Re: ftp quote command not working

Hi Bruce,

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to use the term "client" to refer to
a "client program."  and "server" to refer to a "server program."   When I
say "client" I'm not referring to your customer, just refering to the
program's role in the FTP conversation.

> This tells me that the client ftp server *does* allow the quote command to
> execute.

Sigh... this makes no sense.  "quote" isn't a command that's sent to the
server.   It's something that you type into the client.  Err.. not sure if
my meaning is clear, so I'll elaborate:

For example, when you type "dir" into your FTP client, the word "dir" is
not sent to the server.   Instead, the client (under the covers) sends
the "LIST" command to the server.

When you type "PUT" the FTP client sends (again, under the covers) STOR to
the server.

What I'm trying to explain, I guess, is that the data that you type into
the client is not normally sent as-is to the server, the client inteprets
it, and behind the covers sends the appropriate FTP protocol command to
the server.

But, QUOTE is a special case.  When you type QUOTE it sends any arguments
after the word QUOTE to the server verbatim.  It therefore allows you to type
commands directly to the server without the client needing to understand
them.

For example, when you do:

    QUOTE SITE NAMEFMT 1

the client will send:

    SITE NAMEFMT 1

to the server, as-is.  The client doesn't understand the data that it's
sending with QUOTE.  This allows the server to offer special features that
aren't explcitly described in the FTP protocol without the need to write
special client programs.

(I hope that makes sense now)

> Not sure if the server does anything diff when ftp'ing to itself.
> I assume that it still behaved as client and server so the rcmd would
> execute exactly like if it was from a real remote host.  Maybe that's my bad
> swag.

My guess is that your customer is behind a firewall.  That firewall has
it's own FTP server, and to improve security, it redirects all FTP
requests to it.  (It could also be an FTP proxy, but it amounts to the
same thing.)

The "quote RCMD" isn't understood by the firewalls FTP server.  Why?
Because RCMD is not a part of the standard FTP protocol, it's an
iSeries-only extension.  (Which is why you need QUOTE in order to execute
it)

The other possibility, of course, is that you're not talking to an iSeries
FTP server.  When your connected, try typing:

    quote syst

This tells the FTP server to respond with the type of system that it's
running on.  For example, if I connect to my FreeBSD FTP server I get:

ftp> quote syst
215 UNIX Type: L8 Version: BSD-199506

If I connect to my iSeries FTP server, I get:

ftp> quote syst
215  OS/400 is the remote operating system. The TCP/IP version is "V5R2M0".

If my suspicions are true, you'll get something different...

hope that helps...