FTP issue through IE

[O. Jadot]

Hello all.

I have a curious behavior of FTP services.

I use an AS4100 running VMS 8, latest TCPIP version, all patches up to date. I did set up samba onto my server.

FTP services are set up and running, performing a FTP request between PCs (or windows servers) and my VMS server in a DOS window is OK.

Samba works well, as I can browse my shared directory from windows servers.

I have clients who need to access my server through FTP too. I try to use this service through IE, and here is the point. Files are crazy ! I even found a file named "Total of 77 files, 80840/81360 blocks" ! ! ! My directories aren't browsable !

I attached a screenshot of what it seems.

Thanks for your help on this issue,

O.JADOT

[Karl Rohwedder]

The format of a FTP LS/DIR output is not standardized, i.e. every client tries to interpret it more or less with success. Esp. VMS version numbers are hard to understand by non-VMS systems.
There is logical name TCPIP$FTP_NO_VERSION, which may help. Firefox works quite well with a VMS host.
I believe, other FTP servers, e.g. HGFTP have a mode to display themselves as UNIX servers. YXou
can install HGFTP in paralel to TCPIP-Services.

regards Kalle

[O. Jadot]

Thanks to you, Karl, you were helpfull.

Firefox did strongly better than IE, and allows to work fine.

I look forward to install HGFTP onto my server, but I seem to encounter difficulties to unpackage it. Each and every version of it I could find displays this while used with VMSINSTAL :

The following products will be processed:

HGFTP V3.1


Beginning installation of HGFTP V3.1 at 15:54

%VMSINSTAL-I-RESTORE, Restoring product save set A ...
%BACKUP-E-READERR, error reading SDATA:[PATCHS]HGFTP031.A;1
-BACKUP-E-BLOCKCRC, software block CRC error
%BACKUP-E-INVBLKSIZE, invalid block size in save set
%BACKUP-E-INVRECTYP, invalid record type in save set
%BACKUP-E-INVRECTYP, invalid record type in save set
%BACKUP-E-INVRECSIZ, invalid record size in save set
%BACKUP-E-INVRECTYP, invalid record type in save set
%BACKUP-E-INVRECTYP, invalid record type in save set
%BACKUP-E-INVRECSIZ, invalid record size in save set
%BACKUP-E-VBNMISSING, DSA1:[SYS0.SYSUPD.HGFTP031]KITINSTAL.COM;56 has missing bl
ocks 15 through 37
%VMSINSTAL-E-NOSAVESET, Save set A cannot be restored.


VMSINSTAL procedure done at 15:54


ROMULS>


Any idea of what I missed ?

Thanks a lot,

O.JADOT

[Ian Miller.]

the saveset attributes have probably been altered to 512 byte fixed record. You can use
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/freeware/freeware70/000tools/reset_backup_saveset_file_attributes.com

to correct the.

[O. Jadot]

Well, I'm still going on, and installation of HGFTP has been successfull, thanks to you.

Still, I cannot get this server working, due to this behavior :

ROMULS> ftp
%DCL-W-ACTIMAGE, error activating image NETLIB_SHRXFR
-CLI-E-IMGNAME, image file VMI$KWD:[SYSLIB]NETLIB_SHRXFR.EXE;
-RMS-F-DEV, error in device name or inappropriate device type for operation
ROMULS>

NETLIB 2.3 has been installed with HGFTP, and I installed upon it the newest version 2.4. Neither of them two allow me to start this FTP feature.

I really cannot find the point. Help is welcome.

O.JADOT

[Karl Rohwedder]

Have you startet NETLIB using SYS$STARTUP:NETLIB_STARTUP? It installs the shareables und defines logical names for them.

regards Kalle

[John Gillings]

>the saveset attributes have probably been altered

FYI, you may see a new qualifier for BACKUP soon. BACKUP/REPAIR (thanks Guy :-)

[labadie_1]

When you are struggling with a save-set that have suffered FTP, you have the useful qualifier /analize

back/lis/analize savet.bck/sav

which will print the block size

For the fun of pipe, I did this command procedure

$ set noon
$ if p1.eqs."".or.f$search(p1).eqs."" then exit
$ ! put correct characteristics for a save set, and later the correct lrl
$ ! which will be very often 32256 or 9216
$ set file/attr=(rfm:fix,rat:none,mrs:32256,lrl:32256) 'p1
$ pipe bac/lis/ana 'p1/sav | sea sys$pipe "blocksize =" | -
( read SYS$PIPE TMP ; DEFINE/JOB/NOLOG TMP &TMP )
$ tmp1 = f$trnlnm("tmp","lnm$job","super",,)
$ loc = f$locate("=",tmp1)
$ blocks = f$extract(loc+2,5,tmp1)
$ set fil/attr=(lrl:'blocks,mrs:'blocks) 'p1
$ exit


This is less efficient than the well-known reset_backup_saveset_attrinutes (http://h71000.www7.hp.com/freeware/freeware40/000tools/) because it reads the complete save-set, which can be
big.

PS: do you go to the HP-Interex meeting on the 6th of April ?

[Bojan Nemec]

Jadot,


The device name VMI$KWD: in VMI$KWD:[SYSLIB]NETLIB_SHRXFR.EXE; seems the rest of logical names defined by VMSINSTAL. Try to logout to reset the process and job logical names.

Bojan

[O. Jadot]

Thanks for your help, all !

My savesets attributes issues have been cleared, thanks to you all.

Bojan's suggestion was the good one for my netlib issue, and I have a VMS server running HGFTP for file transfer now.

I can do FTP transactions from a DOS CMD window, which clearly uses HGFTP, and even a windows FTP transfer application which was working bad is now doing fine.

One last problem stands still, and I'm working hard on it. If anyone has an idea, it may help (once more). Trying a FTP session from IE or Firefox stops my FTP server. Launching ftp_startup from HG directory runs a new process for it, which falls as far as I request another FTP connection from browsers.

It seems that browsers establish a primary contact with the FTP server, as they ask for a username/password to connect(I don't use anonymous connections). Once these informations filled, Firefox keeps searching a connection without ending, while on my VMS the FTP server is down. On the other hand, IE opens an information panel saying "Could not open a connection to the server".

Thanks once more for all your help so far, guys.

O.JADOT

[O. Jadot]

News.

I found that HGFTP listener dies if an auth failure occurs, which is the case as IE or Firefox first tries an anonymous login.

Good news are that if I fix this one, it'll be all right, IE and Firefox work fine if I set a user/password directly into the address bar.

O.JADOT

[Ian Miller.]

I guess you have to enable anonymous logins for ftp. Its curious that the FTPD dies on authentication failure.

[O. Jadot]

Could things be so simple !

but as soon as a user will miss a letter in his password, I will be without FTP server.

I wrote an email to Hunter Goatley, HGFTP editor, to ask about this issue. He was asked the same question in december in this thread :

http://www.goatley.com/board/vmsboard/110.html

Looks like a product bug !

O.JADOT

[O. Jadot]

News.

Hunter Goatley fixed it. HGFTP is now available in version 3.1-3 on the process FTP site.

And my issues are gone.

Thanks to you all for your great assistance.

O.JADOT