RFC 1415 (rfc1415) - Page 3 of 58

FTP-FTAM Gateway Specification

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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RFC 1415             FTP-FTAM Gateway Specification         January 1993


   have quite different command structures, the mappings between them
   are not one-to-one.  This paper assumes knowledge of the File
   Transfer Protocol (FTP) [RFC 959] and the File Transfer, Access, and
   Management Protocol (FTAM) [ISO8571-1,2,3,4,5].

   Two important goals of the mappings are to:

      Provide FTP users with as much emulated FTP capability on an
      FTAM Responder as possible, and

      Provide FTAM users with as much emulated FTAM capability on an
      FTP Server as possible.

   Though it is anticipated that the application layer gateway will be
   implemented on full protocol suites of both TCP/IP and OSI, at least
   one implementation of such a gateway (included in the ISO Development
   Environment) can be configured to operate FTAM over either OSI or
   TCP/IP lower-layer services.

1.1. Relationship to Other Work

   Ideas presented in this specification are based on lessons learned in
   fielding the gateway on the MILNET, operational at NCTS Washington
   D.C. since 1989, and on the efforts of M. A. Wallace et al. of the
   National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) [NIST86].  In
   1986, NIST published a design document for an FTP-FTAM gateway.
   Since that time, at least one implementation (for a subset of the FTP
   and FTAM protocols) of the gateway has been developed [MITRE87] and
   is included with the ISODE.  This implementation is based on the NIST
   protocol translator gateway design [NIST86].

   This document's contribution to the advancement of the FTP-FTAM
   gateway concept is to:

      *  Enhance the user interaction capability provided by the ISODE
         implementation of the FTP-FTAM application layer gateway.

      *  Clarify and enhance the mappings (FTP to FTAM, FTAM to FTP)
         documented by NIST.

      *  Provide guidelines for fielding the FTP-FTAM application layer
         gateway on the Internet so that it is useful as an Internet
         resource.

      *  Produce a formal specification for the FTP-FTAM gateway suitable
         for implementors to use in building additional FTP-FTAM
         gateways.




Mindel & Slaski
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