owner and group show as ftp

Using WinSCP on Windows XP I connect to a Unix server using FTP protocol. The owner and group of all directories and files are "ftp". Is this a limitation of the FTP protocol or is there a way to get the real owner and group?

It is rather limitation of your FTP server. Try different FTP client to verify.

Not sure which ftp clients would/should display owner and group, several omit them altogether. Filezilla shows numeric owner and group. I assume WinSCP makes a system call to get owner and group and if an error is returned displays "ftp"? Which system calls would this be?

With some servers it does work, not sure which Unix flavour they are. With FreeBSD and CentOS owner and group are displayed as "ftp". Can the service provider change somethings to make it work?

WinSCP does not do any system call to get owner/group, it just parses the directory listing from the FTP server. Filezilla possibly uses different listing format for which your server does not fail to provide the group/owner.

Sorry to bother you, but can tell which listing (which command) WinSCP uses? My server provider points to WinSCP, you point to the service provider and I am more or less stuck in the middle. I need some evidence to show that the Unix server fails to give the right owner and group.

abakker wrote:

Sorry to bother you, but can tell which listing (which command) WinSCP uses?

WinSCP uses FTP command LIST to list remote directory. I'm not pointing to the service provider, rather to the FTP server. WinSCP does not make up the "ftp" owner/group. I has to be coming from the remote side.

Many thanks, I can now prove that the problem is not with WinSCP. The service provider hosts the ftp server.