bugzilla escalation process (is there one) ?

[Rick Stevens]

On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 14:36 -0700, Don Russell wrote:
> I created a bugzilla report against the ftp client in FC5 and after a 
> couple of rounds of reopening (NOTABUG), it's been closed as "WONTFIX".
> 
> Ref. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=196141
> 
> It has to do with the ftp client always ending with an exit code of 
> zero, regardless of what happened during the actual ftp session.
> 
> Is it unreasonable to expect that ftp exits with a non-zero exit code 
> when something goes wrong? (I was asking that it return the highest code 
> it received from the server... well-documented error codes specific to 
> the ftp protocol; return zero if the actual code is in the 2xx range 
> would be acceptable)
> 
> I wanted to use the .netrc mechanism to provide a little script to ftp 
> the contents of a directory to a site. The ftp command is invoked by 
> another process (i.e. not a human using cli reading the text responses), 
> but that's useless when ftp always ends with zero.
> 
> Yes, I can write some Perl code to do this, and not use the ftp 
> command.... but the ftp command is already available, the .netrc 
> mechanism suits my purpose in this application...

That is precisely what ncftp suite of programs (ncftpput, ncftpget,
ncftpbatch, etc.) is intended for.  Read up on it.  It does exactly
what you want it to do.

> The only reason I'm pursuing this any further is because I feel "it is 
> the right thing to do". I've since found another solution to my problem 
> because ftp, as it is now, is of now use to me, except as a cli tool.
> 
> I may re-open it again and provide a diff file.... but it certainly 
> doesn't appear that would be well received...

It is not a bug and it is a "won't fix" because it ain't broken.  You're
trying to use a tool that clearly isn't intended to be used the way
you're using it, and that's why ncftp* stuff was written--to provide
scriptable and batchable FTP operations.

I don't mean to chiding you, but you really should research other
things first.  If you had done a "makewhatis" on your system, then
done a "man -k ftp", you would've found it.

$ man -k ftp
<snip>
ncftpput             (1)  - Internet file transfer program for scripts
</snip>

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-    Overweight:  When you step on your dog's tail...and it dies.    - 
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