Retrieve files via ftp and symbolic links

[Diego Balgera]

Hi,

I need to download files from an ftp server (installed over hp-ux 11.x), these files are referenced by symbolic links and I need to use the symbolic links as starting points, as follows:

LinkFile -----> symlink -----> RealFile

Some clients works perfectly: when I execute the command "GET LinkFile", the system follows the link and downloads the RealFile without any problem.
In some other cases, it doesn't work and the client returns an error, but its meaning is not clear to me.

Who can help me in identifying how I can overcome this problem?

Btw, who follows the link? Is it the ftp client that follows the link or viceversa the fact that a file is referenced by a link is transparent to the client (and following the link is handled by Unix)?

Thank you in advance!
Best regards.
Diego.

[Steven E. Protter]

This issue may be the ftp client being used. Some clients handle this correctly, others do not.

Could it have to do with the permissions on the file being linked to? Maybe the user doesn't have rights and everything is working just as it should.

This sounds like a situation calling for a little Unix Dectective work.

SEP

[Geoff Wild · Accepted solution]

The problem is that many browsers do not support sym links in FTP. You MUST use a decent ftp program such as WSftp on the client side with symbolic links...


Rgds...Geoff

[Diego Balgera]

Yes, you are right.

With some clients it works, with some other clients it doesn't.
But I wonder if there is an ftp command to be sent so that a client with the problem could fix its problem.

It is not an issue regarding the permissions. The "real" file has correct permissions for downloading and the symlink is set 777.

Thank you!
Diego.

[Mark Greene_1]

What errors are you getting on the client side, and have you checked for error messages on the host side in the syslog?

mark

[Diego Balgera]

Hi Mark,

1) the ftp client reports the following error:
550 /tmp/testfile: Not a directory
... but filename is a symlink pointing to a regular file, not a directory at all.

2) The syslog doesn't report any error.

Thank you again.
Diego.