Subject: Re: Batch Telnet (Re: diskless and 3Com 509)
To: Charles M. Hannum <mycroft@ai.mit.edu>
From: Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu>
List: tech-net
Date: 03/17/1995 13:02:16
> The message returned is "Connection closed by remote host.", not
> "Connection closed."
>
> And you actually believed that message? It's wrong.
Yep; silly me, it appears. 8-).
> Not at all. If you actually look at the packets on the wire, you'll
> see:
>
> 1) The client sends a FIN.
>
> 2) The server sends some data.
>
> 3) The client responds to the data with a RST.
>
> tcpdump(8) leaves no doubt that the problem, if any, is in the client.
>
> Actually, I misspoke about TCP. The client can close the write side
> by sending a FIN. However, the telnet client is currently closing
> both sides of the connection when it gets an EOF on stdin. This is
> really easy to fix. In fact, I just did it.
Charles wins the prize; apparently, I was misled by the message and
foolishly believed telnet was describing the situation.
I see a problem with the fix, however, in that an attempt to disconnect
a telnet client from a remote server that has gone away may fail
unless the fix was made to only apply to EOF on input instead of
applying to both EOF on input and <escape><close>. I think you still
want <escape><close> to cause the client program to exit immediately.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.