Trying to do a network install from a ftp fails when the install program believes (incorrectly) it cannot set the server to passive. Snooping the attempt and looking at the ftp server logs shows that the server did go to passive mode, but the install program incorrectly handled a multi-line successfull login message/greeting. According to RFC 959, a multi-line responsponse to a command is signified by a 3 digit response code AND a hyphen (in the case of a successful password/login, it is "230-". The final line should be the same response code WITHOUT a hypen (just a "230 "). All intermediate lines can be plain text without any prepended response code. Doing a snoop and looking over the ftp server log files shows the Redhat install client successfully logging into the server. The first line of the login message is sent with the "230-" prepended (signifying a multi-line text response is to follow). Howerver, after receiving the second line of text (normal text without any 3 digit code), the client immediately issues the "go to passive" command. The server continues sending the remainder of the greeting message, at which time the install client, not immediately seeing a successful response to its "go to passive" command, interprets the server as unable to go to passive and fails. It should be noted that the server does correctly end the greeting message with a text line prepended with "230 " (no hypen) and then responds with a 'now in passive mode' reply to the clients earlier request. A work around for this was to prepend every line of our login greering with a "230-" and the final lines with "230 ". This, howerver, should not be necessary. Jeff
FYI: this is happening on the 5.2 and 6.0 Alpha installations, even if there is no multiline login banner. I can see when logging in with the old ftp command line client that a single "230 ...." message is returned, and both distros are failing with the "failed to set the server in passive mode' message. I'm trying 5.2 and 6.0 because 6.1 is broken and will not install on my Alpha. The bug has already been reported and assigned.
Can't duplicate this bug using the 6.2 installer.