[news.eclipse.technology.ecf] Re: access p2 via ftp repository

[Scott Lewis <slewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Laurent, and Luzi,

Actually all p2 questions around transport come to ECF eventually 
anyway, so this is an appropriate place for this question.  P2 works as 
well (I monitor the p2-dev mailing list quite closely), but this is more 
direct.

WRT to ftp support.  In Eclipse 3.5, ECF filetransfer uses the JRE's 
underlying support for ftp...and since p2 uses ECF filetransfer, right 
now you can use URLs of the form:

ftp://<host>/path/file

for repository URLs/URIs.  Now, because the JRE's ftp implementation 
does not have great/any support for authentication (i.e. it assumes 
anonymous access), this ftp implementation will not work for your use case.

Up to now, we/ECF have not had a request specifically to add support for 
another FTP provider (e.g. one based upon the apache networking ftp 
client for example...which does indeed have support for authentication, 
and is also available in the Eclipse Orbit project as a bundle).

But it would be a relatively easy thing to create technically (given the 
existing ECF providers and that the apache ftp implementation is readily 
available).

For reference, ECF does have a general authentication API that is used 
by p2 to display a user interface for username/password at connect time. 
 So nothing would need be done to create a user interface for entry of 
the authentication information (i.e. you can/could reuse what is already 
there in p2 in Eclipse).

So the answer is for full ftp support a new ECF filetransfer provider 
would have to be created (e.g. based upon apache ftp client).  BUT, the 
good news about this is that it is quite easy to do, and I and/or other 
ECF community members would be able and most willing to provide some 
support for doing it...especially if once it was created it was 
contributed back to the ECF project.

If a contract relationship is desired to provide this then that could 
also easily be arranged.

Thanks,

Scott

Laurent Marchal wrote:
> The good newsgroup for questions about p2 is eclipse.technology.equinox, 
> you should post there.
>
> I am not 100% sure of this answer, but p2 handles URLs and should work 
> with ftp servers. I don't know if p2 handle asking the authentication.
>
> Laurent Marchal.
>
> Luzi Anderegg a écrit :
> > Hi,
> > I'm not sure whether this is the correct newsgroup for this question. 
> > As I think p2 uses ECF undercover for this functionality, I hope that 
> > this is the correct place.
> >
> > I'm building a standard p2-enabled rcp application with the p2 ui, and
> > I would like to add a p2 repository accessible by ftp. Ideally, the 
> > user should be prompted to enter username and password. Alternatively, 
> > it would be also ok to have a dialog in a menu to enter username and 
> > password. Is this scenario currently supported? If yes, how should the 
> > URI look like in the available site dialog?
> >
> > Thanks.
> > Luzi