Net:TFTPd questions - Want to upload configs via TFTP

[Chris G.]

I am writing a script that will log into my network equipment and backup
the configurations to a TFTP server. Since I don't want the security
risk of a TFTP server running all the time, I want to create a TFTP
server when the script starts and destroy it when I am done. My problem
is that the Net::TFTPd module does not seem to process any of the
requests. Issuing a "netstat -a" does show a socket created on port 69,
but nothing else. The script times out and dies. Is that module
compatible with current versions of perl, since it was written for perl
5.006?

Has anyone else done this or had experience trying to do this? I am
running perl under RedHat Enterprise Linux 4. Suggestions or actual
code would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris G.
cgauthie^gmail(dot)com

[Sisyphus]

"Chris G." <nospam@example.com> wrote in message
news:44bfaf61$0$17960$892e7fe2@authen.yellow.readf reenews.net...

> I am writing a script that will log into my network equipment and backup
> the configurations to a TFTP server. Since I don't want the security
> risk of a TFTP server running all the time, I want to create a TFTP
> server when the script starts and destroy it when I am done. My problem
> is that the Net::TFTPd module does not seem to process any of the
> requests.

Does that mean the client cannot even connect to the server ? I assume so,
since, for the connection to be created, the server needs to process at
least one request (namely, the request from the client for a connection).

For the purpose of testing it would be best to create a server that just
sits there and waits for a connection. Once you can get a client to connect
to that server then you know you're making progress. Once you've finished
your testing, manually kill the server, and *then* start messing about with
the short-lived server. (Nothing more annoying than trying to troubleshoot a
client connection to a server that continually needs to be re-started.)

> Issuing a "netstat -a" does show a socket created on port 69,
> but nothing else. The script times out and dies. Is that module
> compatible with current versions of perl, since it was written for perl
> 5.006?

It's unlikely ... though there's always the possibility that a bug
(introduced in perl 5.008) is preventing things from working properly. Do
you know for sure that this module worked with perl 5.006 ? The test script
that ships with the module doesn't test anything other than the loadability
of the module itself. That script is next to useless when it comes to
testing the functionality of the module.

>
> Has anyone else done this or had experience trying to do this? I am
> running perl under RedHat Enterprise Linux 4. Suggestions or actual
> code would be helpful and appreciated.
>

There's one bug reported at
[url]http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Net-TFTPd[/url] (with a workaround).
Difficult to say whether that bug/workaround is relevant to your problem or
not.

If you supply *minimal* server and client test scripts that demonstrate the
problem you stand a better chance of finding a solution.

Cheers,
Rob