On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 9:44 AM, J.C. Roberts <list-...@designtools.org>
wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:02:19 +0100 Jan Stary <h...@stare.cz> wrote:
>
>> Anyway, what really is the purpose of index.txt being there then?
>> To tell the times and sizes?
>
> To break scripts? ;)
>
> To put it bluntly, index.txt seems pointless, or more likely, there is
> some super double secret reason for it to still exist that I simply
> don't know...
>
> My only *GUESS* is, some mirrors are HTTP, but due to brainless
> accountants mindlessly running "security auditing tools," they forbid
> real directory listings, and are configured to only return an existing
> "/index.*" file to the useragent.
>
> Hopefully, someone who actually has a clue (not me) will chime in with
> the real reason why index.txt exists.
>
> jcr
>
Actually the installer uses it to make a list of file sets to present
to the user.
If it isn't there then no sets are presented.
>From src/distrib/miniroot/install.sub:
# Get list of files from the server.
if [[ $_url_type == ftp && -z $ftp_proxy ]] ; then
_file_list=$(ftp $FTPOPTS "$_url_base/")
ftp_error "Login failed." "$_file_list" && return
ftp_error "No such file or directory." "$_file_list" && return
else
# Assumes index file is "index.txt" for http (or proxy)
# We can't use index.html since the format is server-dependent
_file_list=$(ftp $FTPOPTS -o - "$_url_base/index.txt" | \
sed -e 's/^.* //' | sed -e 's/
//')
fi
-N
