V5R4 ftp anomaly

[rob@xxxxxxxxx]

This is a reply from one vendor regarding a V5R4 ftp issue:

It would appear that IBM has changed something with FTP transfers in V5R4. 


FTP does not give us errors so we have to read the FTP log and interpret 
it. 

We are coded to look for: 

"250 File transfer completed successfully." 

but V5R4 is issuing 
"226 File transfer completed successfully." 

This may be considered a bug in V5R4 as the FTP standard defines what 
these
status codes ought to be...... or IBM may have just decided to change 
to use a different code for successful completion. 

I am going to enter a fix for <(our package)> so that we look for both of 
these codes when 
reporting on a successful completion. 

************
Rob's notes:
What I think happened in V5R4 FTP server is that they changed from 250 to 
226 to match what most unix servers show.
************

************
IBM's reply:
In the next V5R4 MTU update, there should be a section added to chapter 4
(Licensed programs) for product 5722-TC1 (TCP/IP Connectivity Utilities 
for
i5/OS) and the following entry added to that section:

FTP reply code changed
For V5R4, the FTP server was changed to return a
reply code of 226 instead of 250, when a successful data transfer
has been completed.  This made the FTP server compliant with RFC 959
which states that if the data transfer connection is closed after a
successful data transfer, the reply code should be 226.  Customers
or business partners who have FTP scripts that are expecting the 250
reply code should change their scripts to expect back a 226 reply
code for a successful data transfer.
************


Rob Berendt