[bug-inetutils] GNU inetutils telnet enh request

[Andrew Marlow]

This is not a bug report but I don't know how else to contact
maintainers of GNU inetutils. Perhaps that info could be added to
http://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils please? This is an enhancement
request for telnet.

Can you please add the command 'send file <filename>'. This is present
in some ancient versions of telnet but I could not find it in any
versions of telnet that I use. I could not find any source that has this
extension. The extension was added to some versions to act as a
poor-mans FTP before the FTP protocol was well established. The idea is
that if a machine is isolated and telnet is the only means of connection
then one uses the command when the host is in an editor session. That
way the contents of the file get absorbed by the editor, providing a way
to transmit that file.

The commonly suggested solution to this problem is to use kermit or
{z,y,x}modem. These are not options for me. The machine I am trying to
transmit to is running an emulation of PRIMOS. It is quite an old
version that does not have Berkeley sockets, neither does it have
suitable async lines set up for serial modem transfers. This is
precisely the situation that this extension is intended to cover.

I looked into making the modifications myself but I don't know enough
about how telnet works. I added the 'send file <address@hidden command
easily enough but I tried to make it work by doing a NETADD for each
byte in the file. This doesn't work. Nothing actually happens until the
session resumes with the host (hit return after the 'send file
<filename>' command) then a few of the initial characters get
transmitted but nothing else. It is as if there is a very small buffer
(a couple of k or so) and anything larger than that gets dropped. Can
you help please?

Regards,

Andrew Marlow
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