Re: ftp installation hangs

[Aaron Jackson <jackson@negril.msrce.howard.edu>]

>I was hoping that's what it would be, but it doesn't look like it.
>I was getting pretty good throughput up to the point of failure. I
>tried the same install three times, and it stopped at movie.gif each
>time. If bandwidth were slow, would that not be too much of a coincidence?

True.

>Additionally, if I let OpenBSD stay stuck for a long enough period of
>time, my isp disconnects for idle time.

Just tickle the line evrey so often ;)

>Since you can attest to the fact that the ftp installation works, my guess
>is that it has something to do with passive mode or a dropped process,
>perhaps related to latency, as you suggested. Does ftp.openbsd.org do
>any processing between sending archives?

I'm not too sure how this is handled. I assume that the binary set is
ftpd through standard output and then piped through tar, but I could be
wrong.  The ironic thing is that movie.gif is a very small file.  The
last file in that archive (base23.tar.gz) is ./var/yp/README, although
you were about 20 files from the end. Of course since this is the base
package you won't be able to do anything without it.  Have you tried
different ftp sites?  Again, I know this is not much help, but I really
don't know what to say.

>If movie.gif is at the end of one of the archives, then perhaps something
>is happening with a process that occurs inbetween archive transmissions.
>I was thinking something might be reverting back to active ftp mode, but I
>don't know.

>The Linux router box doesn't serve ftp, becuase it's a base installation.
>ftpd doesn't exist on my system, and I would need to fetch and install it.
>However, now debian is in a major transitionary phase with moving
>from libc5 to libc6, which are incompatible. Many of the existing binaries
>do not function under libc6. Arrrg! :)

Linux seems very chaotic to me, which is why I use OpenBSD.  Too bad you
haven't had luck because I find the OpenBSD distribution very well put
together.  Last time I checked it was more complete then NetBSD (for *MY*
needs) and the install was *MUCH* faster than FreeBSD  (minutes instead of
hours).

Aaron Jackson		jackson@msrce.howard.edu