by Peter Moylan
Author of FtpServer
The new version of FtpServer is now in the alpha-testing stage.
It's not quite ready for release, but it shouldn't be long now. For those of you
who are impatient, the manual is already available, either at
ftp://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au/inf/ftpserver071.inf
or, for reading on-line, on the web page
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au/html/software.html
As a rough summary, here is how the new feature works:
- you (the system manager) can create directory entries that are symbolic links,
i.e. they are pointers to directories or files elsewhere in the file system. To
the client, these simply look as if they're in the current directory. The symbolic
links don't actually alter your file system (as TVFS would do, for example), they're
purely internal to FtpServer, and in fact they're set up separately for each user
account.
- as a special case, you can also set up pseudo-directories. A
pseudo-directory is a directory that doesn't correspond to any directory in
your file system, and it can't contain anything except symbolic links.
- as a side-effect of the above changes, you can also make
the visible/read/write/delete permissions for specified files different from
the default permission for the directory in which that file lives.
As some of you know, I opposed implementing symbolic links for
a long time on the grounds that it would make the server more complex, and I give
a high priority to keeping it compact, fast, and simple.
The thing that has now made it possible is that I found a tradeoff where the increased
complexity was balanced by reduced complexity somewhere else. The tradeoff is that
the "volume" concept is no longer supported. You don't really need it,
because you can do the same thing with links. The Setup and LoadPRM utilities have
been modified so that they'll convert user data from the old to the new format.
The overall complexity is certainly higher in terms of the development work I've
had to do, and this is why this version is taking so long to release. Once it's
working, however, there should be no significant cost in terms of processor overheads,
etc. In fact I think I've managed to reduce the overheads a little by cutting back
on the number of times disk directories have to be consulted.
The complexity of the Setup program is definitely higher, and
you'll find that it looks a little different. I feel that this is acceptable simply
because you don't run Setup very often.
I'll send out another e-mail when the alpha-testing is over and
the new version is ready for release.
CONTACT AUTHOR:
Peter Moylan
peter@ee.newcastle.edu.au
OS/2 help and software at
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au/html/os2home.html
@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
Java Site Accredited
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