On Tuesday, December 06, 2005 01:58:25 PM -0500 Richard Whalen <Whalenr%process.com@localhost> wrote:I think that the filexfer extensions draft should be a working group item and should remain a separate draft. I suggested that the extensions be a separate item so that the filexfer draft could stabilize and proceed without the interference of new extensions being added.I'm not sure if I care whether all the extensions work happens. I certainly don't object to it. But like Richard, I think it should remain a separate draft.It seems like every time I turn around, someone is suggesting adding yet another complex feature to SFTP. Often the argument is "when applications do XXX to a file in the filesystem, they need semantics YYY, so we should make sure sftp can provide those semantics".I'm sorry, but I guess I was under the impression that SFTP was intended to be a "Secure File Transfer Protocol", not a network filesystem. Filesystems are fun, but they're also hugely complex and, I dare say, not within the charter of the Secure Shell working group.Can we _please_ finish a standards-track _File Transfer_ protocol before we spend any more time specifying a complete filesystem?
I too would like to see it finished. Having said that, I've never been convinced that SFTP was a Secure File Transfer Protocol... it doesn't even have PUT and GET like FTP. Because one must use read and write, it is harder than it should be to implement simple transfers where both sides are 100% sure that a whole file has been transferred (as opposed to part of a file). --Jeff