FTPD -- solved

Andrew B Philips abp at ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov
Wed Mar 21 08:30:00 AEST 1990


Thanks for all of the help and the timely responses.  There where many
suggestions and the key to the problem was replacing the soft links
with actual copies of the files.  Once this was done, anonymous ftp
worked correctly.  One person hypothesized that the reason the soft
links might not work was because ftp used chroot and that the links
could not cross to directories outside the local (ftp) sub-tree.  This
is most likely the reason.  The one drawback of actual copies of the
files is the extra memory used (three-quarters of a megabyte).

Another person suggested hard-links for these files as a solution, but
warns not to make 'ls' a hard link as if it is somehow replaced, it
could become a "trojan horse" (because it would be used by everyone on
the system).  Good point.

Someone else suggested using /usr/5bin/ls because it does not need
shared libraries.  For some reason, this program seemed to use the
shared libraries when I tried it out, so I couldn't get it to work.

Finally, a good suggestion not related to the original problem: try
copying over the /etc/passwd file and deleting the encrypted passwords
before storing it in the local ~ftp/etc/ directory.  This is very good
idea and, although it may seem like common sense, ought to be put into
the man pages for ftpd.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

:Andy Philips
-- 
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= Andy Philips               = "Life is a fatal, sexually =
= abp at ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov   =  transmitted disease"      =
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