Re: Hamm frozen, Slink created

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Wichert Akkerman wrote:

> Previously Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > > With FTP servers the server should follow the symlink, unless it chooses
> > > not to for some reasons (security probably).
> > 
> > Like that the client specifically asks for the link file? When I download
> > the msdos directory using MC, unless I specifically request that MC
> > "follow symlinks", I get just what I want, the symlinks, and not the
> > actual files (I already have them).
> 
> An FTP server knows nothing about symlinks. The client can parse the
> output of "ls" and check for symlinks itself.
> 
> > When a DOS FTP client asks for the file, it asks for the symlink, gets it,
> > and can't do anything with it. The result is a zero length file on the DOS
> > machine.
> 
> If I use doe Novell FTP client (also running DOS, with the Novell network
> stack) I do get the file, not the symlink.

I didn't say that ALL dos ftp clients were broken! The Novel FTP client is
one of the ones that works. Try the trumpet-winsock FTP client and your
results will not be the same.

This isn't a matter of "it can't be done on DOS", but only a matter of
"several clients used in DOS are broken".

While we can advertise the broken software, the new user will probably not
find this information until after he/she has failed to adequately download
an archive.

Also, this is a very small nit. There are other, more pressing
constraints, that keep hard links from being a solution to this problem.
While mkisofs knows how to copy the hard links correctly, "cp -a" does
not, and the result is two copies of the hard linked file. (or as many
copies as there are hard links)

So, we are quite effectively, pulverizing an expired equine.

Luck,

Dwarf
--
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