Jack De Winter writes:
Well, seeing as we are supposed to be writing software so that people
can use it, and there is and was a need to support transient connections
that wanted SMTP access, I dont think 'absurd' should be applied to ETRN.
ETRN is very badly engineered. The fact that it works for some people
doesn't mean that it's cost-effective.
Putting ETRN on port 25 made it unnecessarily difficult to implement.
The same function can be (and normally is) achieved through a separate
TCP port---with a much simpler syntax, and a much simpler server that is
implemented separately from the SMTP server. In the long run, merging
ETRN with SMTP slows down the evolution of both services.
However, seeing as everytime I have tried to check one of Dan's web pages
(with the plethora of information that is supposed to be stored there) and
I get an extended error and no web pages back from the server, I really
dont put much faith in those opinions.
Perhaps you should try Netscape, instead of a second-rate browser that
doesn't understand how to use the standard FTP commands.
---Dan
Smaller, faster, safer than inetd+tcpd. http://pobox.com/~djb/ucspi-tcp.html