much that's useful about filename syntax.
It doesn't say much that's useful about the semantics of
operations such as `rename'.

Arch, frankly, abuses the FTP protocol.  I would only say
in its defense that it abuses FTP in reasonable ways.

Most FTP servers -- especially (discounting MSFT's) the
most common ones -- implement FTP in "natural" ways
that work just fine with Arch.   Some do not.

wu-ftp (evidently from your report -- and as I vaguely recall
from when the code was written) requires the non-standard
(perhaps non-conforming, I'd have to check) "-a" argument
to NLST to include dot files in the output.   Alright, so Arch
treats that as a de facto separate FTP-like protocol.

A similar solution would enable Arch to work with MSFT
FTP assuming they hold their servers reasonable stable
in the relevant behaviors.

(The FTP RFC -- I forget the number -- is good reading, btw.)

-t