Re: PTF FTP Download Problem -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi Jerry,

from the looks of things, someone put in a host table entry for ptf.boulder.ibm.com. This is a bad idea -- because IBM is not obliged to always run ptf.boulder.ibm.com on the same IP address. They expect you to look up the IP address via DNS, not hard-code it onto your system.

So your setup probably worked fine, then one day IBM changed out the FTP server. Maybe they upgraded it to a bigger/faster one? Maybe they put it on a different network where they had less traffic, and therefore it could respond faster? Who knows?

The point of DNS is that you don't hard-code IP addresses, and therefore they can make changes without breaking anything.

Anyway, I suggest taking CFGTCP option 10 to find the host table entry, and delete it.

Then, use CFGTCP option 12 (the CHGTCPDMN command) to configure DNS servers, so that you can perform DNS lookups from your '400.

Jerry Adams wrote:

Rob,

First, I did not use a script or a program to try the interactive response. Rather, I did as you illustrate below. It starts off with:
Previous FTP subcommands and messages: Connecting to host PTF.BOULDER.IBM.COM at address 207.25.253.62 using port 21.
Sits there for ages (okay, 3-5 minutes) and returns with:
Cannot connect to host PTF.BOULDER.IBM.COM at address 207.25.253.62. Try again later.
Never prompts me for user id and password.
Second, when I run option 12 of CFGTCP, the following panel(s) are displayed:

Change TCP/IP Domain (CHGTCPDMN) Type choices, press Enter. Host name . . . . . . . . . . . HOSTNAME 'bnwbackup'
Domain name . . . . . . . . . . DMNNAME 'bnw.com' Domain search list . . . . . . . DMNSCHLIST *DFT Host name search priority . . . HOSTSCHPTY *REMOTE Domain name server: INTNETADR Internet address . . . . . . . *NONE More...
Additional Parameters Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PORT 53 Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . PROTOCOL *UDP Initial domain name server . . . INLDMNSVR *FIRST
Domain name server retry: DMNSVRRTY Number of retries . . . . . . 2 Time interval . . . . . . . . 2
This is our backup system. The production system shows the same thing, except that HOSTNAME = BNW400. When I run FTP PTF.BOULDER.IBM.COM from it, I get the message in the FTP feedback panel of: Cannot find host PTF.BOULDER.IBM.COM. Until today I had never tried to connect to an outside site from production. I do, however, FTP save files of our production libraries to the test system every morning at about 0130 using an explicit IP address (10.0.0.4). It worked fine last night.
Ping to PTF.BOULDER.IBM.COM from test times out after five [5] tries; production says "Unknown host...". Just to test our overall connection to the outside world, I ran the ping from a command prompt in windows. Worked fine, except that oddly (to me) it showed an address of 170.225.15.26, not 207.25.253.62 which the System i FTP showed it was trying to connect to. Maybe that's normal; I don't know. I, also, pinged google and ask from Windows; got replies. When I pinged from the test System i, I got the "Unknown host..." message.
I used the FTP from the test System i to download the latest cume (V5R4) when it first came out. Don't recall using it again until yesterday. I fat-fingered my keyboard yesterday so that Copy/Paste didn't work (got it working eventually); it is imminently within the realm of possibility that I did something similar to the System i without realizing it.

Jerry C. Adams
IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
--
B&W Wholesale
office: 615-995-7024
email: jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:54 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: PTF FTP Download Problem

I thought it was his DNS configuration at first too. However did you notice the address 207.25.253.62 in the "connecting to" message? Doubt that DNS is the issue. CFGTCP, option 12 and a page down is where you check your list of DNS's.

Jerry, when they said to try it interactive they meant without the script. Simply type in FTP PTF.BOULDER.IBM.COM
and then when prompted, enter in the anonymous and the password.
If that connects then I really think something is wrong with your script.
My script is this
0001.00 0002.00 open ptf.boulder.ibm.com 0003.00 user "anonymous" ROB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 0004.00 locsite namefmt 1 0005.00 lcd /fixes/cume 0006.00 ascii 0007.00 cd /ccss/lv1/us38775/b8538775/cume/c
0008.00 get ftpCUME.txt 0009.00 get ilstCUME.txt 0010.00 binary 0011.00 mget CUME_*.bin 0012.00 quit Notice the blank line at the beginning?

Rob Berendt