RE: Ping via FTP?

Thanks Vern, Bryan, John, Scott, Rick, and Rob...

I ended up writing a CL with overrides to FTP's INPUT and OUTPUT, and
parsing the output file. I'm simply looking for a "220 " (connect, Welcome
to blah server), or the standard "No response..." error message. It's a bit
brute force, but seems to work well.

I considered Scott's FTPAPI, but it always wants a userid and password. I
don't need/want to log into the server, merely see that it's running. FTPAPI
appears to send a fail code if 1) the host doesn't respond or 2) the user is
not logged on. I care about 1) but not 2). I could not distinguish between
the two failures.
I also considered Bryan's portscan, but I wanted more explicit confirmation
of the server's status.

Thanks everyone, it's working just fine.

Loyd


-----Original Message-----
From: Loyd Goodbar [mailto:loyd@blackrobes.net] 
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 6:14 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Ping via FTP?


I need to check that some external FTP servers are running. (FWIW, various
EDI FTP servers over an ANX connection). However, the routers and firewalls
block ping requests.