Special Character Problem

Ed Greshko Ed.Greshko at greshko.com
Fri Jun 6 05:22:35 UTC 2008


Raymond C. Rodgers wrote:
> Hi folks,
> I have a rather annoying problem. My company uses a special character as 
> a part of a password for an ftp account a Linux server, and I cannot 
> seem to get Fedora 9 to connect to the server as a result. All the 
> Windows and even Mac clients that connect to that server seem to have no 
> problem, it's just that I can't seem to get another Linux box to do the 
> same.
> 
> The character keystroke under Windows is ALT-248. Now, I've used the 
> Character Map in F9 to identify the character (by using the find 
> feature) simply as the degree symbol, though it appears slightly 
> different under Windows, which is apparently U+00B0. The catch is even 
> when I copy the password from a known good source (an Excel file opened 
> in OpenOffice), connection attempts to the server fail.
> 
> Although I have the power to do so, I'm very reluctant to change the 
> password because of my co-workers; while they're willing to change 
> things, they'd have to update a fair number of ftp programs, and frankly 
> aside from my difficulties with it under Linux, it seems to be a pretty 
> good password. Obviously, it should be possible to enter this password 
> under Linux since it was set on a Linux box, but I seem to be out of 
> ideas of how to do it.
> 
> Anyone have any good ideas?

I've always thought that when you entered the ALT character in Windows you 
had to enter it with a leading 0.  So, ALT-248 really should be typed 
"ALT-0248".

If I type "ALT-0248" in windows I get ø while if I type "ALT-248" I do get °.

Now you say it look slight different under windows.  Maybe they actually are 
different.  I guess what I would do is to create a file under windows with 
the character that you need and then cat it on a terminal window and use it 
as the input.  I would also use a hex editor to examine the file to make 
sure it is the code that you think it is.

Ed


-- 
mixed emotions:
	Watching your mother-in-law back off a cliff...
	in your brand new Mercedes.




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