faq

linux下的网络下载工具prozilla的源码

This is the ProZilla Frequently-Asked Questions List.

Copyright (C) 2000 Kalum Somaratna (Grendel).

This FAQ list may be freely distributed with the ProZilla package or any
part thereof, provided that this copyright notice is left intact on all
copies.

ProZilla  FAQ List
******************

ProZilla is a download accelerator for Linux, which makes multiple
connections to the server and downloads the file in chunks thus making
the download much faster than it would have been possible if it was done
using a single connection based conventional method like netscape and wget
do.

Table of Contents
*****************


ProZilla FAQ List

1 I'm in a hurry and I don't want to read all those doc's....

2 What systems does it run on?

3 Configuration Issues
  3.1 How do I setup this config file thingy it will save me from typing
      the switches every time I need to run proz but how do I do it? 	

4 Downloading issues
  4.1 ProZilla says "Resume not supported"?	
  4.2 ProZilla is using only a single connection sometimes?
  4.3 1 connection says "login rejected", but the rest are OK?		
  4.4 ProZilla says "Error while getting info from the server"? 
  4.5 ProZilla mucks up my file, it is corrupted....?
  4.6 I want ProZilla to try infinitely because of my bad connection?
  4.7 I am using 10 connections but I can only see 4 in the display?
  4.8 I hate to type in the URL every time I have to download something,
       isn't there any better way to do this? 	

5 FTPSearch Issues
  5.1 How do I do a FTP search? 

6. Miscellaneous
  6.1 Where can I get ProZilla?	
  6.2 Bugs / Where do I post bugs?
  
1 I'm in a hurry and I don't want to read all those *!@! docs....
*****************************************************************

_*Q*: I want to get started immediately, tell me what to do or else.....

*A*: OK, assuming that ProZilla is installed correctly using either the
RPM's or from the source, just type 
"proz commandline" from the command prompt, where commandline is the URL
which you wish to download and it will begin the download.

Example: 
proz www.gnu.org/xxx.jpj 
Will cause ProZilla to connect to
gnu.org and download the file xxx.jpg and save it in to the current
directory.

2 What systems does it run on?
*****************************************************************

_*Q*: What systems does it run on?

*A*: Currently it runs only on Linux, since that is the only OS that I
have access to, apart from windoze which doesn't count as a OS anyway..;)
A attempt to port it to FreeBSD is underway..lets see what happens..

3.1 Configuring ProZilla
************************

_*Q*: How do I setup ProZilla to read my preferences from a configuration
file, so as to save me from typing all those options every time?

*A*: When installed ProZilla creates a /etc/prozilla.conf file containing
example options, please uncomment (remove the "#") in front of the
options that you are interested, and change  them as you wish.

The /etc/prozilla.conf file is a global config file, and its options will
be used by ProZilla whenever it is being run by any user. Of course a user
can override the global options by having his own ~/.prozrc file, for
details on setting this up please read below.

Okay, to setup the ~/.prozrc, there is a prozrc.sample file in the package
directory, so what you have to do is to copy it as ~/.prozrc , and then
edit ~/.prozrc and change it as you like. The every time ProZilla runs it
will check your home directory for the .prozrc file and use the options
from it.

Please note that any options specified in the config filed and used by
prozilla when run, can be overridden by the command line switches.


4.1  ProZilla says "Resume not supported"?
******************************************

_*Q*: Hey! Sometimes ProZilla says "Resume not supported" and proceeds
with just a single download...what is hapenning?

*A*: Well unfortunately there is no standardized way of getting the size
of a file under the FTP protocol, many servers support the SIZE command,
which is what ProZilla uses (and when this fails the LIST command) to get
the file size, and this works for most FTP servers. However there are some
very ancient FTP servers out there which don't support either of these
popular methods, thus when ProZilla can't get the size of a file it has to
use a single download method and get the bytes until the server says the
end of the file has been reached.

The other reason why it can say "Resume not supported" is that when the
FTP server doesn't support the REST command, which again is a problem with
ancient FTP servers. The REST command is used to ask the FTP server to
restart the Download from a certain file position, and as you may see when
the server doesn't support REST no resuming is possible.

4.2 ProZilla is using only a single connection sometimes?
*********************************************************

*A*: Please read section 3.1 as it explains this in detail.


4.3 1 connection says "login rejected", but the rest are OK?
************************************************************

_*Q*: While downloading with multiple connections, I see that one
connections status is "login rejected", what do I do know, do I restart it
or watch and see what happens.


*A*: Please *don't* restart, just let the download proceed and you will
see that the connection resumes after sometime when One connections has
finished downloading it's portion.

The reason is that some FTP servers administrators have disallowed more
than n connections per IP address. where N can mean anything from 1 to the
number of connections that ProZilla is attempting.

So assuming that ProZilla is attempting to make 4 connections, and the
sysadmin (The *beep*!) has allowed only 2 connections per IP address,
ProZilla will begin with 2 downloads, and the FTP server will reject the
other 2 login attempts, however ProZilla will continue, and when one of
the current downloads has terminated, it will retry logging in and proceed
with the download, so there is no need to restart, please allow it to
continue.


4.4 ProZilla says "Error while getting info from the server"?
*************************************************************

_*Q*: I tried to start a download but ProZilla aborted with the strange
message "Error while getting info from the server", is this a bug with
ProZilla?

*A*: Well this is most probably due to a data transfer error, it maybe a
bad connection, or a incompatible server, or it maybe that you need a
user/name password combo to access the server. Usually there is a small
message above this which indicates why this happened.

However if another downloader like netscape or wget works with the URL and
ProZilla does not, this is most probably a error with ProZilla and I would
appreciate it if you could post the URL and the error you received to
<[e-mail]>, so that it can be removed from the next release.

4.5 ProZilla mucks up my file, the file is is corrupted!
********************************************************

_*Q*: I downloaded this zip(tar,gz etc) file using ProZilla and when I
tested it on my system the file has CRC errors, is this a bug?

*A*: There are two possibilities, the file on the server maybe corrupted.
The way to do check this is download the file using a single connection,
either using "ProZilla -1 URL" , or using GNU wget or netscape, and test
the file, if the file still has CRC problems it means that the file on the
server is corrupt and there is no problem with ProZilla.

The other possibility is that there is a bug in ProZilla, the way to check
this is that after a single connection download, if the files CRC checks
out correctly, and the corruption only happens when you use ProZilla, then
it is a bug and it kindly should be reported to <[e-mail]>,with
the URL so that it can be removed from the next release.

4.6 I want ProZilla to keep on trying more than the default attempts!
********************************************************************

_*Q*: Oi! I have this really bad connection and ProZilla gets a lot of
errors and eventually say that "connection x has been tried x number of
times" and quits, what can I do about this! I am too lazy to get a better
connection and I want ProZilla to continue to keep trying until it dies!

*A*: There are several things that you can do, you can ask prozilla to
make unlimited attempts at getting a succesful download, by using the
--retries=0 options.

Or you can try to increases the delay between each try by using the
--retry-delay option, for example to make ProZilla delay 60 seconds before
retrying a connection, please specify --retry-delay=60.

4.7 I am using 10 connections but I can only see 4 in the display?
******************************************************************

_*Q*: I have launched 10 connections using the -k=10 option but I
only can see 4 connections in the ncurses display. Is something wrong
with my monitor or my eyes?

*A*: Well please scroll the connection list using the up and down arrow
keys. 

4.8 I hate to type in the URL everytime I have to download something!
*********************************************************************

_*Q*: ProZilla is good but I hate to type the URL everytime I have to start
a download, isn't there anything that I can do about this.

*A*: Since ProZilla currently is ncurses specific, it cant intercept mouse
clicks on your browser, to automatically launch a download. So at the
moment you have 2 options, you can copy the link, just right click and
select "copy link location", and then the URL will be copied, then you can
paste it into a xterm using shift+insert, ie if you type proz followed by
pressing shift and insert together, it should paste the url, thus you would
get "proz URL", and you will only have to press enter to start it.

The other method is to ask your browser to launch prozilla whenever you
want a URL downloaded, this can be done for galeon, and it should be
possible on other browsers. If anyone does this please tell me the methods
so as I can add them to this FAQ so others can do so too.

5 FTPSearch
*****************************************************************
_*Q*: How do I run a ftpsearch, it seems to be off by default??

*A*: Please run with the -s switch, or if you use a configuration file you
can uncomment the "#ftpsearch" option in it to make it "ftpsearch", now
ftpsearch will be by default on.

6 Miscellaneous
*****************************************************************

6.1 ProZilla homepage / Getting Prozilla
*********************************************************

_*Q*: Where is the homepage for ProZilla...

*A*: http://prozilla.genesys.ro is the ProZilla homepage
where you can get the latest versions and updates about ProZilla.

6.2 Bugs / Where do I post bugs?
*********************************************************

_*Q*: Where do I post bugs?

*A*: The prozilla mailing list <[e-mail]> will welcome them.