Re: Where is ftp.sco.com/pub/openserver ?

From: James J (SPAMMYjajii1_at_netscape.net)
Date: 04/14/04 

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 03:12:12 +0000 (UTC)

Jean-Pierre Radley <jpr@jpr.com> expounded in
news:20040413223750.GB9653@jpradley.jpr.com:

> James J typed (on Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 10:17:06PM +0000):
>| Jean-Pierre Radley <jpr@jpr.com> expounded in
>| news:20040413211322.GR21316@jpradley.jpr.com:
>|
>| > James J typed (on Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 08:49:57PM +0000):
>| >| Jean-Pierre Radley <jpr@jpr.com> expounded in
>| >| news:20040413191305.GO21316@jpradley.jpr.com:
>| >|
>| >| > Bob Bailin typed (on Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 03:39:59PM +0000):
>| >| >| ftp.sco.com is still there, but there's very little left
>| >| >| in the pub directory other than skunkware &
>| >| >| unixware. Where's all the openserver stuff now?
>| >| >
>| >| > It's back...
>| >|
>| >| ftp.sco.com is there, but it seems to be virtually empty. I'm
>| >| using
>| >| Netscape 7.02 and all I see on ftp.sco.com is:
>| >|
>| >| Legal_Notice 1 KB 8/8/03 12:00:00 AM
>| >| bin/ 3/14/00 12:00:00 AM
>| >| etc/ 3/14/00 12:00:00 AM
>| >| lib/ 11/19/99 12:00:00 AM
>| >| pub/ 1/19/04 5:30:00 PM
>| >| welcome.msg 1 KB 9/19/03 12:00:00 AM
>| >|
>| >| bin contains gzip, ls, tar and a directory (?) named zcat.
>| >| etc contains group and passwd.
>| >| lib is empty.
>| >| And when I try to access pub, if NS says anything, it's "the
>| >| document
>| >| contains no data".
>| >|
>| >| Are you seeing more than that?
>| >
>| > Considerably more, absol;utely.
>| >
>| > Don't use a browser for such searches, because you might end up
>| > looking at what you last cached. Did you force a refresh, or try
>| > ncftp or ftp?
>|
>| This is really odd. Yes, I have told NS to "refresh" several times
>| and it
>| says that it's connecting to ftp.sco.com and all seems to go well,
>| but I keep getting the same list. I exited NS and restarted. Same
>| list. Then I started IE 5 and tried it and I get exactly the same
>| list of files. IE 5 is obviously not using the NS cache and I don't
>| know that I've ever gone to ftp.sco.com with IE before, certainly not
>| any time recently, so it's a pretty safe bet that IE is not reading
>| that abbreviated list from its cache. Trying to open pub in IE gives
>| me the standard IE "page cannot be displayed" error page.
>| I don't know if this is relevant, but when I try to go to
>| ftp.sco.com in
>| IE, IE gives me a message about wanting to install some kind of
>| "browsing enhancements". I've seen this before. The problem is, if
>| I click on OK it just fails and says to use "Windows Update" to
>| install that component. But I've used "WU" before and I've never
>| seen that there. Maybe it's buried in something else that I haven't
>| installed. IAC, since the install doesn't work, I click on Cancel
>| and IE displays ftp.sco.com and I see exactly the same list that I
>| see in NS. I'm wondering if maybe ftp.sco.com is doing something
>| that IE 5 and NS 7.02 (at least, my copy) don't understand. Maybe
>| that's what the "browsing enhancements" box in IE is referring to?
>|
>| I tried opening ftp.sco.com in the DOS/Win FTP program (I'm writing
>| this
>| under Windows and that was the first alternative I thought of) and at
>| first I couldn't get a directory listing. I could connect and login,
>| but when I tried dir or ls I would get "425 Unable to build data
>| connection: Invalid argument". But I just tried it again and it's
>| working now. The root directory is exactly the same, but FTP.EXE
>| does show me stuff in pub (ie. "dir pub" gives me a long list). NS
>| and IE still won't show me what's in pub. They don't say it's empty.
>| They can't seem to open it at all. But they have no problem opening
>| the other directories (although lib appears to be empty).
>|
>| I'm stumped.
>
> Could you play at being Nancy Reagan, and "just say no" to Windoze?
>
> If you need stuff from ftp.sco.com it ain't for Windoze, it's for your
> SCO machine. So just quit Windoze, and from your SCO box, use ftp (if
> you must) or preferably, ncftp.

 Well, I'm running Windows probably 99% of the time or better, so it's
usually more convenient to do it from there. OTOH, it's not something I do
very often. The last time I got something from SCO via ftp may have been
several months ago and I'm not looking for anything now. The only reason I
was looking at ftp.sco.com today was because I had read here that there
were problems, and then that it was back up, and I was looking for myself.
When I ran into the problem with pub, I reported it here.

 FWIW, here are a few more bits of info.

 I meant to mention, but forgot, that I have absolutely no problem
navigating ftp://stage.caldera.com with NS 7.02. I just can't get into
ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub . NS either comes back fairly quickly with "the
document contains no data" or seems to just keep waiting for ftp.sco.com to
respond.

 I have, in the past, navigated ftp.sco.com on a number of occasions with
NS 7.02 with no problem. It used to work, but for some reason, it's not
working now.

 Boyd's suggestion of the ISP caching the site was interesting, but I tried
connecting through another ISP and got the same results.

 Netscape 4.79 (still under Windows) has the same problem. It listed the
same things in the root directory of ftp.sco.com and had no problem listing
the contents of other directories like bin, but when I tried to open pub it
eventually timed out with the following message:

> FTP Error
>
> Could not login to FTP server
>
> File: /pub/README
>
> ftp.caldera.com Ready.
> Login Timeout (300 seconds): closing control connection.

 I booted OSR 5 and tried Netscape 4.05 (like I said, I run Windows most of
the time, and almost never go online from OSR 5, so I've never tried to get
a newer OSR 5 browser). Surprisingly, it worked. It listed things in pub
(I'm assuming the list was accurate). That was using the exact same ISP as
I'm using under Windows, so the ISP (their DNS, etc.) doesn't seem to be an
issue.

 I suppose the easy answer is that it's a "Windows problem", but that's not
a very satisfying answer. :-) Like I said, it has worked in the past; I
can access bin, etc and lib with no apparent problems; and I see no problem
on other FTP sites like stage.caldera.com, although I've only tried to
access a tiny portion of the files there, so the same problem could be
lurking there somewhere as well. At this point the problem seems to be too
specific (just that one directory) to be a "Windows problem". <shrug>

 Oh well. It's not the end of the world if I can't reach it using NS or IE
under Windows. It'd be inconvenient at times, but like I said, it's not
something I do too often anyway. I may just have to live with it. Maybe
it will just start working again someday, the same way it just stopped
working.

 Thanks for taking the time to listen to me whine. :-)

 James

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