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Vendor silliness – but I still need to fix it – FTP question

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  • June 30, 2010 at 8:59 pm #51847
    Tom Patton
    Participant

      I have a fileset -ftp connection that is receiving timeout errors during a directory list.  This happens maybe twice per day (polling every 5 mins), but the thread stays in an error state until we receive a file (only 10 per day) – so the error stays there and is bothersome to operations.

      For my testing, it appears their server is busy, but the vendor disagrees and is telling me that it’s because we are sending the IPV6 EPASV command which they do not support.  I know it’s a smokescreen, but I wonder what you all have done to correct something like this.

      Some options might be:

      – Increase the timeout (from their side, it doesn’t look like they are receiving the DIR command, so this may not solve it)

      – send the –disable-epsv command to stop the EPASV send – I know, but it changes the discussion

      – put in a script or pdl to capture the error and not display it on the monitor

      or ????

      Clover version 5.6

      Thanks for any feedback.

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      • July 1, 2010 at 3:58 pm #71965
        Russ Ross
        Participant

          A quick thought that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem but might get rid of annoying error status.

          If the error goes away when there is a file then put a dummy file in the directory so there is always a file out there and write a dir parse script to ignore the dummy file.

          Seems like I also remeber some other posts about dir commands that people have used instead of the default in the IDE to help with issues when the directory is empty but I don’t exactly remember what they suggested.

          Since we do all our FTP movement via standalone scripts I haven’t really used the FTP protocol in Cloverleaf very much but remeber various posts along these lines.

          Russ Ross
          RussRoss318@gmail.com

        • July 1, 2010 at 4:06 pm #71966
          Russ Ross
          Participant

            I searched a little and found a post that shows an example of modifying the default dir list command to help when there are no files in the directory which might be a simple first step to help get rid off annoying error status.

            <a href="https://usspvlclovertch2.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=3461&highlight=nlst&#8221; class=”bbcode_url”>https://usspvlclovertch2.infor.com/viewtopic.php?t=3461&highlight=nlst

            To summarize they used

            nlst -a

            Russ Ross
            RussRoss318@gmail.com

          • July 1, 2010 at 4:19 pm #71967
            Jim Kosloskey
            Participant

              Tom,

              I have only experienced this a couple of times so this may not be the same.

              What I observed is what you are suspecting. That is: the system from which you are attempting to FTP from is busy and a time out occurs after the DIR command is sent.

              It is possible that simply stopping and starting that thread will remove the Error status – but that may mask real issues.

              I don’t think PASV has anything to do with it because I think that only is effective at connect time to dynamically set the ports to be used.

              My thought is if they don’t support PASV you probably should not be able to successfully connect ever.

              By the way if what is suspected is the case it would not matter if the FTP were done via command line (script based) FTP or through Cloverleaf in my opinion.

              email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

            • July 9, 2010 at 2:08 pm #71968
              Tom Patton
              Participant

                Amazing –  the nlst -a solved the problem.

                I wish I knew why???

                I’ve done some searches and can’t find the parms for nlst.

                Regardless, the ops staff and I are much happier thanks to Russ and Kieth.

              • July 9, 2010 at 2:50 pm #71969
                Russ Ross
                Participant

                  If I was to guess why nlst -a makes the error go away, I suspect the -a causes the list to include the current directory of . as part of the nlst output which now works since there is some output from nlst instead of NULL or no output.

                  Russ Ross
                  RussRoss318@gmail.com

                • July 9, 2010 at 8:19 pm #71970
                  Chris Williams
                  Participant

                    Russ is correct. nlst returns an error if its returned list would be empty. The -a gives you ALL which includes “.” and “..” so the list is never empty. You just have to adjust for these two items in your directory parse routine.

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