309 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
309 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
$Id: README,v 1.7 2000/01/26 20:11:33 he Exp $
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README file for eftp4linux
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==========================
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eftp4linux is an Open Source (tm) implementation of the
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EUROFILE Transfer Protocol as standardised by a set of ETSI norms
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(in particular ETS 300-383 and ETS 300-075). It is freqently used
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to transfer files over ISDN.
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Currently, the only target OS is Linux >= 2.2.x. However, the design
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should allow for porting it to other POSIX operating systems
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that provide a select() system call and a socket interface to
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the X.25/ISO-8208 network layer protocol. (Some minor non-POSIX
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features are currently used as well for convenience).
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DISCLAIMER
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==========
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Use on your own risk -- as usual with open (and even close) source software.
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However, as this is alpha test software, the risk might be higher
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than the risk of just using your favourite linux distribution.
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Read the COPYING* files present in the distribution for further details.
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WHAT'S NEW
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==========
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See the CHANGES file for details.
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General features
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================
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eftp4linux consists of a core library that implements the EUROFILE
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related protocols. It also contains two important applications built
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on top of this library:
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- An EUROFILE client program with command line interface. Command
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line editing is supported by means of the GNU readline library.
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- An EUROFILE server which can serve multiple connections
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simulatneously and supports navigation (i.e. changing directories).
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User authentification is provided by a separate
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authentification library derived from wu-ftpd which allows for fine
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grained access control based on user-id, password, and remote isdn
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phone number. The design allows for easily exchanging the
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authentification routines by user-supplied versions.
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This is all still alpha test software.
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That means it does certain tasks well at my site, but I know that
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they are incomplete, non-conforming and have other bugs as well.
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However, they are becoming better and better now and I think that
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there are not so many vital missing features left now.
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Thus, experienced isdn4linux users are encouraged to test this
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and report bugs or success stories, or suggest and contribute improvements.
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The navigation support for the server is not fully conformant to the
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protocol specifications with respect to some regards. This might in theory
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confuse certain clients when the navigation facility is used.
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The server and client support extended directory service which could
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allow for handling of long filenames, but as several eft implementations
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don't support this, you might not take advantages of that.
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During several tests it turned out that many commercial EUROFILE
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implementations are not protocol conformant, either. One major
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inter-working problem is caused by implementations which don't handle
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uppercase/lowercase in filenames appropriately. The result is that
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some clients can only load either uppercase or lowercase filenames.
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A similar problem appears when changing working directories.
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Some clients even use upper/lowercase inconsistently when downloading
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and uploading files, such clients even cannot access a file uploaded by
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themselves before. An even worse problem is that at least one client
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replaces '/' characters in directory name by '\'.
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IMHO, this is a bug in the commercial EFT implementations. Until the
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suppliers of those implementations have fixed this, the server provides
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a work-around. If you add a '+' character in front of your login name, the
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server will try to treat file names case insensitively and replace '\'
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by '/' again. This compatibility mode is somewhat restricted: only the
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basename of a file will be handled case-insensitively, the dirname will
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currently always be treated as lower case, when the compatibility mode is
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active. Thus, in order to avoid trouble, you should always use lower
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case directory names in the servers file system tree.
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And of course, if multiple files with names differing only in the cases
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of the character, you can only access one of them.
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Details on this test distribution
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==================================
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In addition to the files contained in this distribution, you will need
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- A recent Linux 2.2.x kernel (2.2.12 or newer is recommended).
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- There is also a patch ix25-2.1.128.diff that deals with a low layer
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(X.25) interworking problem observed with some clients
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(CSD isdn toolbox and maybe also some RVS clients). They send
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misformatted X.25 call request packets that confuse the linux X.25 layer.
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Applying this patch enables the kernel to correctly reject the
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misformatted frames. For working around the interworking problem
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you also need to uncomment the last line in include/net/x25.h.
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Please read the doc/INTERWORKING file for further details.
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The patch should also work with older or newer kernels than 2.1.128.
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- the current x25-utils-2.1.x package, which is available from
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ftp.hes.iki.fi:/pub/ham/linux/ax25/. The most important programme
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therein is the x25_route utility. (x25-utils-2.1.20 is still the
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most current release). Don't confuse the x25-utils with the ax25-utils.
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The latter is for amateur radio networking and not related to
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eftp4linux at all. (You can use eftp4linux without this packages,
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but local testing without isdn connection won't be possible then)
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- some of the recent isdn4k-utils, in particular isdnctrl (and
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loopctrl, if you want to test locally by means of the isdnloop driver).
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The isdn4k-utils-3.0beta2.tar.gz. (or newer) are fine.
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isdnctrl.c must be compiled against 2.2.x kernel header files.
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The most recent isdn4k-utils package is availabe from ftp.isdn4linux.de
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You can also use an even newer isdn4k-util snapshot from isdn4linux
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CVS server. See the isdn4linux FAQ for info about this.
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How to build:
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=============
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See the INSTALL file.
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After having typed "make" in the top directory, there will
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(hopefully :-) be two important user level programs inside src/*/:
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- eftp is a simple EUROFILE client that allows for transferring files
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between a remote machine and your linux box by means of the EUROFILE
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transfer protocol on top of isdn. It's command line style user
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interface consists of a few ftp-like commands.
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- eftd is an EUROFILE server.
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Some older programmes, which are of less importance now, will also
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build if you type `make really_all':
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- x25.echod listens on an x25 socket and echoes back every packet
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received. Access to the x25 Q-bit is enabled to demonstrate this
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feature which is really necessary for eft and has no equivalent in
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TCP/IP sockets.
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- tdud.echod listens on an x25 socket and tries to fake an ETS 300 075
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protocol session. It mainly encapsulates any received tdu messages in a
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t-response-positive tdu message and echoes it back.
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Now, you are prepared to test EUROFILE or X.25 on top of isdn4linux. For your
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convenience, some scripts are provided in the scripts directory that
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ease the task of setting up your system.
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See the end of the INSTALL file for quick start instruction or
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the files in the doc directory for details.
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The server's access control is similar as in the wu-ftp server. In fact,
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the access control is taken from wu-ftpd (Georg v.Zezschwitz ported
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this, see src/authlib/README for further information). If USER/PASSWD
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is omitted, anonymous ftp is assumed. Refer to the eft_wuauth man pages
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for learning more about ftp access control and configuring anonymous
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access.
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It turned out that most EUROFILE clients insert a default
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userid/passwd when a user/passwd is not provided explicitly.
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With such clients, supply the userid 'ftp' explicitly in order to
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access the anonymous EUROFILE account.
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Further, as some clients don't support navigation, you should create a
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symlink in ~ftp named ".++eft_flat" to, i.e., the pub directory
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(cd ~ftp; ln -s pub .++eft_flat). The server will cd to this directory
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after login whenever it thinks that the client does not support
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navigation. (this is in particular useful with anonymous access
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because the ~ftp directory usually contains no downloadable stuff).
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The authentication library can even evaluate the peer's
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isdn number for its decisions. For this to work reliably,
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you need to use the cvs version of isdn4linux as of 1998-08-31 or
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newer or a kernel >= 2.2.12 or 2.3.4.
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Other sources of information:
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=============================
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As you will be using several somewhat exotic and cutting edge parts
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of the Linux kernel it might be useful to read the following
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mailing lists:
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isdn4linux@hub-wue.franken.de or newsgroup de.alt.comm.isdn4linux
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linux-x25@vger.rutgers.edu
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linux-kernel[-digest]@vger.rutgers.edu
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linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
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All lists mentioned above can be subscribed to by sending an e-mail
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containing
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subscribe LISTNAME
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in the message body to
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majordomo@DOMAIN
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(Replace LISTNAME by the name and DOMAIN by the domain name of the
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mailing list).
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A description of the linux X.25 implementation and socket interface
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is available from the same locations as the x25-utility package.
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Watch out for a file x25-doc.tar.gz (MS-Word formatted documents).
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A lot of documentation of ITU-T protocols (in particular x.25 and isdn)
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is on the "Standards" CD-ROM from Infomagic (http://www.infomagic.com,
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reasonable price).
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Original ITU standards are quite expensive (http://www.itu.ch
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and http://www.etsi.fr). But some libraries collect technical standards,
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reading them inside the library is cheaper that ordering them from
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your national standard body. For locating such a library,
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contact the web server (such as www.din.de) of your natinal
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standards body. Users living in Germany might locate such a public
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library by following the links in
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http://www.beuth.de/partner/index.html.
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Good News: ETSI recently made their standards available for download --
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Not totally free but at least free of charge. You need to register
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first. Quote from ETSI's announcent:
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This application is located on
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http://webapp.etsi.org/publicationssearch
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or can be reached by following "products",
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"publications Download" from the ETSI home
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page http://www.etsi.org.
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http://www.netsmart.gr/teltest/teltest1.1/Lab_file.html
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contains a descriptions on the eft core concepts.
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The home site of this file, older and (possibly) newer versions, is
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ftp://ftp.hamburg.pop.de/pub/LOCAL/linux/i4l-eft/
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For reporting bugs or submitting patches, you can reach me by e-mail
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(eis@baty.hanse.de).
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The file Documentation/isdn/README.x25 present in the (patched) kernel
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sources contains general info on linux isdn-X.25 configuration. The
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sources of the user level programmes in directory src might also
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contain some documentation (and disclaimers :-).
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Remark on installing kernel image:
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==================================
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If your Linux distribution does not support 2.2.x kernels,
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it is recommended that you don't install the compiled 2.2.x kernel
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as your default kernel image until you are sure that everything works
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as expected. You can add additional entries to the /etc/lilo.conf file
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in order to allow booting non-standard kernels from a different
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location. Please refer to the relevant lilo doc (man pages, doc files,
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HOWTOs,..) or refer to an older eftp4linux README file for examples.
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Thanks
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======
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Thanks to all the volunteers who made Linux the powerful OS it is
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today. In particular, to all who contributed to isdn4liunx.
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Some contributions have been of central importance to the
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EUROfile project and I'd like to mention them explicitly:
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Jonathan Naylor contributed the Linux X.25 protocol stack
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Fritz Elfert contributed the isdnloop driver which was very useful for
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keeping my phone bill low while testing.
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Lennart Koschella continuously operated a peer eft server that was
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used for tests during the initial developement phase.
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Point of Presence GmbH provided ftp server space.
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Georg v.Zezschwitz adapted the authentification code from the wu-ftpd
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which is now used inside the eft server.
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Martin Maurer provided protocol traces in the initial phase of development.
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Michael Dietrich helped fixing compile/build problems.
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Knuth Posern helped tracking down several low layer protocol
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compatibility problems.
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Matthias Stolte provided enhancements to the setup scripts
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and added more command line options to the server.
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Michael Mauch added readline and mget/mput support to eftp.
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As the eft server's authentication code is derived from wu-ftpd,
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the following acknowledgements hold: This product
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includes software developed by the Washington University in Saint Louis
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and its contributors. This product includes software developed by
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the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
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- Henner
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