From: robt@agsm.unsw.oz.au (Rob Trevor)
Subject: Re: Setting Up a Mac FTP Server
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.comm
Organization: Australian Graduate School of Management
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 23:31:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.180724.27962@newsgate.sps.mot.com>,
gregf@shaman.sps.mot.com (Greg Ferguson) wrote:
> 
> ...
> I've been testing both ASC's FTPShare and Peter Lewis' FTPd.
> ...
> 
> ASC's FTPShare has a nice interface. I've been working with them for the last  
> several months on bug fixes. Currently I'm testing their software on a  
> production IIci with the same software that the IIfx is running. I'm seeing  
> some sessions hang during FTP sessions with our VM FTP client. (I haven't  
> gotten a handle on the problem yet). We've had a series of small problems with  
> FTPShare since I began testing, most of the problems appear to have been the  
> result of design choices that they made. They designed the daemon to work with  
> their FTP client, but the daemon didn't work well with Fetch or HyperFTP.  
> Their's is fast, but not as flexible for setting up the accounts. An account  
> can have either read, write or read/write access to all folders. That isn't  
> flexible enough for what I need. (I haven't addressed that issue to them yet).  
> Their support is a bit slow. You have to address them via AppleLink and they  
> usually don't acknowledge your message so you wonder if they got it. They have  
> been pretty good about bug fixes though.
> 
Well, my copy of ASC's FTPShare has been up and running without problems
since I got it (10:28:44 AM on 6/22/92 according to the logs).  I regularly
ftp into it from 3 different Unix boxes (Pyramid, MIPS, and RS6000), my
co-authors pick up and deliver files from their various systems and I've
had a number of anonymous log-ins from people wanting the demo version
before it was available from the archives.  From my point of view, its
exactly the product I wanted and has performed flawlessly.  (Try it for
yourself at robt.agsm.unsw.edu.au, but don't abuse the satellite link too
much!)  I've also found the folks at ASC extremely reponsive to my
suggestions on their earlier version.  But obviously you've had a different
experience.

However, I'm afraid I must totally disagree with you on the flexibility of
setting up accounts.  FTPShare is much more configurable than you seem to
have realised.  My server is set up to give me (owner) read/write access to
all mounted volumes, to give individual co-authors read/write access to
their particular sub-folder trees, to give my secretary read/write access
to her sub-folder tree, to give certain users write only access to an
incoming directory and to give anonymous users read only access to a public
folder.  Since it supports aliases, I only need to drop an alias of the
file/folder I wish to share into the relevant folder.  This is a lot more
functionality than you refer to above.

Perhaps you have the earlier incarnation of their server which relied on
their TCPack product?  The version (released June 92) I'm running is stand
alone.  If you want a demo that version you can pick it up from your
favourite archive site (or from my machine if you really want to).

Rob

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Rob Trevor  Associate Professor, Australian Graduate School of Management
            University of New South Wales
            PO Box 1, Kensington, NSW, AUSTRALIA    2033

Internet:  robt@mummy.agsm.unsw.oz.au  or  robt@agsm.unsw.oz.au
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