On Saturday 05 June 2004 12:51, Ilya Konstantinov wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 12:37:24PM +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > > Also, limiting to HTTP, we could have a single place to limit
> > > concurrent number of connections, access etc.
> >
> > Again, we are stressing our convenience over the users' whom we serve.
>
> Yes, I see. And still, how do we prevent the unfairness of FTP users
> being limited while HTTP users are not?
>

Can't we limit them both? Or do you mean that despite being limited one of the 
protocols will starve the others.

> > 1. mod_dav is only available for Apache 2.0.x. Debian Stable ships with
> > Apache
>
> No. mod_dav is integrated into Apache 2.0, but _is_ available for 1.3
> as a separate package.
>

Do you mean:

http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav/

?

It has not been updated since June 13, 2000. I'm not saying it isn't good or 
functional, just that it's suspicious that it hasn't changed in quite a 
while. BTW, doesn't mod_dav require a separate module as the back-end for 
actually managing the files, or is this an Apache 2.0-only policy?

> > 2. WebDAV as a protocol is quite complex and based on XML. This may make
> > its implementation potentially very prone to errors.
>
> If that's any comfort, mod_dav doesn't roll its own XML parser (which's
> indeed a thing prone to string errors), but uses Expat instead, which
> is a quite tested XML parser.
>

Right. However, having a bug-free XML parser is not the only thing that can 
cause XML-processing to go wrong. 

> > 3. WebDAV is much less ubiquitous than FTP is. There are tons of FTP
> > clients available for any platform, and most distributions (including
> > Win32) ship with at least one ("ftp") in the default install.
>
> Windows, since Win98/2K, ship with "Web Folders", which's a client to
> access WebDAV sites, integrated into the shell.

By "shell" do you mean the command prompt or the Windows Explorer?

>
> KDE and GNOME both can access WebDAV sites transparently (just like
> they access the local filesystem or an FTP site).
>

Can you point to a WebDAV-based URL so I can test if my KDE 3.2.0 (mdk) 
installation supports it? I don't think I ever encountered this behaviour for 
anything except FTP sites.

> > Do you know of a WebDAV client that comes close to the power of ncftp?
>
> cadaver has auto-completion and 'mget' and a UI of a good old FTP
> client.
>

I'll give it a try some time. (when FTP is inadequate)

FTP is still much more common and ubiquitous. 

> > So I think we're better off with FTP instead of, or along with, WebDAV.
>
> However, I agree that FTP is not inherently evil or hard to code securely.
> It's just that FTP is usually slow and inefficient (establishing a
> session...), so it simply annoys most power-users.
>

Well, some people find it useful. And a few days ago another mail was sent, 
this time to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] asking where the FTP server is.

> > > Also, I think we shouldn't keep an rsync server; if not for its
> > > unfortunate security history, then for the fact that we're not an
> > > official mirror for anything, not even 2nd-tier.
> >
> > I find rsync convenient many times to correct mis-downloaded files. I
> > already installed rsync on the server so I can transfer files there using
> > rsync over ssh. But I won't insist on that.
>
> I'm talking about a rsync in standalone daemon opening a port, not about
> using rsync as a "better scp" over ssh.

Right. I was just saying it was already installed, so we might as well enable 
its service.

Regards,

        Shlomi Fish
-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage:        http://shlomif.il.eu.org/

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
        [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.]

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