***********************************
* This is a beta version of NcFTP *
***********************************

Thank you for helping test the program.  At this point I am interested in
feedback from experienced users.  If you're a newbie to UNIX and/or NcFTP,
please use version 2.4.3.

I'd like to hear if there are any problems, relating from outright crashes
down to problems you may have building and installing the program.  I want
to have any problems nailed down before going un-Beta.

New betas will be uploaded without notice, so keep checking for the latest
beta version.

Thank you!
Mike Gleason
ncftp@ncftp.com


Beta Change Log:
===============

Beta21, 1999-10-03:

+ Included HTML versions of the manual pages.  This is mostly for the
  Win32 port.

+ Bug fixed in ncftpls which was printing lines with \r\n instead of
  just \n.

+ NcFTP 3 is now covered by the Artistic License.  See the LICENSE.txt
  file for details.

+ The "prefs" file is now called "prefs.v3" for better coexistence with
  NcFTP 2.


Beta20, 1999-09-29:

+ Win32 (Windows 95/98/NT) supported natively!  You can download a pre-fab
  Setup, or build it yourself from the same source base that is used for
  UNIX.

+ Readline is out, Getline is in!

+ Using my "sio" library in conjunction with LibNcFTP.  This was done
to be consistent with other platforms, which don't use alarm() and
signal handline.

+ Change of licensing.  Specifically, GPL was shown the door.  NcFTP is,
has always been, and will continue to be free software.

+ Firewall type 6 bug fixed.

+ "put -f" fixed.

+ When the server asks for a password, NcFTP will print the text, in case
  you need that for a one-time password scheme like S/Key.

+ "get -R" asks for all files by using the equivalent of /bin/ls -lRa on
  the remote server.

+ A couple of small fixes for Cygwin, although in light of native support
  for Windows this seems moot.


Beta19, 1999-06-09:

+ Changed behavior so when auto-resume is off (still the default)
  NcFTP will automatically continue without prompting if the remote
  file's size and timestamp exactly match an existing local file.
  This will make auto-resume=no a more friendly default, since you'll
  still get prompted when the files differ, but won't bother you
  like beta 18 did if the files are the same.

+ Bug fixed where "get -f" on an existing file would still have the
  existing file prompt come up.

+ Work around bug with "-s" linker flag on IRIX 6.5.

+ Small fixes to support Mac OS X Server.

+ Using inet_ntop function if available to work around IRIX 
  DNS resolution problems.

+ NcFTP's "rm -r" fixed to better handle empty directories and .dotfiles.

+ Using SITE RETRBUFSIZE/RBUFSIZ/STORBUFSIZE/SBUFSIZ commands, if
  available, to try and coordinate large TCP window support between
  client and server.

+ Special case the IIS FTP server, so if it prints directory listings
  in DOS mode, then NcFTP can parse them for file completion.

+ A few more changes for Cygwin/32.

+ Workaround definition of "lines" by AIX headers.

+ Yet another permutation of firewall added.

+ NcFTP 3 now keeps a simple transfer log like NcFTP 2 did.

+ Bug fixed in ncftpbatch which was looping if the file to get already
  existed and was identical to the remote file.

+ Local commands now work better with wildcards.

+ Bug fixed where one of the firewall handlers was not prompting you
  for your firewall password.

+ Bug fixed where logging in succeeded but NcFTP could not "pwd"
  caused a crash.

+ You can now "ncftp -F" to dump a new firewall configuration template
  to stdout.


Beta18, 1999-02-19:

+ Bug fixed which caused downloads from servers other than wu-ftpd and
  NcFTPd to skip the first byte in the file.

+ NcFTP's new prompting-before-transferring feature had a bug which
  occasionally caused it to detect a non-existant remote file as
  existant.


Beta17, 1999-02-09:

+ New feature:  NcFTP now prompts you by default when you try to
  get/put a file that already exists.  

+ A few resume bugs fixed in both get and put.

+ New "jobs" command to list any running "ncftpbatch" tasks.

+ Shell utilities now honor the ~/.ncftp/firewall file so they
  can use the firewall settings.

+ If you're using the global version of the .firewall file,
  as /etc/ncftp.firewall, you can also set the "passive" setting
  in there.

+ Better large-file support for FreeBSD.

+ Capitulated to using the "install" utility in the Makefile.

+ Using autoconf-2.13 and new functionality to assist in configuring
  for UNIX on Win32 environments.

+ Avoiding problems in Solaris 7 headers which cause curses to not
  be autodetected.

+ Various improvements in FTP engine, including new support for
  proposed FTP standard..

+ TCP Large Window support, for those of you with obnoxiously large
  pipes to the internet.  Use the new "so-bufsize" option for "set",
  and "-B" options with ncftpget/put.

+ NcFTP now notes the server type, when possible, and works-around
  problems with certain ones.


Beta16, 1998-11-30:

+ NcFTP now does timestamp checking in addition to size checking to
  determine when to reget/reput.  NcFTP 2 did this, but NcFTP 3 will
  not be as aggressive to reduce the number of timezone synchronization
  problems.

+ Fixed a problem where if the remote server suddenly disconnected
  NcFTP would report the wrong error.

+ NcFTP tries to print a message when it doesn't need to get a file.

+ Fixed more problems related to NcFTP being inconsistent about printing
  startup messages and responses from the remote server.

+ User names, passwords, and accounts maximum length extended.

+ NcFTP now tries reput by default (ncftpput still does not).

+ Bug fixed in ncftpbatch which caused relative directory paths on
  the second and successive transfers on the same host to fail.

+ ncftpbatch now unspools an entry if a directory did not exist at
  connect time.

+ Account option added to shell utilties.

+ More readline band-aids.


Beta15(2), 1998-11-10:

+ --bindir change was not pointing to ncftpbatch correctly.

+ "get -R -a" is now detected and treated as "get -R".

+ getpassphrase() function is used in place of getpass(), where available.


Beta15, 1998-11-05:

+ NcFTP can now cope with cd'ing to unreadable directories.

+ The curses support (i.e. ncftpbookmarks) is now much more portable (for
  example, FreeBSD 3, SunOS 4, BSD/OS).  Still, your best bet is to install
  ncurses if you can.  At least one system's curses (HP-UX) compiles fine
  but doesn't work worth jack, so use ncurses there.

+ Firewall not being used correctly when you ran NcFTP with a host from the
  shell command-line.

+ Bug fixed where 32 spaces were being printed before running the pager.

+ configure now recognizes --bindir.

+ NcFTP now tries to print "server said" for a server related error,
  so NcFTP quits getting blamed for server problems.

+ More readline band-aids.

+ Rare problem fixed where a null pointer was being passed to a socket
  library function was causing core dumps and, in some cases, kernel
  panics.

+ Problem fixed with the new auto-TAR feature if the directory to download
  was a first level directory.

+ When auto-TAR mode is on, you can tell in the progress meter.

+ When auto-TAR is used for the first time, a one-time message is printed.

+ Bug fixed when using -R with a directory URL.

+ Doing a better job about displaying login and welcome messages.

+ Memory leak found and fixed.

+ Failed logins as non-anonymous no longer continue redialing and refailing.

+ Problem fixed where firewall user's firewall password could be logged
  in the trace log.

+ URLs displayed include the port number, if non-standard.

+ ncftpbatch resets it's exponential waiting period.

+ Problem fixed where uploading invalid files wasn't considered an error.

+ Local filesystem commands (lmkdir, etc) weren't handling files with
  spaces in them correctly.


Beta14, 1998-06-24:

+ Firewall Type 5 now works.

+ "cd" command now properly recognizes a wildcard.

+ NcFTP was failing to report an error when a wildcard did not match anything.

+ Progress reports on downloads had a bug where it wouldn't update as often
  as it should have been.

+ A "put" on a short file is now more likely to errout with a timeout
  error when the remote host is not responsive.

+ Bookmarks and commands now readline-complete without regards to case
  sensitivity.


Beta13, 1998-06-21:

+ Big change again -- NcFTP now automatically tries to take advantage of
  servers that do on-the-fly TAR.  NcFTP can dynamically fallback to the
  regular, non-TAR method when needed, so this should be somewhat
  transparent.  You can tell when NcFTP uses TAR when the progress
  meter shows only a directory being downloaded, instead of individual
  items within the directory tree.  Of course the advantage to using
  TAR mode is that the exact timestamps, permissions, etc can be
  preserved, as well as reducing the number of total connections to the
  server.

+ Bug fixed for regular get -R mode, which was causing failures on
  some servers.

+ There is a now a "local directory" field for bookmarks.  This is only
  settable using the Bookmark Editor.

+ Bug fixed where NcFTP wouldn't always fallback to PORT from PASV.

+ Bug fixed where NcFTP was not handling relative pathnames with more
  than one node correctly  (i.e. "foo" was okay, but "foo/bar" was not.)

+ The "-@" flag has been enhanced a little so it accepts a few more
  types of date/time specifications.

+ Bug fixed where NcFTP could be fooled into thinking a bookmark was not
  saved.

+ Trying harder to print the host list if the Bookmark Editor is not
  installed.

+ Main usage message was not always printed.

+ Small tweaks to the progress meters.

+ Shell utilities now identify themselves using CLNT command.

+ Completion bug fixed where a "/" was being appended for bookmarks and
  commands.


Beta12, 1998-06-04:

+ Big change -- curses is back, in limited form.  The bookmark editor
  runs as the fullscreen applet that NcFTP 2.4 has.  It is a separate
  program now (ncftpbookmarks) which is run by NcFTP (or you can run
  it in stand-alone mode).  Note that if you have problems getting
  the curses support to work, you do NOT have to build ncftpbookmarks.
  To do that, remove the config.cache file and
  "./configure --disable-curses".

+ Bookmark completion and command name completion added.

+ Recursive remote deletes are now possible (i.e. rm -r).

+ Shell command ("!") back.

+ Bug fixed where NcFTP would ignore ls output from OS/2 servers.

+ Bug fixed where a trailing slash was confusing put -R.

+ Bug fixed where a trailing slash was confusing file completion.

+ ncftpget and ncftpput now have a "-b" flag which lets you submit
  a batch job to ncftpbatch.  Now you don't need to run ncftp,
  open the site, and do bgget commands.

+ NcFTP now accepts URLs with the open command.

+ A bit more lenient when using directory URLs with NcFTP without the
  proper trailing slash.

+ Various small configure script bugs fixed.


Beta11, 1998-05-10:

+ Another problem with Auto-resume-downloads fixed.

+ The xterm title setting feature is now configurable from "prefs" and
  is off by default.

+ Problem fixed where files newer than the current date could be listed
  as the year before.

+ Small firewall support problem fixed.


Beta10, 1998-05-03:

+ Several problems with Auto-resume-downloads fixed.

+ Several problems with Redial fixed.  It is on by default -- let me know
  the specifics if it fails.

+ Problem fixed where a multiple get would try re-downloading files
  over and over again.

+ Problem fixed where if a multiple get failed the files that were downloaded
  successfully were deleted.

+ Bug fixed where "get -R" would create files as directories.

+ Master source drive lost -- some things had to be restored from backup
  and rebuilt entirely (such as the configure script stuff).  So, many things
  which were fixed may suddenly be un-fixed again.

+ Readline completion works with local directories and remote symlinks.

+ NcFTP recovers better from aborted transfers.

+ New signal handling, which will hopefully have the same behavior across
  platforms.

+ A few minor firewall problems fixed.

+ You can now have system-wide firewall settings stored in /etc/ncftp.firewall
  and /etc/ncftp.firewall.fixed, if you create them from a ~/.ncftp/firewall
  file.

+ You can now spool transfers to FTP servers on non-standard ports.

+ NcFTP now changes your xterm window title.

+ Bug fixed with spool files using the firewall's IP number.

+ ncftpbatch now works on case-insensitive filesystems.

+ configure's readline check now runs the test program to be sure it was
  linked correctly.


Beta9, 1998-01-25:

+ Bug fixed that was introduced in b8 that caused a crash after a transfer.

+ Readline completion with <TAB><TAB> should work better.

+ Bookmark lookups changed to full bookmark name only.

+ Configure bug where scanf("%qd") wasn't checked right.


Beta8, 1998-01-18:

+ Bug fix that broke the firewall support that used to work in Beta 6.

+ Bug fixes with RESTarting.

+ Smarter about using 64-bit or 32-bit mode (long longs or longs).

+ Yet another firewall added.

+ Fixes for HP-UX.

+ Readline 2.1 dependency worked around, so that Readline 2.0 is useable.

+ Unsupported -J flag added to use an ACCT name.

+ Uses NcFTPd's new "CLNT" command to specify FTP client type.

+ Hack so "open -u host" works like it did in earlier versions of NcFTP.


Beta7, 1997-12-28:

+ Should now be able to retrieve very large files (> 2 gig), depending
  on the libc and OS.

+ Namespace collision with GNU libc fixed (errno field).

+ get -R xxx now creates a ./xxx directory instead of dropping xxx/* 
  in the local directory.

+ New firewall type added.

+ Many file completion tweaks.

+ Another bug fixed where ASCII mode was getting turned on.

+ If you use a firewall, the firewall is now responsible for resolving
  host names.

+ Bug fixed with bgget/bgput with absolute pathnames.

+ Plug frequency reduced.

+ Bug fixed where command-line switches were not overriding bookmark settings.

+ Bug fixed where "set" commands were not taking effect until the current
  connection was closed.

+ StatBar progress meter revised.

+ ncftp_batch back-off revised.

+ ncftpget transfer type bug fixed.


Beta6, 1997-11-21:

+ Bookmark command bug fixed.

+ Bug with bookmarks fixed that could save the transfer type as ASCII.

+ Symlink hidden command added (only works with NcFTPd).

+ Including man page for ncftpls

+ Mkdir dirties cache

+ site and quote fixed


Beta5, 1997-11-19:

+ Fixes for AIX 4.1

+ Bug in put -R fixed.


Beta4, 1997-11-18:

+ Bug fixed that caused pdir/pls to act like ls.

+ Fixes for SunOS.

+ ncftpls added.

+ The philbar is back; you can now choose it as a progress meter
  if you don't like the statbar.

+ Checking for ncftpbatch before trying to run it.


Beta3, 1997-11-17:

+ Try not to use Readline when it is older than 2.0, or when its headers
  aren't installed correctly.

+ Fix for get -R, which could cause a crash during the post-downloading
  cleanup.

+ A little extra tracing for the firewall code.


Beta2, 1997-11-15:

+ Fix for unrecognized ls flags that would cause a crash.

+ NcFTP 3.0 prefers GNU Readline version 2.1, but it should now also
  work with version 2.0.

+ A few portability/lint fixes.
