Subject: Ftp-WG: HOST command and client upgrades

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 12:18:08 -0400

I have to agree, at least partially, with Dan here.

Both EPLF and HOST are totally dependant on client take-up, before it
becomes worthwhile for servers to take advantage of.

Of course, for EPLF, the problem is more severe - most clients have the
required QUOTE capability, servers can implement HOST - but not rely on it.

Note that your own argument is actually slightly short-sighted, I think -
the implementors can take advantage of HOST immediately, just as the
implementors of webservers took advantage of Host: immediately; it's the
site administrators (and the likes of RIPE, who tend to enforce this) that
can choose when to rely on it.

However, I certainly think that there are problems - possibly ones for which
there is no better solution than HOST, but ones for which we need further
discussion.

-----Original Message-----
From: Alun Jones [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Monday, October 25, 1999 4:28 PM
To: FTPEXT Working Group
Subject: Ftp-WG: HOST command and client upgrades

At 10:26 AM 10/25/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Jones says he'll get hundreds of complaints if his listings don't work
>with non-EPLF clients. Well, he'll lose _all_ his users if his files
>can't be retrieved by non-HOST clients. But this is a specious argument
>against EPLF, and it's a specious argument against HOST.

The big difference which you are apparently missing is that a server can
tell when the majority of its clients send the HOST command, yet it is
impossible to tell when clients are able to parse EPLF.  Hence a server
implementor/author has adequate information on when to make the switch to
denying any non-HOST clients, but zero information on when to provide EPLF
as the only listing format.

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