Subject: [TOOLS-DEVELOPMENT] Serious question: Can we turn off FTP?

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 11:18:17 -0600

All -

While Henrik and I are working on normalizing how we expose things over 
http, rsync, and ftp, it occurs to me that this is a good time to 
challenge if we really need to continue providing ftp access to the 
things we're exposing.

We are going to make sure everything that can currently be retrieved via 
ftp is available through both http and rsync.

It would make maintaining the various archives simpler (the ftp daemon 
we're using puts some hard constraints on how we organize things on 
disk. Modern rsync and http daemons are far more flexible.)

Scott - I expect you to be more sensitive to this than most. Would you 
be willing to convert the things you currently have using ftp to use rsync?

RjS

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From: "Scott O. Bradner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:36:22 -0500

I could try - but the ftp url is rather well known so it would not be just me

with the new ‘all-id’ repository I could try rsync - before I am not sure that it would have done what I want (to
get all IDs) 

do we have, or can we get, stats to see how much the ftp access is used?

Scott

> On Feb 10, 2015, at 12:18 PM, Robert Sparks <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> All -
> 
> While Henrik and I are working on normalizing how we expose things over http, rsync, and ftp, it occurs to me that this is a good time to challenge if we really need to continue providing ftp access to the things we're exposing.
> 
> We are going to make sure everything that can currently be retrieved via ftp is available through both http and rsync.
> 
> It would make maintaining the various archives simpler (the ftp daemon we're using puts some hard constraints on how we organize things on disk. Modern rsync and http daemons are far more flexible.)
> 
> Scott - I expect you to be more sensitive to this than most. Would you be willing to convert the things you currently have using ftp to use rsync?
> 
> RjS
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TOOLS-DEVELOPMENT mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-development

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:37:09 -0500

On 2/10/15 12:18 PM, Robert Sparks wrote:
> All -
>
> While Henrik and I are working on normalizing how we expose things 
> over http, rsync, and ftp, it occurs to me that this is a good time to 
> We are going to make sure everything that can currently be retrieved 
> via ftp is available through both http and rsync.
>

An argument against:

For my automated scripts, I tend to use rsync these days. However, when 
I'm looking manually, I still use FTP. HTTP is a virtual layer that may 
or may not map into the actual files, and may or may not (usually not) 
let you get lists of the files that are available. However, FTP gives 
you direct access to the file structure itself.

     Tony

---

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 11:50:22 -0600

On 2/10/15 11:37 AM, Tony Hansen wrote:
>> over http, rsync, and ftp, it occurs to me that this is a good time 
>> to challenge if we really need to continue providing ftp access to 
>> the things we're exposing.
>>
>> It would make maintaining the various archives simpler (the ftp 
>> daemon we're using puts some hard constraints on how we organize 
>> things on disk. Modern rsync and http daemons are far more flexible.)
>>
>> Scott - I expect you to be more sensitive to this than most. Would 
>> you be willing to convert the things you currently have using ftp to 
>> use rsync?
>
> An argument against:
>
> For my automated scripts, I tend to use rsync these days. However, 
> when I'm looking manually, I still use FTP. HTTP is a virtual layer 
> that may or may not map into the actual files, and may or may not 
> (usually not) let you get lists of the files that are available. 
> However, FTP gives you direct access to the file structure itself.
If we made sure http provided this index would it fulfill the need?

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 14:56:08 -0600

> do we have, or can we get, stats to see how much the ftp access is used?
AFAICT, we have logs that go back about a week. In the last week it's 
averaged about 4200 transfers/day, from about 1000 different endpoints.

It looks like the vast majority of the ftp accesses are to the rfc and 
draft archives. There's a lot of bot activity in there (about 5% is 
googlebot), but there's stuff that doesn't look bot-like.

RjS

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 16:15:08 -0500

> If we made sure http provided this index would it fulfill the need?

Possibly. Probably. Why not put up an http link .../files that points at 
the top of what is the current ftp tree and has indexing available? Then 
we could try it.

You might even set up an FTP banner that's displayed when a user 
connects to the FTP server that advertises that alternate http access point.

     Tony Hansen

---

From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:38:16 -0500

[warning: new lurker on list!]

> challenge if we really need to continue providing ftp access to the

What do the logs show in terms of current usage?

BTW I was one of the FTP users until ~1 year ago when I switched my
scripts to rsync...

Lou

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 09:28:25 +0100

> If we made sure http provided this index would it fulfill the need?

Or turn on WebDAV (read-only)?

Best regards, Julian