tnftpd conversions feature

[Daniel Feenberg]

I have been trying to use tnftpd's conversion feature with programs of my 
own design instead of gzip or tar. However, it seems for every program I 
write, when the conversion feature is called for I get the following 
response:

   229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||19158|)

This doesn't happen when I just "get" a file, unless the conversion 
feature is invoked. Also, my program is in fortran, and if I include
a "getarg" command, the following message is returned by my ftp client:

   226-Command returned an exit status of 1
   226-Command error messages:
         /libexec/ld-elf.so.1: environment corrupt; missing value for a"(
         /libexec/ld-elf.so.1: environment corrupt; aborting
   226 Transfer complete.

instead of the standard output of my conversion. Running under 7.1 I got 
the same message, but also the correct file was transferred. Under 8.1 I 
don't get the file.

I am running tnftpd in a chroot environment, and the program works fine if 
I login to the server and do:

   chroot /var/ftp
   cd tmp
   ./program <test

where "program" is the compiled fortran program.  I have compiled with and 
without the "-static" option, same results.

I can't find any tnftpd mailing list - is there somewhere better than 
freebsd-questions? Would the netbsd mailing list be out of place (it comes 
from netbsd). Is there an alternative ftp daemon with the conversion 
feature, other than the no longer supported wu-ftpd? (Pure-ftpd doesn't 
mention /etc/ftpconversion in its docs). Apparently the Solaris and Mac 
ftp daemons do support ftpconversions, but I don't know the source of 
their server, or if it is available.

Daniel Feenberg
feenberg at nber.org