[NCLUG] grrrr....

[aaron at tummy.com]

>  Using "jeffs at lsil.com" as the password (I'm replicating the error verbatim
> for this user, please don't use his email - he's just a victim here.)
> 
>  GNU ftp:
> 
>         rose -> good         FTP C port=42313 USER anonymous\r\n
>         good -> rose         FTP R port=42313 
>         good -> rose         FTP R port=42313 331 Guest login ok, 
>         rose -> good         FTP C port=42313 
>         rose -> good         FTP C port=42313 PASS jeffs at ls\r\n
> 
>  Solaris ftp:
> 
>         rose -> good         FTP C port=42314 USER anonymous\r\n
>         good -> rose         FTP R port=42314 
>         good -> rose         FTP R port=42314 331 Guest login ok, 
>         rose -> good         FTP C port=42314 
>         rose -> good         FTP C port=42314 PASS jeffs at lsil.com\r
> 
>  Looks like I get to parse some c code...

That sounds like getpass(3).  Sometimes used to collect a string from
the controlling terminal without echoing it.  Often limited to an 8
character buffer.  The man page for getpass(3) on my box at home says:
"This function is obsolete. Do not use it."

Looking at the GNU inetutils sources (which I didn't know existed
until reading this thread), I see that both the telnet and ftp therein
use getpass.  :( It doesn't look like there's convenient library
version included in the sources, so you'll either need to live with
it, find a better getpass from somewhere and hack it into the build,
or switch to a real ftp client.  (like lftp ;-).  Maybe the Slowaris
getpass man page has some recommendations...

HTH

Aaron
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