Subject: Virtual FTP and Solaris 2.5

From: Mark Flatford <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 14:43:12 -0400

All,

I have an issue that I would like to find out about.

I was under the impression from the docs on wu-ftp 2.4 that with a
patch(which I have installed) you could set up Virtual FTP servers. I tried
and spent long hours trying to get that to work.

I recompiled a dozen or more times, I read the archives for the list and
tracked down the problem with DIR and LS. Then when I thought I had
everthing in order...I applied the patch for virtual servers, and added the
appropriate lines to the ftpaccess file. The server seemed to work until I
tried to LS and DIR. I got the message "425: can't connect (0,0,0,0, 20) "
or something to that effect.

So I thought I still had a problem with DIR and LS...I worked some more.
Still nothing.

After many hours I tried a desperate move... I mirrored the directory
structure of my real server, in the virtual servers directory....EVERYTHING
WORKED! Not what I was expecting. 

One would sumise that a virtual server would be able to share all the
libraries and other needed files with symbolic links...NOT SO. This means
that in order to have a virtual server I have to use 8 megabytes of storage
space just to create the virtual ftp.

Is this normal?? If so, why isn't it documented? If not, how do I get around
this issue.

I am running a Sparc 10 single processor with 128 meg of ram, 4 gigs of disk
space, Solaris 2.5, and wu-ftpd 2.4 beta 9.

Can anyone shed any light?

Mark flatford
Mark A. Flatford
[email-masked]
flatford @usit.net
US Internet

---

From: Mike Batchelor <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 19:37:09 -0400 (EDT)

> space just to create the virtual ftp.

Yeah, ain't it a bitch?  That's why ls wasn't working - no shared libs. 
Symlinks are meaningless when they point outside the chroot environment.

> Is this normal?? If so, why isn't it documented? If not, how do I get around

You don't.  That's how it works.  It's not really a "virtual" ftp server in
the same way the WWW servers work.  It just picks up its new chroot dir
based on the IP used to connect to it.  After that, it's exactly like a
single ftp server - chroot and dev/ and lib/ all are there, just as with a
single server.  They all have to have their own chroot environment.

> Can anyone shed any light?

Nope, you picked up on the "catch 22" just fine.  TANSTAAFL.

---
  + + +      %%%%% Mike Batchelor % [email-masked] %%%%% A Division
 Capitol.Net %%%%%%%%%%% 301-306-9090 % V.34/ISDN %%%%%%%%%%%    of
     + + +   %% Serving Washington DC, No.VA, and Maryland %%   Criticom, Inc.