14 Jan
2015
14 Jan
'15
2:30 p.m.
On 2015-01-14 23:21, Mouse wrote:
Nah. The problem is simpler than that. It all relates to
the fact
that files under RSX are very different than under Unix. File in RSX
are organized in different ways. And virtual tapes are of variable
sized records. So, how would I communicate that across FTP? And the
actual length of those records?
FTP has a lot of capabilities many people are totally unaware of; see
RFC 959. (Admittedly, depressingly many people are unaware FTP even
_exists_....) For what you sketch, I'd suggest record structure
(STRU R) and block mode (MODE B).
Oh how I wish. Have you tried giving those command in an ftp client
under Unix? :-)
Essentially, for transfer to/from Unix systems, you are stuck with STRU
F, MODE S
Since the struct and mode abilities in the FTP protocol will not easily
cover enough anyway, I decided to do a similar trick I noticed VMS is doing.
So I support a "STRU O RSX" command, will will enable the extra bells
and whistles needed to transfer files properly between RSX systems.
No, you are right. And that is what I do when talking between a properly
able FTP server and FTP client.
Since that essentially boils down to an RSX system talking to an RSX
system, I did it with an extension that makes it easy for me. The effect
when talking to other systems are the same. Using the existing stuff in
RFC 959 would only mean I would have problems transferring between RSX
systems, and still not able to transfer to anything else anyway.
So it's nothing really arcane. It's just that I will not be able to
transfer something like a binary native RSX file to a non-RSX system.
But that was almost expected anyway.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
If you happen
to have an RSX system which you are conneting from,
you can also try getting the BQTCP.TAP tape image. Such an image
will not transport cleanly to a non-RSX system, however.
I'm curious: why
wouldn't it? [...] Essentially
any binary file under RSX cannot be transferred over FTP,
[...]
Sounds to me as though the truth is more like, cannot be transferred to
or from typical "everything is a bag of bytes" Unix-mindset FTP
implementations. Unless there's something particularly arcane you
haven't hinted at, I don't see anything that would prevent transferring
them over standard FTP, given a server and client that actually
understand that FTP is more than a bag-of-bytes transfer tool.