FTP & Finder

Pengu

Pengu

Digital Music Pimp
Um.. From the title it probably doesn't sound like this is UNIX based, but it is really. I found out not long ago that if you type an ftp:// address into Safari, it will actually open the address as a mounted volume using /System/Library/Filesystems/ftp.fs/csmount -m ftp://ftp.servernamehere.com

Now. I have a weird ftp account, because the username is actually a complete email address:
quackingpenguins@bigredrobot.com

Anyways. whenever i've managed to mount the volume using either the Finder "Connect To Server..." command or the above mentioned command (i found it in a console log :D) I have a few problems.

One) I always seem to have only read access, which defeats the purpose somewhat. This could be due to the username situation, which I am trying to remedy..

Two) It always comes up with errors, such as:
Code: 
execstring: /System/Library/Filesystems/ftp.fs/csmount -m /Volumes/bigredrobot.com [url]ftp://quackingpenguins@bigredrobot.com:XXXXX@bigredrobot.com[/url]
no worky! domain:5, error530
2003-02-06 05:41:14.791 csmount[491] CFLog (20): Authentication:  Enter username and password
Feb  6 05:41:50 G4 csmount[491]: getattr for non-existent file handle 0x98765432 0x2
or the worst of all: When I tried to connect twice previously, everything went haywire. The volumme mounted, the finder crashed, relaunched, and was un-responsive. I tried to kill it from the Dock 3 times. nothing. I got the "Force Quit..." window open, and nearly cried. There were 4 yes, read FOUR instances of the Finder, 3 of which were shown in red (that's bad right..??) as well as all the other apps running.. Interarchy, iTunes, Safari, Chimera, Console & GyazMail (gotta love it :D)
As I was forcing myself not to pour liquid nitrogen in the vents of the tower to stop it from melting, i saw Interarchy, Safari, iTunes, GyazMail, Chimera and eventually Console all become red. I'm sure there was still one instance of the Finder still in black though... anyways. Nothing was happening. I started clicking the Force Quit button. Interarchy. iTunes. GyazMail. Safari. Chimera. Console. etc. etc. Nothing. iTunes even kept playing music :eek:
I decided that no amount of wishing was going to save my 3 days uptime and 63 hours connected (via dialup) :D so I pressed the reset button. I turned on ftp sharing and tried to connect to MYSELF. Froze again. Tried to connect to bigredrobot again, using various methods. It worked, sorta.

Anyways. The whole point is. I wanna know if there is a command line tool that will mount an ftp share as a local directory (in /Volumes obviously)??

Cheers
 
The Finder only has read access to mounted FTP volumes right now. This feature is pretty new, so it's no surprise that it's very buggy.
 
Try using Transmit. Or, just use ftp or ncftp in the console. And, don't use the built in ftpd. Use pure-ftpd (my fave) or proftpd.
 
Ok.
I tried to connect to myself to test it. And I was already using Transmit. I just wanted to try the Finder :D
 
Yeah - I've just had similar 'fun' with Finder FTP. Got my first full system crash for over a year (boo hoo!) and my first at all on my iBook. Bah!

Read only is a big limitation too isn't it?

Will be quite cool when it works properly and allows read/right access.

Until then I think they should have delayed it myself - it's the first time I've looked at my Mac as if it was a Windows machine.
 
This was one of the first Feature Request I sent to Apple when I got my hands on the 10.0.0 Public Beta...

My gut feeling is that they are NOT even working on this... They hacked together this read-only thing and then forgot all about it.
 
Sad, isnt it. I'd put it up there as a more important component then iDisk or TCP File Sharing. Having Rendevous is a good step, at least now I can get into windows shares around me now, but FTP should be a next step, with a higher priority than Safari.
 
Just as a kind of update to this I've been testing FTP in the Finder with every update of the OS, 10.2.5, while still buggy, does work the best. I can now access several FTP servers that I was unable to even mount before.

Still "Read Only" on access level, but for me this is an improvement. Perhaps this means they are actually working on it.

But, I'm with you TommyWillB, I think they may have shelved (or even forgot) about FTP in the finder. I myslef would see this as an invaluable feature.
 
They should fix the crashing bug when you try to mount your own ftp server, though. That one bit me hard when I tried it. Everything froze - couldn't even bring up the force quit menu like Pengu did.
 
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