I'm ftping some binaries from a centos box to an old DEC machine. They're being transferred in bin, but they're being corrupted somehow because when I run file filename on the centos machine, it shows that it's an executable. But after the ftp and running the same command on the DEC, the file type shows data. I've tried transferring it in a .tar and cpio, but I have the same results when they're extracted.

So my question would be is if the DEC machine is having problems reading the file?

It sounds as if the binaries are for a different architecture which run fine on the source machine buf fail miserably on the target machine. I would suggest FTPing the files back, in binary mode, from the old DEC machine to the centros box and then try to execute them.

If they execute normally, you can then eliminate FTP as the culprit.

How about doing an MD5 sum on the files on each machine? That will tell you if the files are faithful copies.

Are you trying to run a binary from one machine OS/architecture on a different OS/architecuture?

What operating systems are both machines? Do "uname -a" on each.

A valid executable on a centos box is not going to run on an old DEC machine. You need to transfer the source code and recompile on the DEC. Even that could be rough since the old DEC may not have a modern compiler.

The binaries were compiled on a DEC machine in-house. They were then gtarred and ftpd to a centos box. They then had to be ftpd to the DEC machine (no internet access). When the files are extracted, they're corrupt and not executable. Running a file filename on them shows a filetype of "data." Other non-binary files come out just fine.

The centos box doesn't have ftp running, but I'll see if I can get the service up and running and try ftping from the DEC machine. I will try the checksum.

Thanks for the suggestions. And if you can think of anything else, I would appreciate it.

Maybe the original ftp from DEC to centos was in ASCII mode.