Re: lynx-dev An ftp browsing bug

[Mike Castle]

On Fri, Jun 25, 1999 at 02:33:49PM -0400, Philip Webb wrote:
> 990625 Roozbeh Poornadah wrote:
> > Try to point it to  ftp://ftp.mcafee.com  and then browse further.
> > It cannot find the right boundaries of directory name
> > and tries to browse into things like:
> > ftp://ftp.mcafee.com/7PM%20%20%20%20....
> 
> there's a misformed HREF:
> 
> <A
> HREF="/foo/../7PM%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3CDIR%3E%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20pu
> +b"
> >7PM       <DIR>          pub</A>


But it's an ftp url, meaning that it's generated internally by lynx.

McAfee, like PGP, are part of the nai group (www.nai.com).  I had similar
problems in the past trying to browse pgp stuff I think (it may have been
someone else).  I then got distracted and never made it back to work on
either a bug report or to try to fix it.

NAI uses an NT based ftp server.  While it appears to be giving unix sytle
directory listings NOW, it appears the not long ago, it was still giving 
DOS (or more likely the slightly different unknown) style listings.  I
suspect that it gives back a strange listing that just can't be parsed.

Aha!  I remember the site now:  ftp://ftp.turbopower.com.   A command line
ftp session looks like:

address@hidden:14pm]~(540) !ft
ftp ftp.turbopower.com
Connected to www.turbopower.com.
220 inetweb1 Microsoft FTP Service (Version 4.0).
331 Anonymous access allowed, send identity (e-mail name) as password.
230 Anonymous user logged in.
Remote system type is Windows_NT.
ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
05-20-99  03:38PM       <DIR>          pub
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> 


We probably have a couple of options here.

The HTFTP.c from the latest libwww probably has more support then the one
currently shipped with lynx (WAG).  We could try to work up to just that
file.

Another option is, the mirror package:

package=mirror
        comment=The Mirror Package
        site=sunsite.org.uk
        remote_dir=/packages/mirror
        local_dir+mirror


does properly handle this site.  We couple appropriate the algorithms
already done in perl and migrate them to C  (alternatively, someone could
embed perl into lynx and then just call out to mirror  ;->)

Btw, wget doesn't handle this directory listing style either (actually, it
doesn't go outside the realm of unix style listings).

If no one pipes up with a solution in the next few hours, I may give it a
shot this evening.

mrc
-- 
       Mike Castle       Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly
  address@hidden  and be right all the time, or not work at all
www.netcom.com/~dalgoda/ and be right at least twice a day.  -- mrc
    We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.  -- Watchmen