Subject: Conversions in ftpd and other topics [1039]

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 1995 18:12:27 +0100

Just a few notes concerning non-standard conversions (i.e. neither
compress nor tar) in ftpd: I recently tried to install a convertor
of tabular data into FITS (a standard used in astronomy) and I wasn't
able to achieve the jobs without adding a few lines of code in the
ftpd.c file (at least for having the appropriate notes in the xferlog).
I also found that the ftpd program has no PATH defined, 
which is a problem if one wants the same executables to be run
for both anonymous and real users: the solution we adopted
was to add a  putenv("PATH=/bin:/bin/ftp-exec") in the source ftpd.c,
putting all required executables (gtar, gzip, our FITS converter)
in ~ftp/bin/ftp-exec, and adding a soft link /bin/ftp-exec -> ~ftp/bin/ftp-exec

Other propositions for the ftpd server:
=> checking if the BIN mode is on before sending binary files:
   we hardcoded the extensions (e.g.  .Z  .gz .dvi  .exe  .gif  ...)
   which require this mode -- couldn't this feature be coded in some
   way in ftpaccess file ?
=> the "ls" and "dir" commands display also files which names start by
   a . (hidden files). We would prefer such files not being displayed
   We also wish to avoid displaying files or directories 
   which are protected. 
   We solved this problem here with a few modifications in the ftpd.c file
   and another "ls" executable, but maybe such features could be 
   more widely desireable ?

But thanks to the developers, their ftpd is great !

Francois Ochsenbein
Centre de Donnees Astronomiques Strasbourg, France
http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/CDS.html