FrontPage and apache 2.0

[Tina Marie]

I run a server for myself and a dozen or so friends, apache 2.0.something on
RHEL4. Recently, I picked up a new user, who wants to update his website via
FrontPage.

No big deal, I thought. I'll just install FrontPage extensions for Apache.
Well, they're not available anymore, and the ones still floating around the
net have known security hole.

No big deal, I though. I'll just have him upload via FTP, since what he has
is just a series of linked text files, really, nothing that requires Server
Extensions to render. I'm not that lucky. I get this error message when he
tries to upload:
"This FTP server doesn't support folder names that contain spaces. Rename
the source web's folder corresponding to "Test Stuff" and any other folders
that have spaces in their names, and try again".

Except I run that FTP server, and there's certainly no reason why it doesn't
support folder names that contain spaces. To test, I used a standard FTP
client, and created a folder with spaces in it, put files in it, and it all
worked perfectly.

I thought maybe FrontPage was doing something odd with the syntax, so I
logged the entire conversation from the server (IP addresses removed):
<date> [pid 31603] CONNECT: Client "<client ip>"
<date> [pid 31603] FTP response: Client "<client ip>", "220 Welcome to
tinasserver.com."
<date> [pid 31603] FTP command: Client "<client ip>", "USER tina"
<date> [pid 31603] [tina] FTP response: Client "<client ip>", "331 Please
specify the password."
<date> [pid 31603] [tina] FTP command: Client "<client ip>", "PASS <password>"
<date> [pid 31602] [tina] OK LOGIN: Client "<client ip>"
<date> [pid 31604] [tina] FTP response: Client "<client ip>", "230 Login
successful."
<date> [pid 31604] [tina] FTP command: Client "<client ip>", "CWD www"
<date> [pid 31604] [tina] FTP response: Client "<client ip>", "250 Directory
successfully changed."

There's no attempt by FrontPage to create a directory with a space in it.
There's no attempt to do _anything_. There's certainly no error message
being returned.

So why is it telling me it can't create a directory with a space on my FTP
server? Is there a way to fix it? At this point, I'm willing to try pretty
much anything short of installing IIS, up to and including installing a
different FTP server, if that will work.

Any advice? Please?

Tina Marie

 

[Ronx]

Best advice is to tell your client to remove spaces from all folder and
file names. Spaces are not recommended by w3c, and do tend to break
links in some browsers.

 

[Tom Miller]

....

Best advice is to tell your client to remove spaces from all folder and
file names. Spaces are not recommended by w3c, and do tend to break
links in some browsers.

I think I remember some discussions about when you convert from IIS to
Unix/Linux you have to limit the length of the folder names and you have to
limit them to letters, dashes, underscores and numbers. Because Unix/Linux
is case sensitive it is a VERY good idea to make sure all your files are
also lower case only.

Another thing that might be relavant is the FP user needs to setup his/her
development subdirectories so they exactly mirror the structure on your
server. This will keep the paths straight.