gFTP README
-----------

[Requirements]

* GTK+ 1.2.3 or higher. GTK+/Glib is included with most systems now. If you 
  don't have it installed, you may want to check to see if your vendor has a 
  package available. If not, you can download the latest version of GTK+ and 
  Glib from ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk. gFTP will work with either version 1.2 
  or 2.0 of GTK+, but I would recommend using GTK+ 2.0.
* pthread libraries. Most systems already satisfy this requirement. If you are
  on a platform other than Linux, you may want to take a look at the FSU 
  Pthreads library at http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~mueller/pthreads.

[Installation Instructions]

* If you do not want to compile gFTP yourself, you can check my webpage. I have
  DEBs for Debian and RPMs for RedHat available. If you're looking for Solaris
  binaries, check out http://www.sunfreeware.com.
* If you are compiling gFTP yourself, extract the files from the distribution 
  with tar -zxvf gftp-<version>.tar.gz
* Go to the gftp-<version> directory and type 
	
	./configure
	make

  The configure script will generate a Makefile for your machine, and make
  will compile a binary for your machine. By default, when you run
  configure, it will install gFTP with the prefix /usr/local, so the gFTP
  binary will be /usr/local/bin/gftp. You can change this by typing 
  configure --prefix=/usr, and it will then install the gFTP binary to
  /usr/bin/gftp.
* If the compile suceeds without any errors, you can type make install to 
  install the binary. This will also copy some necessary
  files to <install prefix>/share/gftp. If you do not have root on your 
  machine to install these files, copy the contents of the docs/sample.gftp/ 
  directory to ~/.gftp.
* You may want to glance at the USERS-GUIDE file that comes with this
  distribution. It contains a little bit of information about how to use it.

[Frequently Asked Questions]

Here is a list of frequently asked questions about gFTP. You can always find
the latest version of this FAQ on my website.

*******************************************************************************

Q: What systems is gFTP known to run on?

A: I develop gFTP on a Debian GNU/Linux machine. Here is a list of other 
   platforms I have received successful compile reports: 

     * FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/BSDI
     * Solaris 
     * IRIX
     * Digital UNIX
     * HP/UX 11

   If gFTP compiles and runs on a platform not listed here, please email me 
   about it and I'll add it to this list. If you are having problems compiling 
   GTK+ or gFTP on another platform, try using GNU make instead of your vendor 
   supplied make.

*******************************************************************************

Q: I'm having problems getting SSH2 transfers to work. I keep getting the error:
   Error: Message size XXXXXXXX too big from server

A: What probably is the problem, sftp-server isn't in your path on the remote
   server. When you try to connect to the remote server, you'll see the command
   gFTP is trying to run, and it'll look something like:

   ssh -e none -l username hostname "echo -n xsftp ;  sftp-server"

   Try running this command. If you get a prompt asking:

   The authenticity of host 'hostname (###.###.###.###)' can't be established.
   RSA key fingerprint is xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
   Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

   Tell it yes. gFTP won't even try to answer this question for you at the
   moment. Then, if you get the following output:

   Enter passphrase for key '/home/brian/.ssh/id_dsa':
   xsftp
   bash: sftp-server: command not found

   You'll have to set the path to the sftp-server program. Alternatively you 
   could go under FTP->Options->SSH and enable Use sftp subsys. If you enable
   this, then you don't have to know the remote path to your sftp executable.
   But if you enable this, gFTP won't be able to send your password over to
   the ssh client. So if you're not using ssh-agent, then ssh will spawn the
   ssh-askpass program to grab your password.

*******************************************************************************

Q: How do I force running the text or gtk+ version of gFTP?

A: To run the text port, you can type gftp-text or to run the gtk+ port, you
   can run the gftp-gtk. The gftp command is just a shell script that checks
   if your DISPLAY variable is set, and if so it'll run the appropriate version.

*******************************************************************************

Q: Is there a way for gFTP to download a bunch of files/directories and then
   exit when it's completed?

A: Yes, the text port of gFTP supports this well. You can type:

   gftp-text -d ftp://ftp.somesite.com/someplace

   If someplace is a directory, it'll automatically download all of its 
   subdirectories as well. If you want to transfer a file through ssh instead 
   of ftp, just change the ftp:// to ssh://.

*******************************************************************************

Q: In the GTK+ version of gFTP, do I have to enter a port, username and password
   to connect to a ftp server?

A: No you don't. If you leave the port blank, it'll default to the default port
   for the protocol you selected (port 21 for FTP). If you leave the username
   blank, it will default to logging in as anonymous.

*******************************************************************************

Q: How do I set up my HTTP Proxy server?

A: Go under FTP->Options and hit the FTP tab. Enter HTTP as the proxy type
   and fill in your proxy server info on that screen. Then hit the HTTP tab
   and enter your same proxy server info there.

*******************************************************************************

Q: When gFTP tries to get the remote directory listing, the remote server 
   complains about either the -a or -L argument to LIST.

A: If the server is complaining about the -L option, go under FTP->Options->FTP
   and disable resolve remote symlinks. If it is complaining about the -a
   option, go to FTP->Options->General and disable show hidden files.

*******************************************************************************

Q: When gFTP tries to get the remote directory listing, I receive the error:
   Cannot create a data connection: Connection refused

A: Go under FTP->Options and turn off passive file transfers. Instead of 
   sending the PASV command to open up the data connection on the server side,
   the data connection will be opened up on the client side, and the PORT
   command will be sent to the server instead.

*******************************************************************************

Q: When I try to compile gFTP, I get some errors. One of them is undefined
   symbol LC_ALL.

A: Try running make distclean ; configure --with-included-gettext. You could 
   alternatively pass --disable-nls to configure, and internationalization
   support will not be compiled in.

*******************************************************************************

Q: How do I report bugs in gFTP?

A: If you find ANY bugs in gFTP, please check to make sure that you are using
   the latest version of gFTP. If you are, please submit all bug reports to
   GNOME's Bugzilla. When sending in bug reports, please try to be as 
   descriptive as possible. Send me what OS/version you are running, what 
   compiler you are compiling with, and any other important information. If
   you get gFTP to crash, it would be very helpful if you could send me a 
   backtrace. If you do not know how to do a backtrace, download the source
   code from my website. Edit the Makefile, and make sure that -g appear in 
   the CFLAGS variable. Then recompile gFTP, but do NOT do a make install 
   because it will install a stripped binary in $PREFIX/bin. Then type 
   gdb ./gftp. Once you have a (gdb) prompt, type r. When gFTP crashes, 
   go back to that terminal window, and type bt, and put that output in the
   bug that you file with bugzilla.

   I also have a gftp-users mailinglist setup. I have a link to the archives
   on my main webpage.

*******************************************************************************

Q: Where does gFTP store it's options?

A: gFTP will automatically create a ~/.gftp directory when it is first run.
   Your config file is ~/.gftp/gftprc, and this is where all of gFTP's
   settings are stored. The config file is well commented, so take a glance
   at it and see if there is anything you want to change. Your bookmarks are
   stored in the file ~/.gftp/bookmarks

*******************************************************************************

Q: I am trying to compile your program and I get some parse errors before
   GdkDragContext. What's wrong?

A: You have an older version of gtk installed on your system. If you are
   using Red Hat or Debian Linux, simply remove the gtk and glib devel
   packages. You can still leave the gtk 1.0 libraries installed.

*******************************************************************************

Q: I am having a hard time using the drag and drop in gFTP. How do I use it?

A: To drag from the file listboxes in gFTP, you have to drag with button #3.
   On a two button mouse, you have to hold down both buttons. For this to work
   tho, you have to edit your XF86Config file, and go to the Pointer section.
   You have to make sure Emulate3Buttons is in there. Here's the section out of
   my config file:

   Section "Pointer"
      Protocol        "PS/2"             # This will depend on your mouse
      Device          "/dev/mouse"       # This will also depend on your mouse
      Emulate3Buttons                    # You need this for a 2 button mouse
   EndSection

*******************************************************************************

Q: I have a libc 5 based machine and everytime I run gFTP it instantly crashes. 
   I get an error something like: Gdk-ERROR **: an x io error occurred 
   What's wrong?

A: Your X libraries are not thread safe. They must be compiled with 
   -D_REENTRANT. You can either recompile your X libraries, or you can
   download some from my webpage at
   http://www.gftp.org/XFree86-libs-3.3-2_threading.i386.tgz


Brian Masney <masneyb@gftp.org> 
gFTP Official Webpage - http://www.gftp.org/

