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FTP is 50 years old

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Re: FTP is 50 years old

#61

Post by winrid »

dominiek wrote: post #39

Amazing. I never thought I would say this, but I actually implemented an FTP server in 2020. This was needed to support firmware updates to specific hardware (Electric Vehicle charging stations). Apparently embedded software developers choose FTP whenever a spec doesn't specify how binary file transfers should work. It was kind of amusing getting FTP to work in a modern cloud environment. I run a single Kubernetes po…

Just curious on the motivation.

Why not run a regular FTP server and have your application periodically look for new files to process? For horizontal scaling, you just take a distributed lock on the file name.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#62

Post by tachyonbeam »

jbverschoor wrote: post #57
ajb wrote: post #6

From rfc801 (transition from NCP to TCP/IP) : "FTP: This is specified in RFC 765. It is very similar to the FTP used with the NCP. The primary differences are that in addition to the changes for Telnet, that the data channel is limited to 8-bit bytes so FTP features to use other transmission byte sizes are eliminated." So FTP is older than the standardisation of byte size :-)

I thought a byte ment “by eight” What’s a nibble of a byte is 8bits

AFAIK, before everything was byte-addressable and this became standard, people used to talk about "word" sizes. Some computers would have 36 or 38-bit words. The CDC 6000 had 60-bit words, where that was the smallest size value you could address in memory. For things like characters, you would have to pack multiple chars per word. The Symbolics 3600 Lisp Machine had 36-bit words, and it used some of those bits to tag different data types so every value in memory had some basic type information attached to it.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#63

Post by gkop »

jbverschoor wrote: post #57
ajb wrote: post #6

From rfc801 (transition from NCP to TCP/IP) : "FTP: This is specified in RFC 765. It is very similar to the FTP used with the NCP. The primary differences are that in addition to the changes for Telnet, that the data channel is limited to 8-bit bytes so FTP features to use other transmission byte sizes are eliminated." So FTP is older than the standardisation of byte size :-)

I thought a byte ment “by eight” What’s a nibble of a byte is 8bits

By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you might come across as an ass...)

I was curious and searched HN and found this 2012 comment explaining octet is essentially an anachronism, as bytes have been standardized at 8 bits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4649528 . Feeling old!

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#64

Post by Anthony-G »

TwoBit wrote: post #30
crazypython wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older technologies are more reliable and last longer, because they have survived the changes of time. That also means if you learn older technology (my rule of thumb is 15+– think Elixir, Lisp, Haskell, Python, Java, C++), your knowledge is unlikely to expire.

FTP is not reliable. It has survived (though it's nearly dead) only due to entrenchment.

I was surprised to discover that FTP (or SFTP) is not reliable. A couple of years ago, I discovered that there were mis-matches between files sent to a remote SFTP server using Perl’s `Net::SFTP` and the checksum that was sent after the complete set had been transmitted. The uploaded files were a few bytes smaller than they should have been.

I didn’t have the time/resources for a deep dive to determine the root cause of the problem so my work-around at the time was to use `stat` to compare file sizes of the local and uploaded file. If they didn’t match, the file was simply re-transmitted – and it always worked the second time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#65

Post by LinuxBender »

chasil wrote: post #51
gogopuppygogo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m just glad they used ftp over tftp. Maybe someday they’ll use FTPS but I have my doubts it’ll ever catch on with the popularity of SFTP.

These standards are so very different, and they don't scale well. TFTP is actually over UDP, guarantees only one data packet on the wire at any one time (no sliding window), does not support listing a remote directory, and is extreme in simplicity. FTPS has such arbitrary controls for TLS optional versus required status over control and data channels that it is easy to misconfigure. SFTP lacks two key features (amids…

SFTP supports anonymous access. I actually just shut down my sftp server to move it or I would be able to show you, but it's super easy on CentOS. Just set up chroot and set a null pw for the usernames of your choice. You can use posix permissions to hide subdirs or files if you wish. You can use chattr or mount permissions to make it read-only or write-only. The only thing missing is browser support. I might have time to put it back online later today and will update this thread.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#66

Post by tpmx »

rsync wrote: post #59
goda90 wrote: post #3

What's the oldest protocol that's still regularly used?

"What's the oldest protocol that's still regularly used?" People are answering with old telephone codes and British naval signals, etc. You should be thinking: - The muslim call to prayers. - The affirmation of faith, as it is spoken in mass or (protestant) church ... or the first and second readings, followed by a Gospel reading. - The Jewish rite of circumcision (which is, among other things, almost certainly a sig…

If we're abandoning automation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_(diplomacy)

> The term protocol is derived, via French and Medieval Latin, from the Greek word πρωτόκολλον protokollon "first glued sheet of or onto a papyrus-roll".

> The rules of protocol to create space where meetings can take place.

https://www.protocol.dubai.ae/About/Protocol-History

> The diplomatic relations that existed between Egypt and Babel, which started in 1450 B.C., included highlights on the application of standards for Protocol and Etiquette that were related to both diplomatic immunities as well as receptions and ceremonies.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#67

Post by okl »

jbverschoor wrote: post #57
ajb wrote: post #6

From rfc801 (transition from NCP to TCP/IP) : "FTP: This is specified in RFC 765. It is very similar to the FTP used with the NCP. The primary differences are that in addition to the changes for Telnet, that the data channel is limited to 8-bit bytes so FTP features to use other transmission byte sizes are eliminated." So FTP is older than the standardisation of byte size :-)

I thought a byte ment “by eight” What’s a nibble of a byte is 8bits

Wikipedia has some info (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#History_of_the_conflictin...):

"The size of the byte has historically been hardware-dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. Sizes from 1 to 48 bits have been used.[4][5][6][7] The six-bit character code was an often-used implementation in early encoding systems, and computers using six-bit and nine-bit bytes were common in the 1960s. These systems often had memory words of 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, or 60 bits, corresponding to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10 six-bit bytes. In this era, bit groupings in the instruction stream were often referred to as syllables[a] or slab, before the term byte became common."

If you want to be specific, you could say "octet" to describe a set of 8 bits.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#68

Post by okl »

gkop wrote: post #63
jbverschoor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought a byte ment “by eight” What’s a nibble of a byte is 8bits

By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you might come across as an ass...) I was curious and searched HN and found this 2012 comment explaining octet is essentially an anachronism, as bytes have been standardized at 8 bits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4649528 . Feeling old!

> By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you might come across as an ass...)

I see it used (and use it myself) from time to time in contexts where you want to differentiate between 7/8/9-bit bytes, mostly when working with embedded/low-level software.

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#69

Post by unilynx »

0x0 wrote: post #36
crazypython wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASCII is a very obvious format. If you take the english alphabet and symbols, it fits almost perfectly in the first 7 bits. In 5th grade I tried encoding English in binary, and noticed how I accidentally reinvented ASCII.

I wouldn't say it's obvious. There's some careful decisions in the design that might not be obvious at first sight, such as having upper and lowercase characters be the same save for a single bit.

Or the numbers 0 to 9 at 48 to 57 (ie just mask out bits 4 and 5)

Re: FTP is 50 years old

#70

Post by paxswill »

okl wrote: post #68
gkop wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you might come across as an ass...) I was curious and searched HN and found this 2012 comment explaining octet is essentially an anachronism, as bytes have been standardized at 8 bits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4649528 . Feeling old!

> By the way, the handy word for an 8-bit byte is “octet” (I have not observed octet used in the software industry, only in school. Don’t use it at work or you might come across as an ass...) I see it used (and use it myself) from time to time in contexts where you want to differentiate between 7/8/9-bit bytes, mostly when working with embedded/low-level software.

The place I see it most is in networking RFCs.
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