Where can I get the patch program? Or a compiler?

This is a very basic question which I will help you with - you should familiarize yourself with UNIX and C before trying to code a MUD. The ROM FAQ may contain answers to some of such questions.

Will the mudFTP server work with Windows?

If so, it is unintended and purely by accident. (You'll probably need to #define strcasecmp/strncasecmp to stricmp/strincmp)

You have patch for XYZ 1.00.00 but I am using XYZ 1.00.01! Help!

Try the patch, and patch the rejects by hand. Don't mail me before you've tried something yourself.

Does mudFTP pose any security risks?

On the server side, mudFTP will return the same error whether you give a wrong username or password.

On the client side, you must make sure you do not reveal your mudftp configuration file to anyone (i.e. on UNIX, use chmod 600 .mudftp) - since that file contains your username/password.

How about performance and memory use?

mudFTP requires some new fields for your descriptor structures which increase memory used by a small amount. There are no performance issues - listening on another port does not slow down anything measurably.

Where did the idea of mudFTP come from?

I was annoyed at the standard string editor, and recalled that back in the days where I still attended Aarhus Busines College, one of the people I mudded with used a small ftp client to transfer files from/to an LPMUD (Deeper Trouble). I considered a full FTP client at first, but settled with something less complicated.

What future plans do you have for mudFTP?

Currently mudFTP only supports transfer of "temporary" files that you are just editing. It would be nice to extend it so that the client can fetch any file, making the MUD send something based on the path. E.g. if you fetch the file "/area/dev/mobs/42" you will fetch the data about the mobile #42 in the area "dev". Then you can edit those data offline using some MUD editor - e.g. with nice listboxes and menus for all possible mob attributes - and upload it back, letting the MUD modify the mob accordingly.

Similarily, you could get "/area/dev/mobs" by itself to get the list of all mobs in that area, and enable browsing of areas.