A little help to download FTP protected file
Hello everyone,
if it's not a problem, I would like a little bit of help in downloading a very specific file from this site: ftp.funet.fi/pub/msdos/games/puzzle/ducksbeta02b.zip
This file is a beta version of a game I used to play many years ago, and also got the chance to be a tester for the final version. Information about the game can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Ducks_1998
mobygames.com/game/dos/ducks
Just a small former shareware game for DOS released 20 years ago, how time passes by.
Now, the real issue with the file I want to download is that it's forbidden. I get a 403 error and there's no other mirror which hosts this file. It seems that the server belongs to some kind of finnish university or institution, I really don't know to be honest, and neither I'm aware of how it locks out users, depending of their location or if they belong to the institution, whatever.
If someone knows this site or at least has access to this ZIP file and its accompanying TXT document and is willing to get it for me, I would really forever be grateful for finally getting the chance to relieve the beta version of one of my childhood games.
In advance, thank you very much. Have a great day.
Comments
It seems like there is something wrong with the FTP , if its public it should download. You or someone should contact them , saying its not downloadable
Someone, maybe the admin there, has removed read rights on this file.
And on that specific file (Or maybe to download files), since you can actually see the lists of what's also there
This is the file in question. According to the permissions defined in the file, the owner cannot do anything, only the group permissions allow reading and writing, but the public can write to the file. That I cannot understand.
I found a mail, problems@ftp.funet.fi. I will try to mail them if they can give me access to that file or fix the permissions. But it seems it's a problem since most other files are allowed to be downloaded.
This happens if an admin just removes read rights in order to stop people from downloading. For whatever reason...
And public write means nothing to us, because FTP server won't let us write, so +w is not of intereset.
Well, it's very strange why would someone remove the permissions to read a specific file.
I've sent a mail to the previous address, hope it doesn't bounce back and someone replies to it or at least changes the permissions to the file.
I've been wondering is there any documented procedure that someone can use to bypass permissions and directly download the file? I may know it is not an intended solution and would mean a security breach, but just being curious.
Anyways, thank you very much for the help.
EDIT: It bounced back. Damn.
I'll try another mail and see what it happens.
EDIT2: No mail from the FTP works at all, they all bounce me back with a "file too large" error. Oh well...
Darn, I hate it when an old archive disappears or goes south. I seem to recall this site being around a long time ago. At this point it is probably a forgotten zombie server sitting in some dusty corner and any responsible entities long since outsourced to India.
All I can suggest is try posting around on other forums (perhaps linux related?) and see if anyone has any ideas.
BTW, I checked the archive.org wayback but they don’t archive any actual files, just the index.
You know what's even worse? I had this file many years ago, when I was a teenager, but I didn't have the notion of archiving at that time, so I scrapped it. Now I deeply regret it. Silly me.
I'm not a very knowledgeable person in Linux system, so if it's not much of a problem, can you recommend me which sites can I register in asking for help? Thanks for the help.
Well, I was thinking of forums or perhaps mailing lists associated with the specific distributions they are mirroring, but off hand I'm not really familiar with anything other than the Ubuntu forums.
Taking another glance at that ftp site, I see very recent activity in their Debian mirror folder, although it could be automated. So perhaps something Debian related?
The only specific suggestion I have is to try asking over at the Vintage Computing Forum http://www.vcfed.org/forum/
There are some very knowledgeable people there, some archivists, and others that might have stuffed that away or that might know more about that site.
Since we are talking about shareware, it should be OK to discuss it there, just be aware that on that forum discussing unlicensed copying is forbidden.
One other thought, since it is game related, perhaps someone on the vogons.org forms might have some ideas.
To take something down without removing it. It is somehow obvious I think...
This is the security a FTPd offers, you can't, if the filesystem down under the FTPd does not allow reading, the FTPd can't read, FTPd can't deliver.
The permission is taken at file system level, so you can only access if you are root on this machine.
@SomeGuy I have just discovered, you're also on vcfed