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Network Working Group Mike Padlipsky Request for Comments: 949 Mitre Semisupersedes RFC 505 July 1985

                   FTP UNIQUE-NAMED STORE COMMAND

STATUS OF THIS MEMO

 This RFC proposes an extension to the File Transfer Protocol for the
 ARPA-Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
 improvements.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

DISCUSSION

 There are various contexts in which it would be desirable to have an
 FTP command that had the effect of the present STOR but rather than
 requiring the sender to specify a file name instead caused the
 resultant file to have a unique name relative to the current
 directory.  This would be useful for all sorts of "pool" directories;
 the directories that serve as queues for printer daemons come
 immediately to mind (so do fax and even cardpunch daemons' queues),
 although naturally the sort of printer queue that a local command has
 to manage the interface to isn't what's meant by "pool" in this
 context.

 If we accept the need for such an FTP extension, and that it should
 not be done with an "X" command because it needs to be relied on
 "everywhere," the interesting question then becomes how to mechanize
 it.  Probably the most natural way to do it would be either to add a
 "control argument" of -UNM to the syntax of STOR, now that there are
 enough UNIXtm's around so that this good old Multics trick isn't
 alien any more, or even to declare that STOR with no argument should
 cause a directory-unique name to be generated.  However, either of
 these would necessitate "reopening" the STOR command code, which is a
 distasteful sort of exercise.  Since most FTP's presumably do a
 dispatch sort of thing off a list of command names to begin with,
 then, an additional command would seem to be the way to go.

 Naming the command calls for a bit of thought.  STore Uniquely Named
 (-> STUN) is silly; UNIQue comes to close to free advertising or even
 trademark infringement (and confuses fingers if you're typing); Store
 Uniquely NaMed (-> SUNM) doesn't avoid free advertising either;
 Uniquely Named STore (-> UNST) might look like a synonym for DELEte,
 though it's not all that bad; SToRe Uniquely named (-> STRU) is
 taken; and so it goes.  The best bet seems to be STOU.

 Of somewhat more practical import, there's also the question of
 whether the sender needs to be apprised of what the unique name
 turned out to be.  Intuitively, sometimes this would be the case and
 sometimes it wouldn't.  Making it optional is almost certainly too

Padlipsky [Page 1] 

RFC 949 July 1985 FTP Unique-Named Store Command

 much like work, though--even if it does have the subtle virtue of
 finally getting control arguments into FTP.  Therefore, why not just
 include it in a suitable response-code's free text field (unless, of
 course, an avalanche of comments comes in urging it not be done at
 all)?

 Note, by the way, that the intent here is emphatically not to
 sidestep whatever access control, authentication, and accounting
 mechanisms Hosts might have in play before the user can do an old
 STOR or a new STOU, but with suitable publicized ID's and passwords
 it could be almost as good as the proposal made in RFC 505.

RECOMMENDATION

 Add a new command, STOU, to FTP, which behaves like STOR except that
 the resultant file is to be created in the current directory under a
 name unique to that directory.   The 250 Transfer Started response
 should include the name generated (unless the copy of FTP I have is
 so old that 250 isn't the right number any more).

Padlipsky [Page 2]