FTP Download

[Thom Little]

Recent events have shown me that HTTP file downloads can be very unreliable
while FTP downloads remain rock solid.

In HTML I can provide a link on a page that starts an FTP download from
another server.

ASP.NET restricts me to providing a file from the current webspace and not
higher in the directory tree than my current location.

Is there a technique in ASP.NET that would allow me to start a download from
an FTP server under program control?

.... Thom
__________________________________________________ _
Thom Little - www.tlanet.net - Thom Little Associates, Ltd.

[George]

"Thom Little" <th**@tlanet.netwrote in message
news:uN****************@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

Recent events have shown me that HTTP file downloads can be very
unreliable
while FTP downloads remain rock solid.

In HTML I can provide a link on a page that starts an FTP download from
another server.

ASP.NET restricts me to providing a file from the current webspace and not
higher in the directory tree than my current location.

Is there a technique in ASP.NET that would allow me to start a download
from
an FTP server under program control?

... Thom
__________________________________________________ _
Thom Little - www.tlanet.net - Thom Little Associates, Ltd.

1. Never heard of ASP.NET restricting you in providing links. Just do it as
you would do in HTML
<a href="blablalba?id=<%=id%>">My Link</ASomething like that. No need to
make a server control out of it.

2. What exactly do you mean by "start a download under program control"?

I think it would be best to say what you are trying to do....

George.

[Thom Little]

This is a public software distribution capability. It needs to do some user
processing and then the user can choose one of two packages to download.

If it is HTTP then I use MapPath to define the location of the file on the
local server. It is limited to the local webspace and does not permit you
to use a reference like "../".

An example program is ... www.tlanet.net/support

I would like to reference a file on an FTP server.
.... Thom
__________________________________________________ _
Thom Little - www.tlanet.net - Thom Little Associates, Ltd.

[=?Utf-8?B?YnJ1Y2UgYmFya2Vy?=]

as MapPath converts an IIS virtual web path to a phyical path, it on only
work on those. you just want to do a response rediect to the ftp path
ftp:://server/path

if you are using the browser to ftp download, there is no reason for it to
be more reliable, as there is little difference in the protocols (just a
tcp/ip stream)
-- bruce (sqlwork.com)
"Thom Little" wrote:

This is a public software distribution capability. It needs to do some user
processing and then the user can choose one of two packages to download.

If it is HTTP then I use MapPath to define the location of the file on the
local server. It is limited to the local webspace and does not permit you
to use a reference like "../".

An example program is ... www.tlanet.net/support

I would like to reference a file on an FTP server.
.... Thom
__________________________________________________ _
Thom Little - www.tlanet.net - Thom Little Associates, Ltd.

[Thom Little]

Control ...

Your suggestion is very interesting and I had been overlooking it because I
wanted control to return to my .NET program after the file was downloaded.
In the sample at www.tlanet.net/support you can download both files from the
same invocation of the program.

Any suggestions?

HTTP vs. FTP Reliability ...

I had a problem for about three weeks when downloading files from
California, Great Britain, and North Carolina. If they were moderately
large files downloaded from an HTTP link they would fail at sometime during
the download or contain garbage when used. If they were downloaded from an
FTP link they would always succeed.

I suspected a router problem (Netgear 3500) and replaced it with a like
router and got the same result.

My provider sent a repair person who directly connected a machine he brought
with him to their existing modem when he visited my office.

It would fail if I used the router. It would not fail if I was directly
connected to their modem from my machine or the machine he brought with him.

I found that when using the router if I reduced the MTU (Maximum Transmit
Unit) size from 1500 to 1000 that a lot of the files would transfer
correctly. A 600MB file still failed.

About 12 hours latter my provider corrected some massive network problem (on
their side of their modem) and I rest the MTU size to 1500 and have been
running that way ever since. (I tested it by downloading all the files I
couldn't download over the previous three weeks three times each and
verified that they were correct.)

This instilled in me a strong desire to try providing my software from an
FTP link so my customers would never get to spend the exciting three weeks I
did on this absurd situation.

.... Thom
__________________________________________________ _
Thom Little - www.tlanet.net - Thom Little Associates, Ltd.

[Thom Little]

Rsponse.Redirect is EXACTLY the lead I needed. It is one of those things
you have to see before it finally "sinks in".

Thanks for the help.

.... Thom
__________________________________________________ _
Thom Little - www.tlanet.net - Thom Little Associates, Ltd.