Subject: FTP anonymous account structure

From: Magdalena Hewryk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 13:31:18 -0400

RE:  FTP anonymous account structure

I created home for ~ftp anonymous user with all required directories and it
works fine.  No problems, what so ever.

However, when I deleted ALL libraries from ~ftp/usr/lib and I deleted all
files from ~ftp/dev/ and I remove the /usr directory  the anonymous account
is still working.... I can get any file I want with no errors and ~ftp is
seen as a '/'.

Can somebody give me the short explanation why is that happening ?   Why all
the /usr/lib are needed in ~ftp directory?

Basically I screwed the whole ~ftp directory and anonymous is working  the
way it worked before.

Regards,
...Magda

Magdalena Hewryk
FundSERV Inc.
416 362-2400 ext. 237

---

From: Gregory A Lundberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 14:14:02 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 6 May 1999, Magdalena Hewryk wrote:

> I created home for ~ftp anonymous user with all required directories
> and it works fine.  No problems, what so ever.
> 
> However, when I deleted ALL libraries from ~ftp/usr/lib and I deleted
> all files from ~ftp/dev/ and I remove the /usr directory the anonymous
> account is still working.... I can get any file I want with no errors
> and ~ftp is seen as a '/'.
> 
> Can somebody give me the short explanation why is that happening ?  
> Why all the /usr/lib are needed in ~ftp directory?
> 
> Basically I screwed the whole ~ftp directory and anonymous is working
> the way it worked before.

The daemon itself does not care about that stuff.  this includes the
built-in NLST command.

**BUT** to list the directory contents (LIST command) the daemon needs to
run the external program ~ftp/bin/ls.  Now, on a lot of systems, you need
a lot of other stuff besides just the program file to make it all work.
At a minimum, though, you need bin/ls etc/passwd etc/group and dev/null.

-- 

Gregory A Lundberg              Senior Partner, VRnet Company
1441 Elmdale Drive              [email-masked]
Kettering, OH 45409-1615 USA    1-800-809-2195