[tex-live] tlmgr ftp issues?

Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard mpg at elzevir.fr
Thu May 20 11:03:40 CEST 2010


Le 20/05/2010 10:52, Norbert Preining a écrit :
> Yes, your analysis seems right. By default tlmgr now tries to set
> up a persisten connection using LWP, which in turn (AFAIR) uses
> Net::FTP, so could you please try setting 
> 	FTP_PASSIVE=1
> in the environment (and expoerting it) and retrying. If that works
> we could make that an option to tlmgr, or just document that you
> should set the env var if your firewall disables active ftp.
> 
Why not just make it the default? What would be the problem with making passive
ftp the default?

>> If that's a correct diagnosis, then I think tlmgr should be changed so  
>> it uses passive ftp by default (or at least has a configuration option  
>> to do so), since I suspect that traditional ftp (active ftp?) will work 
>> only in a vanishingly small number of cases nowadays.
> 
> I disagree, it is a bit strange that the firewall disables all high ports
> incoming, but well, policies differ.
> 
My experience converges with Tim's: I'm not sure I ever encountered a
system/network allowing traditional ftp (on the client side). It seems to me
that passive FTP is kinda the standard now (or at least the more likely to work).

Manuel.

PS: according to wikipedia: "By default, most web browsers use passive (PASV)
mode, which more easily traverses end-user firewalls." Sure, tlmgr is not a web
browser, but it is in the same situation wrt end-user firewalls (and/or NAT boxes).


More information about the tex-live mailing list