Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!LCS.MIT.EDU!MAP
From: MAP@LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Anonymous FTP
Message-ID: <8912221906.AA09417@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 22 Dec 89 19:06:35 GMT
References: <5134@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 33


   Date: 21 Dec 89 21:43:41 GMT
   From: milton!blake!Tomobiki-Cho!mrc@beaver.cs.washington.edu  (Mark Crispin)

   In article <909@excelan.COM> donp@na.excelan.com (don provan) writes:
   >Actually, there's nothing in FTP that requires any login at all.  The
   >first FTP server i had to deal with would do an implicit "anonymous"
   >login when needed if no "USER" command was given.

   Ah, fond memories of ITS!  Actually, that winning feature was also put
   in the good version of Tenex/TOPS-20 NCP-based FTP server, but it
   never made it into the TCP FTP server.

This brings up one of my pet peeves about many current FTP client
implementations.  Several of the machines I FTP to do not require a
login for anonymous access, but the clients typically make me log in
anyway.  In fact, I had to specially hack one of the servers to ignore
a login request for anonymous which would otherwise be an invalid
name.  This was to fake the clients into believing the login had
succeeded so they would let me transfer files.

Please, if you are implementing an FTP client, allow for the case of
the remote machine having an open access policy, not needing any
login.  Don't restrict access by insisting on login even when it's not
needed (and may not be possible).

	    __
  /|  /|  /|  \		Michael A. Patton, Network Manager
 / | / | /_|__/		Laboratory for Computer Science
/  |/  |/  |atton	Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are a figment of the phosphor
on your screen and do not represent the views of MIT, LCS, or MAP. :-)