[Info-vax] FTP sesion against a vms server fails

[John Wallace]

On Aug 6, 5:16 am, moro... at world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney)
wrote:
> I have also noticed some FTP funniness with VMS (V8.3 Alpha).  On my LAN
> (all systems 100BT), FTP from one PC running XP works, but is very slow.  
> From another PC running XP, it runs at normal speed.  In each case the FTP
> client is the basic simple Windows client (DOS window->ftp).  Since I
> rarely FTP from the "slow" system, I haven't investigated further.

Based on experience (rather than evidence), stuff like that is often
down to physical layer issues - autonegotiate mismatch, duplex
mismatch, speed mismatch, etc. Either genuine hardware issues or maybe
just driver misbehaviour. Either way, a $10 network card might help
quickly identify where the problem lies.

Back to the OP though.

Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) is a wonderful tool for knowing what's
been happening in IP packet terms on a PC. If I recall correctly some
VMS IP stacks have their own packet-trace facilities too.

A log of the packet exchange between PC and VMS system would allow
folks to be making evidence-based suggestions rather than the educated
guesses we're getting so far.

Also, a less ambiguous problem description might be helpful. I *think*
the ftp failure problem summary is:
pc1 -> vms1 : ftp fails
pc1 -> vms2 : ftp fails (identically?)
vms1 -> vms2 : ftp OK

To date, the definition of "fails" unfortunately does not include the
exact commands issued and the exact results they generated, or any VMS
OPCOM output which might potentially be relevant.

Best suggestion I've seen so far is VAXman's request to use telnet to
manually drive ftp and note the exact results, though later on, the
same logic VAXman uses to deduce that the problem must be in MS
territory ("VMS ftp always works for me so the problem must be
Windows") is the same logic most folks would normally use to point the
finger at VMS in this picture ("Windows ftp always works for me so the
problem must be VMS").