Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:25:10 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: fqueries@jraynard.demon.co.uk (James Raynard) Cc: wollman@lcs.mit.edu, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stupid ftpd question Message-ID: <199606062225.PAA02040@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199606061443.OAA00221@jraynard.demon.co.uk> from "James Raynard" at Jun 6, 96 02:43:26 pm
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> > Any recent (since 4.3-Reno) Berkeley FTP client will query the remote > > host for its system type, and set the transfer mode accordingly. FTP > > servers since a similar vintage respond thusly: > > > > 215 UNIX Type: L8 Version: BSD-199506 > > > > The client is actually looking for `UNIX', which is why it doesn't say > > `FreeBSD' there. > > True, but my point was that you can't rely on clients doing this. You can rely on *sucky* clients doing this. The *good* clients will do this for you, even DOS-to-DOS or VMS-to-VMS because they note that the system type is the same, and the default transfer mode is supposed to be such that a text file will be, by default, locally usable. The translation is done at the server because there isn't a file attribute "source system type" that is set on transfers -- so only the server can convert the file into an architecture-neutral wire format. A DOS client *could* decide, based on the extention, wheter the file should be transferred as text or binary, and switch on a file by file basis: after all, this is how Windows devices on icons and invocation methods in the absence of .inf files for the icon being clicked-on/dragged/etc.. Netscape is one example of a "smart client" for DOS boxes. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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