Product Overview
TCP/IP Application Services for ClearPath MCP includes the following products:
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FTP Services for ClearPath MCP
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TELNET Services
These products provide enterprise server TCP/IP file transfer and remote log-in services. They can be used with TCP/IP Interprocess Communications Services and LAN or WAN hardware to support communications in a TCP/IP LAN or WAN environment.
FTP Services for ClearPath MCP
Overview
FTP Services for ClearPath MCP provides enterprise server TCP/IP file transfer services.
You can use FTP Services with TCP/IP Interprocess Communications (TIC) and local and/or wide area network hardware to support communications in a TCP/IP local or wide area networking environment. You can use these products in both private networks and public networks, such as the Internet.
FTP Services provides an implementation of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) as described in MIL-STD 1780 (RFC 959) and the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) as described in the Internet-Draft draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-02. FTP enables you to exchange complete files between nodes in a TCP/IP network. The user interface is provided by the COPY command, which is available interactively through a Menu-Assisted Resource Control (MARC) menu or the Command and Edit (CANDE) message-control system, and in batch mode through Work Flow Language (WFL) or from the operator display terminal (ODT). The FTP server allows users at remote hosts to display lists of files.
General Features
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Interactive FTP
An interactive FTP utility program provides a command interface to FTP that is similar to the command interface provided on UNIX systems. The FTP utility enables you to exchange complete files between compatible network nodes and to display lists of files at remote hosts. The FTP utility also enables you to specify that a file format is to be converted between the format used by enterprise server applications and the format used by applications on remote hosts. This conversion is made while the file is being transferred.
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Anonymous FTP
You can use FTP to manage an Anonymous FTP archive. MAKEUSER recognizes a new reserved remote usercode named *ANONYMOUSFTP. If you configure this remote usercode, anonymous access to FTP is permitted. Anonymous users are restricted to READONLY access to the files maintained in the anonymous FTP archive.
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FTP Configuration Files
Site administrators and end users can store information relating to the operation of FTP in configuration files. This capability allows configuration information to be maintained over a restart of FTP.
FTP supports two classes of configuration file:
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The global configuration file is a system-wide file, which the site administrator can use to store settings that apply to FTP as a whole. For example, in this file you can specify the desired number of waiting FTP server files, as well as the priority to be assigned to server stacks when they are initiated. As another example, an administrator can specify that, by default, text file transfers inbound to the server or batch client should create readable text files rather than FTPDATA files.
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The local configuration file is the FTP startup file that individuals can use to customize their own views of FTP. For example, the user can specify that whenever a client session is initiated, the mapping settings should be set to create C source files out of inbound text transfers.
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Remote server configuration
FTP can transfer an FTP/STARTUP to the remote host to, be processed by the server, to change the configuration of the server before transferring the next file.
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Internationalization
FTP supports translation between 8-bit character sets other than EBCDIC and ASCII in order to more effectively address the needs of clients in environments where such character sets are used. For example, if you have file data encoded in the extended EBCDIC character set Latin1EBCDIC, you can request that the data be translated into the corresponding ASCII-based character set Latin1ISO before it is transmitted to a remote system. Similarly, if you know that an incoming file transfer is encoded in the LatinCyrillicISO character set, you can request that the data be translated into the LatinCyrillicEBC character set before it is stored on disk. FTP is able to perform any translation that your system supports.
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Secure FTP with SSL
FTP supports both implicit and explicit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) security.
Implicit SSL protects both control and data connections.
Explicit SSL enables SSL to be dynamically negotiated on the control and data connections so that only the sensitive portions of an FTP session are secured.
FTP Services for ClearPath MCP requires the use of ClearPath MCP Secure Transport and Security Center to provide the SSL functionality.
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Secure FTP with SSH
FTP supports inbound and outbound connections over SSH (Secure Shell). See Secure Shell (SSH) for ClearPath MCP in Section 3 of this document for more information.
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Server Directories
The FTP server supports client commands to traverse a directory hierarchy and to maintain a current working directory. If you issue commands from your FTP client that are related to file or directory management, they are interpreted in the context of this current working directory.
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Support for Passive-Mode Data Transfer
Normally, the FTP connection used for data transfer is initiated from the server to the client. Sometimes this process can cause problems at sites that use firewalls. The alternative is for the data connection to be initiated from the client to the server, which is called passive mode. The FTP Interactive and Batch Clients now support the negotiation of passive mode through the DATA_PORT_CONNECTION_MODE command.
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Support for Specification of Source IP Address
Some systems have more than one IP address. Each IP address represents a separate interface to the network. These systems are called multihomed. When an application, such as FTP, requests a connection to a remote system, the networking software normally selects which local IP address to use. Sometimes, however, it is useful—for testing, load leveling, and so on—for an application to be able to request that the networking software use a specific local IP address. FTP provides a way for you to specify the local IP address to be used for network connections.
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Support for WFL command batch files
The FTP Custom SITE command allows the administrator of a site to create a batch file of Work Flow Language (WFL) commands on the host. Remote clients use the QUOTE command to process the batch file and then execute the WFL commands in the batch file. You can use this command to manipulate files copied to the host with the permissions granted to the FTP user.
