Admin tool
Standalone version
F4A now features an admin port, that is a port for an admin tool (GUI) to connect to.
The admin tool (GUI) has then control over the server via the FTP4ALL DAEMON PROTOCOL
(F4ADP). Check out the admin tool I created, it is Java based and therefor runs
under Win & UNIX. I created it under Win using a Java development tool based
on Suns JDK 1.1.x.
You need to set the following option in the registry:
- adminport <port_number> (port number of admin service)
To run it, get and install Suns JDK 1.1.6 (or later). Be sure to include the
current working directory (.) in the CLASSPATH environment variable.
Then go to the classes subdir and type java Main. After that, connect
to the server on the admin port you specified in the config file
(dont use the FTP service port !!!). To login use a valid superuser account.
The GUI works well under Windows with JDK 1.1.6 and under Linux with
Blackdowns JDK 1.1.7p3 port.
The GUI is now the primary tool for administering f4a. Although the
SITE commands still work, I do not guarantee that future features will be
accessible with these commands. For now, there is already one feature that
cannot be accessed with the GUI only: the user permissions.
Web version
The web version will run in new web browsers (recent 4.x versions of
Netscape&MSIE or later). It can be loaded over web from a web server.
Installation
Install and run a web server on the same machine as your FTP4ALL site. Then
unpack the archive in a directory under the document root of the web server
(directory often named htdocs).
Calling the GUI
Start your browser and load the index.html file from the directory you
unpacked the archive to. Be sure to load it over HTTP (e.g.
http://your.host.com/f4agui/index.html) and not with the FILE method
(e.g. file:/usr/local/httpd/htdocs/f4agui/index.html)
Client requirements
Web browsers must have a 1.1.x based java engine, java enabled and capable
of unpacking jar-archives. Therefore, you need a recent 4.x release of
Netscape or MSIE.
So far, I tested this version only with Netscape 4.51 (Linux version).
Restrictions
There is one security restriction in java that causes problems. This restriction
is that java applets may establish TCP connections only to the originating host.
This is the host that the applet was loaded from. Therefore, you must run
the web server on the same machine as your FTP site. And therefore, you cannot
not load the GUI with the FILE method, but only over HTTP.
The mechanism for detecting the originating host is kind of odd. The java
runtime system seems to take it from the URL or from the HTTP reply that the
server sends. So when you typed the name of the server in the URL, you cannot
use the IP address when connecting to the FTP server, because the name and the
IP are not the same.
Also it is not possible for the GUI to save the list of connected servers and
the window sizes and positions. So when you quit the GUI and run it again later
all this information is lost.
Known Bugs
Closing the About dialog, sometimes quits the whole browser. Just don't use
the About dialog.