Subject: Ftp-WG: still much call for `proxy ftp' support

From: Luke Mewburn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 19:46:59 -0500

hi people.

i was curious to know if people think there's any real need to
continue to support the `three way proxy ftp' stuff that traditional
BSD ftp clients provide with the `proxy' command?

as the maintainer of NetBSD's ftp client (www.netbsd.org), which i've
ported to other operating systems under autoconf and released as
`lukemftp':
	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/lukemftp/lukemftp-1.4.tar.gz
i'm considering simplifying a chunk of the code by ripping out support
for what i consider to be fairly useless functionality, but i'm
curious to know what other ftp server & client implementers feel.

luke.

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From: Alun Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 20:18:34 -0500

>curious to know what other ftp server & client implementers feel.

I've noticed a few occurrences of people describing this as "FXP" and 
passing it off as a novel or amazing new feature in their FTP 
servers.  Apparently, there are some people that like and use such a feature.

You might do a Deja search on "FXP" and see what you come up with.

Alun.
~~~~

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From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 00:08:28 -0500

Date:        Mon, 17 Jul 2000 19:46:59 -0500
    From:        Luke Mewburn <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | i was curious to know if people think there's any real need to
  | continue to support the `three way proxy ftp' stuff that traditional
  | BSD ftp clients provide with the `proxy' command?

In a text based client these days, perhaps not, as it is generally
easy enough to just connect to either the source or destination
system and run the ftp transfer from there.

But with GUI clients (which I know yours isn't), you generally want the
GUI somewhere near the user, for performance - but you still want the
ability to transfer files bewteen two other servers (without needing
to copy them via the place where the user is).   So in general, the
facility ought remain - but in text mode only clients, losing it probably
is not as big a mistake as losing it from GUI clients.

kre

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From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 00:40:21 -0500

Anonymous FXP is indeed rather well known in the copyright-violating
community as a method to transfer unauthorized ``warez'' directories
from one misconfigured FTP site to another.

Normal users, on the other hand, have never heard of it, don't mind the
fact that serious servers now prohibit it, and don't use it as a reason
to choose a client.

---Dan

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From: Gregory A Lundberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 04:22:18 -0500

> fact that serious servers now prohibit it, and don't use it as a reason

In the past 18 months, since putting restrictions in WU-FTPD on the PASV
side (to fight PASV port theft) to match those on the PORT side (to prevent
FTP-bounce) I've received, perhaps, two dozen questions on how to re-
enable server-to-server transfers.

Given that there's been questions on it as recently as yesterday, I'd say
that those sites which need it know it's there and how to use it.

Server admins on serious servers want a way to support server-to-server
transfers.  They would like it to be as secure as possible (ie., only
allowing certain hosts to handle the control port and only for transfers
between certain servers).  If it were completely removed there'd be a
bit of holler'ng.  WU-FTPD, at least, would ignore the removal and continue
to support the feature.

-- 

Gregory A Lundberg              WU-FTPD Development Group
1441 Elmdale Drive              [email-masked]
Kettering, OH 45409-1615 USA    1-800-809-2195

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From: "Teodor Angeloff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:30:42 -0500

> curious to know what other ftp server & client implementers feel.

i think this feature is very useful and must exist in the file transfer 
protocol. my FTP client http://www.geocities.com/filesteward supports it but 
it is undocumented because i found that most of running FTP servers have 
disabled it.

----------------------------------------
Teodor Angeloff