On Jan 7, 2015, at 10:43 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
...Note where I said "page structure" above. :-)
I've read RFC 959 (as well as the various additions) backwards and forwards way too many times by now.
The page structure would be a way of doing this. It will definitely not work with any other client out there. But on the other hand, I'm mostly interested in the efficient transport of files between two RSX systems for this part anyway, so it will be towards my own client only.
But I doubt VMS does it this way, and I was curious about if I could possibly do something that would be compatible with VMS, since enough commonality in file storage exists between RSX and VMS for this to actually be useful.
So the question is - what do VMS do when talking to another VMS system, and how does VMS decide when to use the extra abilities?
If there isn t a spec, the alternative would be to capture an FTP session with a tool like Wireshark, and reverse engineer things. That tends to be a pain but it can be done if all else fails.
paul
On Jan 8, 2015, at 6:10 AM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 13:07, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
...
Which text format, EBCDIC or ASCII? :P
The joke was more aimed at you stating that text files are the one universal format, which of course they are, until you meet IBM.
Or CDC which has 4 or more of its own, all different from either EBCDIC or ASCII.
paul
On 8 Jan 2015, at 13:59, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Now, wait a minute.
So you have problems with GUI ftp clients and servers. So you go for kermit for file transfers. Which means going command line.
If you go command line, what's wrong with command line ftp, which will work without the silly issues of GUI tools?
You can create scripts for ftp as well...
And ftp deals just as well with the different types of files as kermit do.
Johnny
Well, basically, I don't really use FTP.
I mostly use SFTP when updating my websites, hosting setup etc, and for that I use a graphical client since the hosting is Unixy so everything works nicely - I just happened to try connect to a VMS box with Transmit.app and it was seriously borked, so I thought I'd mention it.
When I was mostly playing with Alphas and IA64 boxes, I'd use a set of scripts around command-line SFTP because it wasn't as broken as Transmit :)
Now I'm usually logged into the following:
- GORVAX over Telnet (VAX)
- HILANT over Telnet (VAX)
- CHIMPY over SSH (AXP)
Anyway, I don't run SSH on my VAXes (and something in somewhere* router is messing with the FTP, even in passive mode) so I started playing around with Kermit scripts and eventually found them so convenient that I now mostly use Kermit over SSH instead of the SFTP scripts.
Summa summarum: I use SFTP in normal situations for file transfer where available, most of the time. If it's not, I use Kermit over Telnet. And I run Kermit over SSH as well since it does no harm AND gives me the ability to pull or push files in-band should I feel the need to :)
Sampsa
* My current connection in Lebanon is NAT'd from the ISP, god knows what they might be doing to the FTP connection
On 2015-01-08 11:34, Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 12:17, John H. Reinhardt <johnhreinhardt at yahoo.com> wrote:
On 1/7/2015 9:23 PM, Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 04:03, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Aha. Interesting output. That was sortof what I had a vague memory remembering it looking like. Now I need to decide if I want to do it similar.
Do people think file protection (for example) is useful to see? What about owner? I certainly have the information available, but I have not displayed it so far.
I would try to make it look as close to the *nix implementations, that way automated / GUI front-ends are more likely to work nicely with the server.
For example, I have a very nice GUI file transfer program called Transmit.app on OS X, but it REALLY gets confused when talking to VMS..
sampsa
I had the same problem with my Mac FTP utilities. I tried Panic's Transmit, Yummy FTP and a couple others. Yummy *almost* works except for file versions. But I've been using Filezilla <https://filezilla-project.org/> now for a few months and it seems to work pretty well. My biggest problem with it has been training it to recognize file types for automatic transfers (ASCII vs binary/image). It has Mac, Windows and Linux versions. I have V3.8.1 The latest is 3.10 but it won't work on my OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) system.
John H. Reinhardt
I pretty much gave up on this and now just use Kermit to move files back and forth when needed, I have a set of scripts that automatically log me in to all my systems with Kermit invoking the telnet or ssh connection - this way I can transfer a file at any given moment.
Now, wait a minute.
So you have problems with GUI ftp clients and servers. So you go for kermit for file transfers. Which means going command line.
If you go command line, what's wrong with command line ftp, which will work without the silly issues of GUI tools?
You can create scripts for ftp as well...
And ftp deals just as well with the different types of files as kermit do.
Johnny
On 2015-01-08 11:07, Sampsa Laine wrote:
Guys,
Just for fun I thought I'd like to attach a virtual RX02 drive to GORVAX (it's running SIMH).
Any of you guys know of the correct dd parameters to use to create a blank disk image?
If you want to be really sure, look up the documentation, but unless I remember wrong, it's 256K, so you'd do:
dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy bs=1024 count=256
as one example.
Johnny
On 2015-01-08 10:22, Hans Vlems wrote:
Johnny,
Just finished reading the ftp discussion and cannot figure whether you' ve found a VMS ftp server...
I can offer two, one on axp (real iron) the other is a simple vax. VMS 8.3 and 6.1, both run DEC's tcpip/ ucx product.
I haven't had a chance to test any myself, but the output provided in the thread have given me at least something to ponder.
It could be interesting to hit some in the future when/if I want to test for compatibility issues. But I can get back if that becomes relevant.
Johnny
Hans
Verzonden vanaf mijn BlackBerry 10-smartphone.
Origineel bericht
Van: Johnny Billquist
Verzonden: donderdag 8 januari 2015 08:40
Aan: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Beantwoorden: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Onderwerp: Re: [HECnet] VMS FTP server?
On 2015-01-08 04:47, Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 05:43, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
A different question is how to deal with binary file transfers to (for example) Unix systems. I have some different options there as well, but I haven't figured one out yet that does the right thing under all circumstances.
How about writing an archiver that produces a simple binary file as output but retains all the RSX specific stuff within the archive, sort of like ZIP's -V option on VMS and then using something like Kermit over say Telnet to transfer those files around?
That is already sortof existing. You can use LBR to stuff any files into
a library, and then I've written something similar to uuencode/uudecode
that can process any file, creating a text file, which is the only
universal file format. :-)
I'm sure there must be a Kermit port for RSX-11 out there somewhere..
Of course. But Kermit isn't exactly efficient. Not to mention that you
cannot, on an RSX system, do kermit over telnet...
Johnny
On 2015-01-08 08:44, Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 09:39, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se
<mailto:bqt at softjar.se>> wrote:
I'm sure there must be a Kermit port for RSX-11 out there somewhere..
Of course. But Kermit isn't exactly efficient. Not to mention that you
cannot, on an RSX system, do kermit over telnet...
Johnny
My idea was to extend the RSX-11 kermit port to include access over
telnet rather than using FTP.
Urgh.... No, I don't think so. Kermit-11 is rather messy to start with, and there isn't much free memory. I've mucked in Kermit-11 in the past. It's a good enough tool if you have a serial line, but it's not what I'd use if I have some other alternative.
Just throwing this out there since FTP currently seems quite Unix-oriented..
It's not. However, I want to try and be a bit more general than just passing bits between two RSX systems. Which means I should consider those other types of systems as well, when it comes to non-text files.
As for graphic UI interfaces that talk ftp, and can't deal with non-Unix systems - I think I'm going to ignore them. It's as broken as sometimes using ftp in a web browser is (files from windows machines anyone?)
Johnny
Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> skrev: (8 januari 2015 12:10:28 CET)
On 8 Jan 2015, at 13:07, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> skrev: (8 januari 2015 08:45:43 CET)
On 8 Jan 2015, at 09:39, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
That is already sortof existing. You can use LBR to stuff any files
into a library, and then I've written something similar to
uuencode/uudecode that can process any file, creating a text file,
which is the only universal file format. :-)
Which text format, EBCDIC or ASCII? :P
The joke was more aimed at you stating that text files are the one
universal format, which of course they are, until you meet IBM.
I know. And my point was that they really are the universal format. To the point that ftp provides the mapping needed for all kind of systems including IBM ones.
But only for text files...
Johnny
Sampsa
--
Skickat fr n min Android-telefon med K-9 E-post. Urs kta min f ordighet.
On 8 Jan 2015, at 13:07, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> skrev: (8 januari 2015 08:45:43 CET)
On 8 Jan 2015, at 09:39, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
That is already sortof existing. You can use LBR to stuff any files
into a library, and then I've written something similar to
uuencode/uudecode that can process any file, creating a text file,
which is the only universal file format. :-)
Which text format, EBCDIC or ASCII? :P
The joke was more aimed at you stating that text files are the one universal format, which of course they are, until you meet IBM.
Sampsa
Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> skrev: (8 januari 2015 08:45:43 CET)
On 8 Jan 2015, at 09:39, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
That is already sortof existing. You can use LBR to stuff any files
into a library, and then I've written something similar to
uuencode/uudecode that can process any file, creating a text file,
which is the only universal file format. :-)
Which text format, EBCDIC or ASCII? :P
Ftp deals transparently with both.
Johnny
--
Skickat fr n min Android-telefon med K-9 E-post. Urs kta min f ordighet.
