Uploading to mainframe using FTP

Question

I just want to know how you upload datasets specifying its characeteristics? E.G. using the command quote site lrecl=500 recfm=fb

Well, the command was accepted when I tried to use it, but the problem is that when I tried to upload the file using the command 'send' ftp hangs up, and definitley closes the session.

This is the sample:http://www.mvsforums.com/helpboards/recent.php?sid=dab6b1f3cda149c7d7db855d90acaab1

ftp> quote site lrecl=500 recfm=fb
200 SITE command was accepted
ftp> send C:\test\test.txt 'ADM.SAMPLE.TEST'
200 Port request OK.
425 Can't open data connection.
ftp>

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

Solution 1

I sometimes get this error because of firewall problems when trying to ftp behind a router. You might try switching to active or passive mode (depending of what you are currently using) to see if this helps.

Solution 2

I have a couple of programs that do this, but without specifying record size. The blocking command should be okay. Are you sure you don't have a permissions issue? Does ADM.SAMPLE.TEST already exist, and is it 500 bytes at least? If not, have them create it for you and see if the ftp works then.

Comments

[Martin Carpenter]

Good advice. Grekoz is running active (see "Port" command), and passive mode generally plays better with firewalls. Unfortunately the standard windows client (XP at least) doesn't support passive mode :-/

[Grekoz]

Sorry for this late reply, I manually pre allocated an empty dataset with the same attributes as to what I will upload and I was suprised that if there is an existing dataset with the same attributes when you upload, I mean when you upload and overwrite the existing dataset with the same attributes, the upload is successful. But if I upload with out pre allocating an empty dataset with the same attributes the upload fails.

[Grekoz]

I tried your advise with the passive mode but with no avail. Any other good advice?

[R Ubben]

That's been my experience. If you write to a file, the file has to be there already. So, for my uploads, the mainframe programmers have batch jobs to fill the files with zeroes at a particular time. I ftp to them, and then they have another job that comes back to either use the contents or complain if there are still only zeroes.

[Grekoz]

Hmmmmm, its seems that we have the same problem. Isn't there any way to send a dataset using ftp even if the dataset was not pre allocated in the mainframe? But if there isn't any workaround aside from yours then I guess I have to pre allocate the dataset before uploading. Thanks anyways, I appreciate your advice.

[R Ubben]

I suspect the behavior is intentional, maybe resulting from design choices to keep the filesystem as fast as possible. Disk space allocation seems to be a big part of life for mainframe programmers.

[Grekoz]

I will try uploading the files to mainframe via Terminal Emulator, using IBMs Dll EHLLAPI.dll. I have tried uploading using my terminal emulator with different attributes and was successfully uploaded. I'll tell you if it works.