7.60. ftp

Prior to this update, using the ftp command "put" when the stack size was set to unlimited caused the sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX) function to return -1, which in turn resulted in the malloc() function being called with an argument of 0 and causing an "Out of memory" message to be displayed. With this update, the underlying source code has been improved to allocate a reasonable minimum of memory. As a result, the "Out of memory" message no longer appears if the stack size was previously set to unlimited.

Prior to this update, the ftp client could encounter a buffer overflow and aborted if a macro longer than 200 characters was defined and then used after a connection. This update modifies the underlying code and the buffer that holds memory for the macro name was extended. Now, ftp matches the length of the command line limit and the ftp client no longer aborts when a macro with a long name is executed.

Previously, the command line width in the ftp client was limited to 200 characters. With this update, the maximum possible length of the FTP command line is extended to 4296 characters.

Prior to this update, "append", "put", and "send" commands were causing system memory to leak. The memory holding the ftp command was not freed appropriately. With this update, the underlying source code has been improved to correctly free the system resources and the memory leaks are no longer present.

Previously, the ftp client could not be invoked to run directly in the active mode. This functionality has been added to the source code and documented in the manual page. The client can now be executed with an additional "-A" command line parameter and will run in the active mode.

Previously, the ftp client hung up when the ftp-data port (20) was not available (e.g. was blocked). The client then had to be terminated manually. Additional logic has been added to the source code. With this update, ftp has an internal timeout set to 30 seconds. If there is no answer from the server when this time has passed, ftp will now gracefully time out and not hang up.