HP-3000 Systems Discussion <[log in to unmask]> wrote on 11/17/2003
12:56:39 PM:

> Paul asks:
>
> > A co-worker has developed a Windows based application in Visual Basic.
One
> >  of its functions involves the transmission of a data file to our
HP3000 for
> >  further processing.  My recommendation was for the VBasic application
to
> >  issue a 'site stream' command after uploading the data file to
complete the
> >  process.
> >
> >  He is using a windows based library containing a number of 'FTP'
methods,
> >  and has been successful in uploading the file.  He has not, however,
been
> >  able to find a method that will allow him to issue the 'site stream'
FTP
> >  command.
>
> It's not difficult -- if you do everything right:
>
>     ftp> quote site stream testjob
>
> However, you have to break the command above into its constituent pieces
in
> order to understand what's going on.

The VBasic application is hiding from the user the fact that FTP is being
used to process the data.  The user merely presses a button and the
application establishes the needed connection to the server, transfers the
data and tries to submit the remote job.  So the user does not see any
'ftp' prompts, nor is he allowed to issue any of the ftp commands.

The application is using the library "wininet.dll" which contains a number
of 'FTP' methods (FtpGetFile, FtpPutFile, etc..).  It also has the method
'FtpCommand' that is intended to be used for transmitting 'non standard'
commands to the host.  That is the method being used to send the 'site
stream' command.  The application IS successful in uploading the data file,
but seemed to fail during the invocation of the 'FtpCommand' method.

After finding some examples on the web about the correct declaration of the
method we decided to 'back track' and see if the problem exists somewhere
else.  It seems that the problem may exist on the HP3000 server (this
server is not directly under our control), since when we tried to manually
replicate the connection and 'site stream' actions issued by the VBasic
application we got the following error:

<SYS>:ftp hp07.xxx.xxx.com
File Transfer Protocol [A0009R13] (C) Hewlett-Packard Co. 2000 [PASSIVE
SUPPORT]

220 HP ARPA FTP Server [A0010H08] (C) Hewlett-Packard Co. 2000 [PASV
SUPPORT]
Connected to hp07.xxx.xxx.com (192.xxx.xxx.xxx).  (FTPINFO 40)
Name(manager): mgr.acctname
331 Password required for MGR.ACCTNAME.  Syntax: userpass
Password:
230 User logged on
Remote system type is MPE/iX.
200 TIMEOUT command ok.
ftp> dir tjsite
200 PORT command ok.
150 File: LISTFILE tjsite,2 opened; data connection will be opened
ACCOUNT=  ACCTNAME     GROUP=  TEST
FILENAME  CODE  ------------LOGICAL RECORD-----------  ----SPACE----
                  SIZE  TYP        EOF      LIMIT R/B  SECTORS #X MX
TJSITE             72B  FA           4          4  16       16  1  2

226 Transfer complete.
258 bytes received in 0.03 seconds (7.41 Kbytes/sec)
ftp> site stream tjsite
550 Warning:  expected a JOB or DATA command. (CIERR 6058)
ftp>

The contents of the 'tjsite' file are:

!job testjob,mgr/xxxxxxxx.acctname
!tell bphcy,mgr.acctname  Testing of 'site stream'
!tell bphcy,mgr.acctname  Testing of 'site stream'
!eoj

Based on the returned CI error, and by checking the access time of the test
stream file, we've determined that the stream file is being opened and
read.  I also checked the contents of 'setparms.arpa.sys' to see if the
'site stream' command has been disabled (I seem to remember someone
recently reporting that such a feature had been added to the later versions
of the FTP server), no such setting was detected.

Any ideas?

Regards
Paul Christidis


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