Feature Request - Improved Site Import/Export Functionality

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:37 pm

In the very near future, my intention is to have CoreFtp running on a bunch of different servers. We have a minimum of 50 different connections (Sites) and are adding new ones quite frequently.

Is there any way that the Servers could share the Site entries?

If there isn't a way for them to share, then would it be possibly for you to please either add the ability to delete all of the Sites at once from Site Manager (before Import) and/or the ability to export a single Site?

I can see benefits to both of these options for Site maintenance.

I could then just keep a master copy on one server of export file(s) and easily import them to the other servers when adding new connections.

Thanks, Dave

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 7:07 pm

I have also encountered one tiny bug in the Export/Import functionality.

I have a mainframe Site that I exported from one server to another, and on the master server in Advanced Site Settings under Script/Cmds I have 2 lines in the Post login commands box. The are:

cwd ..
cwd edip.ftp

After Importing the Site to the other server, the second line is lost. Only the cwd .. was carried over.

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 7:41 pm

Does this take the Pro version?

When I go to into the Data option all of the entries are disabled (grayed out) except the Lock Settings has been checked on. If I try to Uncheck the Lock Settings a password dialog comes up.

Is it installed that way by default with the Lite version?

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 7:57 pm

I installed the trial version of CoreFtp Pro on another machine, and the Global Settings "Data" Options are all disabled (grayed out) on that machine as well with the Lock Settings box Checked On.

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:01 pm

Thanks! I got past the Lock.

This is going to be one great product!

I love how flexible it is already. Keep up the great work!

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 2:49 pm

The shared network Site profile kind of works, but still seems quite buggy. If you add a Site on one computer, shut down CoreFtp and then launch CoreFtp on a second computer, it doesn't recognize the new Site that was just setup. If you create a new Site from the second computer and shut it down and launch CoreFtp back on the original computer, it recognizes the Site that it previously setup but not the one that the second computer created. The same thing happens on the second computer, it recognizes the Site that is previously setup, but not the one the first computer created. There must still be some inner dependency in place yet where they are not sharing the network Site profile 100%. I also had a problem with the initial Sites that were imported getting duplicated or what I would call ghost duplicates. What I mean by "ghost duplicate" is that you would see 2 duplicate Sites, but if you would delete one of them the second one would be grayed out and if you then closed down CoreFtp & re-launched it they both would be gone. I know that both computers were both attached to the same physical coreftp.cfg file because the datetime attribute would get updated when each instance was closed. I also only had one instance of Coreftp up at one time as to not intentionally cause any conflicts.

I think for now, I'll try using a local Site profile on each computer. I'll have our team only create new Sites from one specific (master) computer, and then simply create a batch file to copy the master Site profile (coreftp.cfg) over to the other computers. Do you think that will work? Perhaps this method would be easier for maintenance than using the registry and doing an export on the master computer and having to physically connect to every other computer to manually do the import?

Any advise?

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:16 pm

Actually neither one of the options you meantioned worked, buy maybe I should explain the setup scenario that I'm attempting to pull off. I only installed CoreFtp.exe on one server within a Shared directory. On two other servers I have just created short-cuts on their desktops pointing to CoreFtp.exe on the master server. The program runs fine on each individual server, but certainly runs into conflicts when trying to use the shared Sites Profile.

Is there a reason that this type of setup wouldn't work, or do I just need to wait for the new version to become available at the end of day today?

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 8:56 pm

I've got all copies (short-cuts) pointed to (using) the same coreftp.cfg & sites.idx files within the shared directory. One weird thing I'm encountering is that everytime Site Manager is opened up, a new Site called "New Site" is added to the list. Have you seen that one before?

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:36 pm

It brings up all the connections (unless you cache them somewhere else) and it must be able to access it, as everytime I open CoreFtp & close it again, it writes out one or more instance(s) of the "New Site" to the coreftp.cfg file. It doesn't get displayed again however from within Site Manager if I had removed them prior from within Site Manager. Must be something to do with how the coreftp.cfg file & the sites.idx files are working together? I guess the point I'm trying to make is that he coreftp.cfg file continues to grow & grow even though it is just the bogus "New Site" connections that are being added to it.

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 2:02 am

Sounds great! I can't wait for the next build.

I've signed up to be notified of new builds/updates, so I guess that should be about it until the next version.

Thanks so much for all your time and consideration.

I know that this is the product I'm going to be pushing for our team to adopt. I'm excited to get it setup and working in our production environment.

Thanks again, Dave

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 4:29 pm

Oh no! I'm having a bunch of problems with build 1382.

OK, just to recap my setup. I have the real copy of coreftp installed on what I call the master server (edisrv05) and on my secondary servers I just have short-cuts. All instances (real copy & short-cuts) have their data options set with the following configuration:

"Use the following configuration file"
\\edisrv05\support$\serverapps\prod\coreftp\coreftp.cfg

"Specify data storage directory"
\\edisrv05\support$\serverapps\prod\coreftp\

The worst problem by far is now when I go to launch my coreftp.exe (short-cut) from my secondary server(s) it takes 30 seconds just for the splash screen to come up. To make sure it wasn't just a network problem, I created a short-cut pointing to the old copy in the \BACKUP folder over on the master server and sure enough it launched in less than 1 second.

The second problem I'm having (from the secondary server only) is whenever I bring up Site Manager an additional "New Site" is created. If you bring up & shut down Site Manager 10 times, you will get 10 new "New Site" sites. Then no matter if you deleted them out of Site Manager or not, they get added to the coreftp.cfg file over on the master server. I would think that this could eventually lead to a significant slowdown problem over time if the coreftp.cfg file grows by 1 KB every time Site Manager is brought up?

The third problem that I'm experiencing again revolves around Site Manager. I have a "mainframe" Site created and under the Advanced Site Settings - Script/Cmds - Post login commands I have 2 cwd commands. Here is how they look when I create them.

cwd ..
cwd edip.ftp

The last line of these two is not getting written out to the coreftp.cfg file, so when I relaunch coreftp.exe the only thing that shows up in the Post login commands box is:

cwd..

A forth problem that I somehow just encountered is that I corrupted the sites.idx file (it's now empty 0 bytes) and I can't seem to get it rebuilt with what's in the coreftp.cfg file.

Do you think I should just abandon the way I have things setup and go with some other alternative? Possibly installing local copies on each machine. Keeping one machine dedicated as having the master copy of the Sites (coreftp.cfg & sites.idx files) and somehow come up with a way to programatically keep the secondary copies in sync?

Do you have any advice or suggestions on how I should configure the applications & settings for the way I want Coreftp to work in our environment?

Any advice at this point would be greatly appreciated.

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:01 pm

I have attempted to keep them all the same, however I missed the CoreFtp registry settings residing in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. I was previously only looking for them in HKEY_CURRENT_MACHINE when I deleted them.

Should I get rid of all CoreFtp registry entries if they exist? Where are all the settings getting stored, and in what order does the application look?

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:23 pm

Is there anyway to get the sites.idx file to re-build from the coreftp.cfg file? Right now I'm sitting with my 17 Sites in the config file but no way to get to them since my sites.idx file is empty?

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:38 pm

I've tried that already, but it doesn't work. It just recreates another empty sites.idx file.

dtw01 · Post by **dtw01** » Wed Sep 15, 2004 6:22 pm

Sorry about not sharing that info with you earlier. We try to use unc names around here as much as possible, rather than keeping drives mapped between machines. Helps cut down on the spreading of network viruses if one machine should happen to become infected.