It's worth noting that the Multinet FTP package is substantially different to the HP version - from both a client and server perspective.
On 8 January 2015 at 09:22, Hans Vlems <hvlems at zonnet.nl> 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.
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
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.
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 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
On 8 Jan 2015, at 09:39, Johnny Billquist <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.
Just throwing this out there since FTP currently seems quite Unix-oriented..
Sampsa
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 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?
I'm sure there must be a Kermit port for RSX-11 out there somewhere..
sampsa
On 2015-01-08 04:37, Sampsa Laine wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 05:29, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
On 2015-01-08 03:23, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
...
The MultiNet FTP Server moves files between similarly capable FTP Clients and keeps the File Attributes consistent while copying data (i.e. You can simply ftp RMS Indexed files between VMS systems and the results will be immediately usable).
I know I read some manual about the DEC TCPIP package ftp server and client also managing this. It would, in fact, be nice to be compatible with that. However, atleast when storing or retreiving files from Unix systems, what DEC did is that they actually transfer two files. One with the data, and a separate one with the file metadata. Ugly, I think, and I would like to try and avoid that.
But that is a client only thing, as far as I can see. Anyone know how VMS does it if talking to another VMS system?
I suspect I might have a hard time if they do it by detecting that the remote server is a VMS system, since I will not lie about that. :-)
Ideally there would be an RFC describing this. Is there? Or another spec that spells out the protocol encoding for this magic?
I haven't found any. :-(
On the other hand, I could have missed something.
The "old" way of possibly dealing with this would be to use the page structure mode in ftp, but that would appear to be seriously discouraged. And besides, it is still kindof a difficult fit here.
RFC 959 talks about a file structure command:
FILE STRUCTURE (STRU)
The argument is a single Telnet character code specifying
file structure described in the Section on Data
Representation and Storage.
The following codes are assigned for structure:
F - File (no record structure)
R - Record structure
P - Page structure
The default structure is File.
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc959.txt
Not sure if this is of any help or works with any modern clients..
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?
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.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On 8 Jan 2015, at 05:37, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote:
On 8 Jan 2015, at 05:29, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
On 2015-01-08 03:23, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
...
The MultiNet FTP Server moves files between similarly capable FTP Clients and keeps the File Attributes consistent while copying data (i.e. You can simply ftp RMS Indexed files between VMS systems and the results will be immediately usable).
I know I read some manual about the DEC TCPIP package ftp server and client also managing this. It would, in fact, be nice to be compatible with that. However, atleast when storing or retreiving files from Unix systems, what DEC did is that they actually transfer two files. One with the data, and a separate one with the file metadata. Ugly, I think, and I would like to try and avoid that.
But that is a client only thing, as far as I can see. Anyone know how VMS does it if talking to another VMS system?
I suspect I might have a hard time if they do it by detecting that the remote server is a VMS system, since I will not lie about that. :-)
Ideally there would be an RFC describing this. Is there? Or another spec that spells out the protocol encoding for this magic?
I haven't found any. :-(
On the other hand, I could have missed something.
The "old" way of possibly dealing with this would be to use the page structure mode in ftp, but that would appear to be seriously discouraged. And besides, it is still kindof a difficult fit here.
RFC 959 talks about a file structure command:
FILE STRUCTURE (STRU)
The argument is a single Telnet character code specifying
file structure described in the Section on Data
Representation and Storage.
The following codes are assigned for structure:
F - File (no record structure)
R - Record structure
P - Page structure
The default structure is File.
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc959.txt
Not sure if this is of any help or works with any modern clients..
It's not even implemented in the VMS FTP server, where I could see the record structured files being quite useful..:
230 User logged in.
Remote system type is VMS.
ftp> stru
We only support file structure, sorry.
On 8 Jan 2015, at 05:29, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
On 2015-01-08 03:23, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
...
The MultiNet FTP Server moves files between similarly capable FTP Clients and keeps the File Attributes consistent while copying data (i.e. You can simply ftp RMS Indexed files between VMS systems and the results will be immediately usable).
I know I read some manual about the DEC TCPIP package ftp server and client also managing this. It would, in fact, be nice to be compatible with that. However, atleast when storing or retreiving files from Unix systems, what DEC did is that they actually transfer two files. One with the data, and a separate one with the file metadata. Ugly, I think, and I would like to try and avoid that.
But that is a client only thing, as far as I can see. Anyone know how VMS does it if talking to another VMS system?
I suspect I might have a hard time if they do it by detecting that the remote server is a VMS system, since I will not lie about that. :-)
Ideally there would be an RFC describing this. Is there? Or another spec that spells out the protocol encoding for this magic?
I haven't found any. :-(
On the other hand, I could have missed something.
The "old" way of possibly dealing with this would be to use the page structure mode in ftp, but that would appear to be seriously discouraged. And besides, it is still kindof a difficult fit here.
RFC 959 talks about a file structure command:
FILE STRUCTURE (STRU)
The argument is a single Telnet character code specifying
file structure described in the Section on Data
Representation and Storage.
The following codes are assigned for structure:
F - File (no record structure)
R - Record structure
P - Page structure
The default structure is File.
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc959.txt
Not sure if this is of any help or works with any modern clients..
On 2015-01-08 03:22, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
On Jan 7, 2015, at 9:03 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Thanks. (I doubt the VMS ftp server would care about NAT, it's not something the system behind a NAT knows or should care about. It's the NAT router who have to do all the work )
Usually, but it depends on the protocol. Some protocols FTP is a notorious example carry addresses and/or port numbers inside the application protocol data.
Right. And most any NAT box I know of knows this, and actually snoop the ftp control session to catch this so it can work.
But you are absolutely correct in that it is an extra level of excitement.
Does this server support passive mode? A lot of NAT servers need passive mode for FTP to work, or work more reliably if you use passive mode. (I just like passive mode because it isn t quite so conceptually broken as the older mode of FTP.)
I don't know about the VMS one. Mine do. :-)
But passive mode was in ftp already from the start, so anyone not implementing it would be rather silly. It is also required if you ever want to initiate a transfer between two boxes, if you yourself is on a third box.
And yes, passive mode is much easier for NAT to handle, since it looks much more like any normal session coming through. No need to snoop the ftp control channel in this case.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
