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rfc:rfc686

Network Working Group Brian Harvey Request for Comments: 686 SU-AI NIC 32481 10 May 1975 References: 354, 385, 630, 542, 640.

                     Leaving Well Enough Alone
 I recently decided it was time for an overhaul of our FTP user and
 server programs.  This was my first venture into the world of network
 protocols, and I soon discovered that there was a lot we were doing
 wrong -- and a few things that everyone seemed to be doing
 differently from each other.  When I enquired about this, the
 response from some quarters was "Oh, you're running version 1!"
 Since, as far as I can tell, all but one network host are running
 version 1, and basically transferring files OK, it seems to me that
 the existence on paper of an unused protocol should not stand in the
 way of maintaining the current one unless there is a good reason to
 believe that the new one is either imminent or strongly superior or
 both. (I understand, by the way, that FTP-2 represents a lot of
 thought and effort by several people who are greater network experts
 than I, and that it isn't nice of me to propose junking all that
 work, and I hereby apologize for it.)  Let me list what strike me as
 the main differences in FTP-2 and examine their potential impact on
 the world.
    1. FTP-2 uses TELNET-2.  The main advantage of the new Telnet
    protocol is that it allows flexible negotiation about things like
    echoing.  But the communicators in the case of FTP are computer
    programs, not people, and don't want any echoing anyway.  The
    argument that new hosts might not know about old Telnet seems an
    unlikely one for quite some time to come if TELNET-2 ever does
    really take over the world, FTP-1 could be implemented in it.
    2. FTP-2 straightens out the "print file" mess.  This is more of a
    mess on paper than in practice, I think.  Although the protocol
    document is confusing on the subject, I think it is perfectly
    obvious what to do:  if the user specifies, and the server
    accepts, TYPE P (ASCII print file) or TYPE F (EBCDIC print file),
    then the data sent over the network should contain Fortran control
    characters.  That is, the source file should contain Fortran
    controls, and should be sent over the net as is, and reformatted
    if necessary not by the SERVER as the protocol says but by the
    RECIPIENT (server for STOR, user for RETR).  As a non-Fortran-user
    I may be missing something here but I don't think so; it is just
    like the well-understood TYPE E in which the data is sent in
    EBCDIC and the recipient can format it for local use as desired.

Harvey [Page 1] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

    One never reformats a file from ASCII to EBCDIC at the sending
    end.  Perhaps the confusion happened because the protocol authors
    had in mind using these types to send files directly to a line
    printer at the server end, and indeed maybe that's all it's good
    for and nobody's user program will implement TYPE P RETR.  In any
    event, using a two-dimensional scheme to specify the combinations
    of ASCII/EBCDIC and ASA/normal conveys no more information than
    the present A-P-E-F scheme.  If there is any straightening out of
    FTP-2, it could only be in the handling of these files once the
    negotiation is settled, not in the negotiation process.
    3. FTP-2 approves of the Network Virtual File System concept even
    though it doesn't actually implement it.  It seems to me that the
    NVFS notion is full of pitfalls, the least of which is the problem
    of incompatibilities in filename syntax. (For example, one would
    like to be able to do random access over the network, which
    requires that different systems find a way to accommodate each
    other's rules about record sizes and so on.)  In any case, FTP-2
    doesn't really use NVFS and I mention it here only because RFC 542
    does.
    4. FTP-2 reshuffles reply codes somewhat.  The reply codes in the
    original FTP-2 document, RFC 542, don't address what I see as the
    real reply code problems.  The increased specificity of reply
    codes doesn't seem to be much of a virtue; if, say, a rename
    operation fails, it is the human user, not the FTP user program,
    who needs to know that it was because of a name conflict rather
    than some other file system error.  I am all for putting such
    information in the text part of FTP replies.  Some real problems
    are actually addressed in the reply code revision of RFC 640, in
    which the basic scheme for assigning reply code numbers is more
    rational than either the FTP-1 scheme or the original FTP-2
    scheme.  However, I think that most of the benefits of RFC 640 can
    be obtained in a way which does not require cataclysmic
    reprogramming.  More on this below.
    5. FTP-2 was established by a duly constituted ARPAnet committee
    and we are duty-bound to implement it.  I don't suppose anyone
    would actually put it that baldly, but I've heard things which
    amounted to that.  It's silly.
    6. FTP-2 specifies default sockets for the data connection.  Most
    places use the default sockets already anyway, and it is easy
    enough to ignore the 255 message if you want to.  This is a
    security issue, of course, and I'm afraid that I can't work up
    much excitement about helping the CIA keep track of what anti-war
    demonstrations I attended in 1968 and which Vietnamese hamlets to
    bomb for the greatest strategic effect even if they do pay my

Harvey [Page 2] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

    salary indirectly.  I could rave about this subject for pages, and
    probably will if I ever get around to writing an argument against
    MAIL-2, but for now let me just get one anecdote off my chest: I
    have access to an account at an ARPAnet host because I am
    responsible at my own site for local maintenance of a program
    which was written by, and is maintained by, someone at the other
    site.  However, the other site doesn't really trust us outsiders
    (the account is shared by people in my position at several other
    hosts) to protect their vital system security, so every week they
    run a computer program to generate a new random password for the
    account (last week's was HRHPUK) and notify us all by network
    mail.  Well, on my system and at least one of the others, that
    mail isn't read protected.  I delete my mail when I read it, but
    since it is hard enough remembering HRHPUK without them changing
    it every week, I naturally write it in a file on our system.  That
    file could in principle be read protected but it isn't, since
    sometimes I'm in someone else's office when I want to use it, and
    the other passwords in it are for open guest accounts which are
    widely known.  Moral #1: Security freaks are pretty wierd.  Moral
    #2: If you have a secret don't keep it on the ARPAnet.  (In the
    past week I have heard about two newly discovered holes in Tenex
    security.)
    7. FTP-2 is available online and FTP-1 isn't, so new hosts can't
    find out how to do it.  Aargh!!!  What a reason for doing
    anything!  Surely it would be less costly for someone to type it
    in again than for everyone to reprogram.  Meanwhile these new
    hosts can ask Jon or Geoff or Bobby or even me for help in getting
    FTP up.
    8. FTP-2 has some changes to the strange MODEs and STRUs.  This is
    another thing I can't get too excited about.  We support only MODE
    S and STR F and that will probably still be true even if we are
    forced into FTP-2.  If the relatively few people who do very large
    file transfers need to improve the restart capability, they can do
    so within FTP-1 without impacting the rest of us.  The recent
    implementation of paged file transfers by TENEX shows that
    problems of individual systems can be solved within the FTP-1
    framework.  If the IBM people have some problem about record
    structure in FTP-1, for example, let them solve it in FTP-1, and
    whatever the solution is, nobody who isn't affected has to
    reprogram.
 Well, to sum up, I am pretty happy with the success I've had
 transferring files around the network the way things are.  When I do
 run into trouble it's generally because some particular host hasn't
 implemented some particular feature of FTP-1, and there's no reason
 to suppose they'll do it any faster if they also have to convert to

Harvey [Page 3] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

 FTP-2 at the same time.  The main thing about FTP-2, as I said at the
 beginning, is that its existence is an excuse for not solving
 problems in FTP-1.  Some such problems are quite trivial except for
 the fact that people are reluctant to go against anything in the
 protocol document, as if the latter were the Holy writ.  A few
 actually require some coordinated effort.  Here is my problem list:
    1.  It is almost true that an FTP user program can understand
    reply codes by the following simple algorithm:
       a. Replies starting with 0 or 1 should be typed out and
       otherwise ignored.
       b. Replies starting with 2 indicate success (of this step or of
       the whole operation, depending on the command).
       c. Replies starting with 4 or 5 indicate failure of the
       command.
       d. Replies starting with 3 are only recognized in three cases:
       the initial 300 message, the 330 password request, and the 350
       MAIL response.  (Note that the user program need not
       distinguish which 300 message it got, merely whether or not it
       is expecting one right now.)
    The only real problem with this, aside from bugs in a few servers
    whose maintainers tell me they're working on it, is the HELP
    command, which is not in the original protocol and which returns
    0xx, 1xx, or 2xx depending on the server. (Sometimes more than one
    message is returned.)  The word from one network protocol expert
    at BBN is that (a) 050 or 030 is the correct response to HELP, and
    (b) there is a perfectly good mechanism in the protocol for
    multi-line responses.  Unfortunately this does not do much good in
    dealing with reality.  There seems to be a uniform, albeit
    contra-protocol, procedure for handling the STAT command:
       151 information
       151 information
       151 ...
       151 information
       200 END OF STATUS
    which fits right in with the above algorithm.  This is despite the
    fact that 1xx is supposed to constitute a positive response to a
    command like STAT, so that according to the protocol it ought to
    be

Harvey [Page 4] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

       151-information
       information
       ...
       151 information
    instead.  (It seems to me, by the way, that 050 and 030 aren't
    good enough as response to HELP since they "constitute neither a
    positive nor a negative acknowledgment" of the HELP command and
    thus don't tell the user program when it ought to ask the human
    user what to do next.)  I suggest that despite the protocol, a 200
    response be given by all servers at the end of whatever other HELP
    it gives as of, let's say, June 1.  The alternatives are either to
    let the current rather chaotic situation continue forever while
    waiting for FTP-2, or to try to standardize everyone on a multi-
    line 1xx for both HELP and STAT.  I'm against changing STAT, which
    works perfectly for everyone as far as I can tell, and it should
    be clear that I'm against waiting for FTP-2.  Unfortunately there
    is no real mechanism for "officially" adopting my plan, but I bet
    if TENEX does it on June 1 the rest of the world will come along.
    2.  Another reply code problem is the use of 9xx for
    "experimental" replies not in the protocol.  This includes the BBN
    mail-forwarding message and one other that I know of.  This
    procedure is sanctioned by RFC 385, but it seems like a bad idea
    to me.  For one thing, the user program has no way of knowing
    whether the reply is positive, negative, or irrelevant.  The
    examples I've been burned by all should have been 0xx messages.  I
    propose that all such messages be given codes in the 000-599
    range, chosen to fit the scheme given above for interpreting reply
    codes. x9x or xx9 could be used to indicate experiments.
    3.  One more on reply: RFC 630 (the one about the TENEX mod to the
    reply codes for MAIL and MLFL) raises the issue of "temporary"
    versus "permanent" failures within the 4xx category.  RFC 640
    deals with this question in the FTP-2 context by changing the
    meaning of 4xx and 5xx so that the former are for temporary errors
    and the latter are for permanent errors.  I like this idea, and I
    think it could easily be adapted for FTP-1 use in a way which
    would allow people to ignore the change and still win.  At
    present, I believe that the only program which attempts to
    distinguish between temporary and permanent errors is the TENEX
    mailer.  For other programs, no distinction is currently made
    between 4xx and 5xx responses; both indicate failure, and any
    retrials are done by the human user based on the text part of the
    message.  A specific set of changes to the reply codes codes is
    proposed below.

Harvey [Page 5] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

    Perhaps I should make a few more points about RFC 640, since it's
    the best thing about FTP-2 and the only argument for it I find at
    all convincing.  Let me try to pick out the virtues of 640 and
    indicate how they might be achieved in FTP-1.
       a. The 3xx category is used uniformly for "positive
       intermediate replies" where further negotiation in the Telnet
       connection is required, as for RNFR.  I'm afraid this one can't
       be changed without affecting existing user programs.  (One of
       my goals here is to enable exiting user programs to work while
       some servers continue as now and others adopt the suggestions I
       make below.)  However, although this 3xx idea is logically
       pleasing, it is not really necessary for a simple-minded user
       program to be able to interpret replies.  The only really new
       3xx in RFC 640 is the 350 code for RNFR.  But this would only
       be a real improvement for the user program if there were also a
       2xx code which might be returned after RNFR, which is not the
       case.  640 also abolishes the 300 initial connection message
       with 220, but again there is clearly no conflict here.
       b. The use of 1xx is expanded to include what is now the 250
       code for the beginning of a file transfer.  The idea is that a
       1xx message doesn't affect the state of the user process, but
       this is not really true.  Consider the file transfer commands.
       The state diagram on page 13 of RFC 640 is slightly misleading.
       It appears as if 1xx replies are simply ignored by the user
       program.  In reality, that little loop hides a lot of work: the
       file transfer itself!  If the server replied to the file
       transfer command immediately with a 2xx message, it would be a
       bug in the server, not a successful transfer.  The real state
       diagram is more like
          B --> cmd --> W --> 1 --> W --> 2 --> S
       (with branches out from the "W"s for bad replies).  It should
       be clear from this diagram that the user program, if it trusts
       the server to know what it's doing, can expect a 2xx instead of
       the 1xx without getting confused, since it knows which of the W
       states it's in.  In fact, the use of 1xx in file transfer is
       very different from its other uses, which are indeed more like
       the 0xx and 1xx replies in FTP-1.  I'd call this particular
       point a bug in RFC 640.
       c.  Automatic programs which use FTP (like mailers) can decide
       whether to queue or abandon an unsuccessful transfer based on
       the distinction between 4xx and 5xx codes.  I like this idea,
       although those temporary errors virtually never happen in real
       life.  This could be accomplished in FTP-1 by moving many of

Harvey [Page 6] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

       the 4xx replies to 5xx.  Mailers would be modified to use the
       first digit to decide whether or not to retry.  This scheme
       does not cause any catastrophes; if some server is slow in
       converting it merely leads to unnecessary retries.  A few CPU
       cycles would be wasted in the month following the official
       switch.  Thus, this feature is very different from (a) and (b),
       which could lead to catastrophic failures if not implemented
       all at once.  (Yes, I know that FTP-2 is supposed to be done on
       a different ICP socket.  I am not discussing FTP-2 but whether
       its virtues can be transferred to FTP-1.)  The specific codes
       involved are listed below.
       d.  The use of the second digit to indicate the type of
       message. (The proposed division is not totally clean; for
       example, why is 150 ("file status okay; about to open data
       connection") considered to be more about the file system than
       about data connection?)  This can easily be done, since the
       second digit is not currently important to any user process--
       the TENEX mailer is, in this plan, already due for modification
       because of (c).  Since this is mostly an aesthetic point, I'm
       hesitant to do it if it would be difficult for anyone.  In
       particular, I would want to leave the 25x messages alone, in
       case some user programs distinguish these.  This is especially
       likely for the ones which are entirely meant for the program:
       251 and 255.  Therefore I propose that if this idea is adopted
       in FTP-1 the meanings of x2x and x5x be interchanged.  This
       proposal is reflected in the specific list below.
    4.  The print file thing again.  Let's get it made "official" that
    it is the recipient, not the server, who is responsible for any
    reformatting which is to be done on these files.  After all, the
    recipient knows what his own print programs want.
 Let me summarize the specific changes to FTP-1 I'd like to see made,
 most of which are merely documentation changes to reflect reality:
    1. HELP should return 200.  All commands should return 2xx if
    successful, and I believe all do except HELP.
    2. The definition of 1xx messages should be changed to read:
    "Informative replies to status inquiries.  These constitute
    neither a positive nor negative acknowledgment."
    3. Experimental reply codes should be of the form x9x or xx9,
    where the first digit is chosen to reflect the significance of the
    reply to automated user programs.  Reply codes greater than 599
    are not permitted.  The xx9 form should be used if the reply falls
    into one of the existing categories for the second digit.  User

Harvey [Page 7] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

    programs are encouraged to determine the significance of the reply
    from the first digit, rather than requiring a specific reply code,
    when possible.
    4. The STAT command with no argument is considered a request for a
    directory listing for the current working directory, except that
    it may be given along with TELNET SYNCH while a transfer is in
    progress, in which case it is a request for the status of that
    transfer. (Everyone seems to do the first part of this.  I'm not
    sure if anyone actually implements the second.  This is just
    getting the protocol to agree with reality.) The reply to a STAT
    command should be zero or more 1xx messages followed by a 200.
    5. TYPEs P and F mean that the source file contains ASA control
    characters and that the recipient program should reformat it if
    necessary.
 Here is a list of the current FTP-1 replies, and how they should be
 renumbered for the new scheme.  The changes from 4xx to 5xx should be
 REQUIRED as of June 1; changes in the second or third digit are not
 so important. (As explained above, it will not be catastrophic even
 if some hosts do not meet the requirement.)  The list also contains
 one new possible reply adapted from RFC 640.
 OLD    NEW     TEXT
 0x0    0x0     (These messages are not very well defined nor
     very important.  Servers should use their judgment.)
 100    110     System status reply.  (Since nobody does STAT
     as in the protocol, this may be a moot point.)
 150    150     "File status reply."  (If this were really that,
     it would be switched to 120, but I believe what is meant is
     the response to a bare STAT in mid-transfer, which is more
     a connection status reply than a file status reply.
 151    121     Directory listing reply.
 200    200     Last command ok.
 201    251     ABOR ok.
 202    252     ABOR ignored, no transfer in progress.
 new    206     Command ignored, superfluous here.
 230    230     Login complete.
 231    231     Logout complete.
 232    232     Logout command will be processed when
     transfer is complete.
 250    250     Transfer started correctly.
 251    251     MARK yyyy = mmmm
 252    252     Transfer completed ok.
 253    223     Rename ok.
 254    224     Delete ok.
 255    255     SOCK nnnn

Harvey [Page 8] RFC 686 Leaving Well Enough Alone May 1975

 256    256     Mail completed ok.
 300    300     Connection greeting
 301    301     Command incomplete (no crlf)
 330    330     Enter password
 350    350     Enter mail.
 400    huh?    "This service not implemented." I don't
     understand this; how does it differ from 506?  If it means
     no FTP at all, who gave the message?  Flush.
 401    451     Service not accepting users now, goodbye.
 430    430     Foo, you are a password hacker!
 431    531     Invalid user or password.
 432    532     User invalid for this service.
 434    454     Logout by operator.
 435    455     Logout by system.
 436    456     Service shutting down.
 450    520     File not found.
 451    521     Access denied.
 452    452     Transfer incomplete, connection closed.
 453    423     Transfer incomplete, insufficient storage space.
 454    454     Can't connect to your socket.
 500    500     Command gibberish.
 501    501     Argument gibberish.
 502    502     Argument missing.
 503    503     Arguments conflict.
 504    504     You can't get there from here.
 505    505     Command conflicts with previous command.
 506    506     Action not implemented.
       [ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
          [ into the online RFC archives by Via Genie 3/00 ]

Harvey [Page 9]

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