SUMMARY: Disabling Anonymous FTP With Message

From: George Pallas (pallas@oclc.org)
Date: Wed Mar 24 1993 - 16:56:48 CST


Tuesday I asked for ideas on how to notify anonymous ftp users when they
log on that our ftp site has moved to a new machine. I got a variety of
responses:

1. Use the wuarchive ftpd instead of the one Sun supplies. I was looking
   for somtheing simpler, but this is the approach I finally took simply
   because it was the only one that worked the way I needed it to. I had
   intended to put up this ftpd on the new site anyway; I just did it
   sooner than I had planned. BTW, ftp.uu.net has the wuarchive ftp
   daemon plus some patches of their own (/networking/archival/ftp).

2. CNAME the old ftp host name to point to the new server. This would be
   a viable solution if the old ftp host weren't still on the network but
   it is.

   A couple of people also suggested fixing the mistake of my predecesors
   by using a generic name for the ftp host. I had already made a CNAME
   for ftp.rsch.oclc.org that points to the new ftp host.

3. Change the inetd.conf entry to cat a message file instead of invoking
   ftpd. Aside from the side effect of preventing ANY ftp, anonymous or
   not, the ftp client only displayed the first line of a multi-line message
   file.

4. Change the shell for the 'ftp' user in /etc/passwd. I tried this before
   I posted the question. Ftpd cheerfully ignores the shell in /etc/passwd.

5. Have a README file (or a file named USE_OTHER_SITE or similar) be the
   only file visible to anonymous ftp users. Simple, yes, but probably
   not obvious enough.

Thanks to the following people who responded:

mgh@bihobl2.bih.harvard.edu (Michael G. Harrington)
tim@canon.co.uk (Tim F O'Donoghue)
wls@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Bill Stapleton)
aahvdl@eye.psych.umn.edu (Andrew Luebker)
ken@nynexst.com (Ken Nawyn)
mrp@itd.adelaide.edu.au (Mark Prior)
jjb@cs.wayne.edu (Jon J. Brewster)
plord@pioneer.uspto.gov (Paul Lord)
jdavis@cs.arizona.edu (Jim Davis) [I got a kick out of you quoting
                                         Clarissa Darling in your .Sig]

============================== Original Message ==============================

Past sins do come back to haunt you. When we first set up an anonymous FTP
site several years ago, users FTP'ed to a specific host name. Now that host
(an old Sun-3 server) is about to retire and the FTP site has a new home.
It is easy enough to completely disable anonymous ftp on the old machine. What
I'd like to do is give users a message referring them to the new FTP site
before it kicks them off. Can I do this and, if so, how?

The old machine is a Sun 3/280 running SunOS 4.1.1_U1. We are using the
standard ftpd daemon from Sun.

================================================================================

--
George Pallas                              Voice:   614-764-6301
Manager, Systems Management Section        FAX:     614-761-5047
OCLC, Inc.                                 Email:   pallas@oclc.org
6565 Frantz Road                           "This time for SURE!"
Dublin, OH   43017                         -- Bullwinkle J. Moose
--
George Pallas                              Voice:   614-764-6301
Manager, Systems Management Section        FAX:     614-761-5047
OCLC, Inc.                                 Email:   pallas@oclc.org
6565 Frantz Road                           "This time for SURE!"
Dublin, OH   43017                         -- Bullwinkle J. Moose



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