[Slackbuilds-users] sbog ping: invalid download urls in .info files

[rundstutzen at gmx.de]

dear slackbuild maintainers,

i am about to release version 0.3 of my slackbuild command line tool
sbog (hosted here: https://bitbucket.org/trueslack/sbog,
linuxquestions.org thread here:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/%5Bann%5D-sbog-sbopkg-c-on-steroids-4175623847/)

the new command "sbog ping" tests the download links of all .info files
found in a given directory tree and prints a list with errors.

i tested all packages in the slackbuild.org "current" branch. you find
the result here: https://pastebin.com/pbFdSAyW

the list contains 3 columns, separated by tab:
package name, email address of the maintainer, error message including
the url

i obfuscated the email addresses, replacing '@' with '###'.

"sbog ping" found 252 issues. note that some of them are
false positives.

for some error messages it's clear that there is a problem, ruling out
a false positive:
- http 404/ftp 550 code (file not found): these download files are
  gone (there are 134 dead links).
- http 401 (unauthorized): some links now need an authentifikation.
- "no such host": the host is gone.
- "403 SSL is required": this is easy to fix, change the protocol scheme
  to https.

probably false positives:
- timeout messages: especially sourceforge.net is a big problem and i
  tried to resolve this issue without luck. i gave up on this. i don't
  trust sf.net anyway.
- "x509: certificate signed by unknown authority": the link is probably
ok, but the certificate is not authorized.

there are more errors, like internal server errors and the like. 

to understand the cause of some errors one has to know
how "sbog ping" works. for http urls a http "HEAD" request is send to
test if the url is valid. this can cause trouble, as some servers are
picky about the request method ("GET" vs. "HEAD"). spog will follow
redirections, which can cause confusing error messages. use "curl -vLI
<url>" to learn went wrong.
for ftp addresses sbog will connect to the ftp server, login as
"anonymous" and ask for the filesize. if this fails we know something
is wrong.

to find out if one of your slackbuilds is affected just search for your
email address in that list (email address is obfuscated, read above).

maybe you find this list useful. when sbog 0.3 is released (in a few
days) you can use this tool yourself.

keep up the good work!

regards,

heiko