From: Klemens Nanni <kn@openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: syspatch -c : call ftp(1) with timeout
To: ajacoutot@bsdfrog.org, matthieu@openbsd.org, tech@openbsd.org
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2026 06:35:41 +0000

23.02.2026 00:44, Kirill A. Korinsky пишет:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 18:30:14 +0100,
> Klemens Nanni <kn@openbsd.org> wrote:
>>
>> 21.02.2026 15:00, Antoine Jacoutot пишет:
>>> On Sat, Feb 21, 2026 at 08:48:58AM +0100, Matthieu Herrb wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I'm using syspatch -c in the monitoring system for a number of OpenBSD
>>>> machines at work.
>>>> From time to time the host listed in /etc/installurl becomes
>>>> unavailable for hours. (I've seen that both with a dedicated mirror or
>>>> with the cdn) causing monitoring errors because the agent (check_mk)
>>>> is stuck.
>>>>
>>>> Adding a timeout option to the ftp(1) command run by syspatch -c is
>>>> enough for me to not have the OpenBSD machines appear unresponsiv in
>>>> the monitoring system.
>>>>
>>>> Would something like this make sense ?
>>>
>>> I think it does.
>>> But why not add it to some of the other ftp(1) calls?
>>
>> ... and sysupgrade(8) and bsd.port.mk(5) FETCH_CMD as well, I guess.
>>
>> Wouldn't it make more sense to provide a more sensible default in ftp(1)
>> so it doesn't wait forever?  -w0 could do that if you really wanted, no?
>>  
> 
> ...which may wait forever if you run pkg_add via something like LTE modem,
> and it decided to "renew" it's public IP.

     -w seconds
             Wait for seconds for the remote server to connect before giving
             up.

This should be the equivalent to curl(1)'s --connect-timeout, although I
did not see which default value they provide.

Ours is zero, i.e. no timeout;  -w goes through strtonum(0, 200), so 3m20s
is the maximum value.  I picked 30s as new default just to show a diff.

See util.c:timed_connect().

Works great for me.  Extra testing done like this:

	$ time timeout 40s ftp -4 -o- http://resolves-but-drops-packets
	Trying 192.0.2.1...
	    0m40.02s real     0m00.02s user     0m00.03s system

	$ time       ./obj/ftp -4 -o- http://resolves-but-drops-packets
	Trying 192.0.2.1...
	ftp: connect: Operation timed out
	    0m30.04s real     0m00.01s user     0m00.02s system

Thoughts?

Index: main.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/usr.bin/ftp/main.c,v
diff -u -p -r1.146 main.c
--- main.c	23 Dec 2023 23:03:00 -0000	1.146
+++ main.c	24 Feb 2026 06:04:19 -0000
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ char macbuf[4096];
 
 FILE	*ttyout;
 
-int connect_timeout;
+int connect_timeout = 30;
 
 #ifndef SMALL
 /* enable using server timestamps by default */