[Info-vax] TCPIP FTP server v. symbolic links

[Steven Schweda]

   Fool that I am, I recently found myself considering adding
support to wget for symbolic links in VMS TCPIP FTP listings.
This may be harder to do than I thought, because the FTP
server itself (as of "HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Industry
Standard 64 Version V5.7 - ECO 1 | on an HP rx2600
(1.50GHz/6.0MB) running OpenVMS V8.4", at least) seems not to
show symlinks as symlinks.  For example, for an actual
directory like this:

REX $ dire /date /owne /prot /size
aftp_root:[MOZ_TEST.symlink]

Directory AFTP_ROOT:[MOZ_TEST.symlink]

MiXeD_CaSe.tXt;1           1   2-NOV-2009 09:38:46.00
[SYSTEM]                         (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)
SLTNF.;1 -> NoFile         1   3-JUL-2011 16:28:54.25
[SYSTEM]                         (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)
Symlink^_to^_MiXeD_CaSe.tXt;1 -> MiXeD_CaSe.tXt
                           1   3-JUL-2011 16:29:06.17
[SYSTEM]                         (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)

Total of 3 files, 3 blocks.


the FTP server says:

FTP> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening data connection for
SYS$SYSDEVICE:[ANONYMOUS.MOZ_TEST.symlink]*.*;*
(10.0.0.48,49176)

Directory SYS$SYSDEVICE:[ANONYMOUS.MOZ_TEST.symlink]

MiXeD_CaSe.tXt;1         1/16          2-NOV-2009 09:38:46
[SYSTEM]               (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)
SLTNF.;1        no such file
Symlink^_to^_MiXeD_CaSe.tXt;1
                         1/16          2-NOV-2009 09:38:46
[SYSTEM]               (RWED,RWED,RE,RE)

Total of 3 files, 2/32 blocks

226 LIST Directory transfer complete.
349 bytes received in 00:00:00.00 seconds (170.41 Kbytes/s)

Apparently, the FTP server has no idea what a symlink is, so
it can't display the symlinks as symlinks, and a fictional
symlink target is treated as an error.

   My access to patches is not what it once was, so I'd be
interested if anyone with access to the latest TCPIP ECO can
do any better than this.  Or if anyone else actually cares.