Subject: 'dir' hangs output

From: "David G. Mills" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 16:51:25 -0800

Hi, all...

I've gone and shot myself in the foot (sigh).

I have Beta 15 up and cruising on Solaris 2.5.1 and everything was happy,
until I started making modifications to the ~ftp/etc/passwd file (stripping
out gcos, def. shell, and home directory fields in an effort to tighten
security). 

Well, the next time I tried a test ftp session (login: "ftp") and did a
"dir" on the ~ftp directory, the client's output hung. 

I've tried to undo my goof: re-copying the whole /etc/passwd file back into
the ~ftp/etc directory, but to no avail.

Can someone please point out my (simple, please?) solution?

Many thanks in advance,

david
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David G. Mills / System Administrator

         IPAC Systems Group
       Caltech, Pasadena, CA

       [email-masked]
            626-397-7241

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From: Martin Kirscht <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 11:09:42 +0100

> out gcos, def. shell, and home directory fields in an effort to tighten

You have to keep the ':' in the ~ftp/etc/passwd file when you delete
some fields, e. g.

root:x:0:1:::

Martin
-- 
  /| /|                   mailto:[email-masked]
 / |/ | /                 phone: +49-511-762-5305, fax: +49-511-762-5333
/artin|/\irscht           http://www.tnt.uni-hannover.de/~kirscht

---

From: "David G. Mills" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 14:14:22 -0800

At 11:09 AM 2/5/98 +0100, you wrote:

Problem solved!

'Hate to say it, but I still don't know what *caused* the problem exactly...

I modified a script I acquired from one of my colleagues that creates a
generic ~ftp/* directory structure (i.e. creates ~ftp/bin, ~ftp/usr,
~ftp/dev, etc., etc.), and copies necessary files over from the system's
/usr/lib/.... files, the system's /etc/passwd and /etc/group, etc., into
the ~ftp area.

It took me a little while to track down all the necessary files associated
with Solaris' dynamic "ls" command, but when I zapped all the old
structures and re-ran the setup script, the
"dir-that-hangs-the-client-output" problem went away.

Hooray!	:-)

Thanks to Michael Brennan, Jim Davis, Martin Kirscht for their kind replies
and suggestions.

david

PS Why isn't there a similar make-a-generic-~ftp-environment script bundled
with the source files? (... or didn't I just read the install files
carefully enough???)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David G. Mills / System Administrator

         IPAC Systems Group
       Caltech, Pasadena, CA

       [email-masked]
            626-397-7241