It seems the Net::FTP::Recursive object is having trouble with closing the ftp connection. That said, as it seems to be about to do a listing of directories, I'm not sure why it would closing it without giving the output of the listing.

I run my script, which errors out at line 54 in one of the module files:

[root@host6 dell-download]# ./get-files.pl > out.log 2>&1 &
[1] 10027
[root@host6 dell-download]# tail -f out.log
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)>>> CDUP
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)<<< 250 CDUP command successful.
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)>>> CWD Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.
+7
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)<<< 250 CWD command successful.
Making dir: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7
Calling rget in /Browse_For_Drivers/Servers, Storage & Networking/Powe
+rEdge/PowerEdge R610/Network/HTML
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)>>> PASV
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)<<< 227 Entering Passive Mode (143,
+166,135,12,206,55)
Net::FTP::Recursive=GLOB(0x1c109a8)>>> LIST
Can't use an undefined value as a symbol reference at /usr/share/perl5
+/Net/FTP/dataconn.pm line 54.
^C
[1]+  Exit 255                ./get-files.pl > out.log 2>&1
[download]

I can ftp to the server manually and get a listing just fine:

ftp> cd "Browse_For_Drivers/Servers, Storage & Networking/PowerEdge/Po
+werEdge R610/Network/HTML"
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
227 Entering Passive Mode (143,166,135,12,221,177)
125 Data connection already open; Transfer starting.
drwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group               0 Aug 29  2012 Linux
drwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group               0 Aug 29  2012 LINUX - OS
..<listings removed>..
drwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group               0 Aug 29  2012 Windows Ser
+ver 2008 x86
226 Transfer complete.
[download]

I open /usr/share/perl5/Net/FTP/dataconn.pm, which shows (line numbers also shown):

     48 sub _close {
     49   my $data = shift;
     50   my $ftp  = ${*$data}{'net_ftp_cmd'};
     51
     52   $data->SUPER::close();
     53
     54   delete ${*$ftp}{'net_ftp_dataconn'}
     55     if exists ${*$ftp}{'net_ftp_dataconn'}
     56     && $data == ${*$ftp}{'net_ftp_dataconn'};
     57 }
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This _close function is called here:

     60 sub close {
     61   my $data = shift;
     62   my $ftp  = ${*$data}{'net_ftp_cmd'};
     63
     64   if (exists ${*$data}{'net_ftp_bytesread'} && !${*$data}{'net
+_ftp_eof'}) {
     65     my $junk;
     66     $data->read($junk, 1, 0);
     67     return $data->abort unless ${*$data}{'net_ftp_eof'};
     68   }
     69
     70   $data->_close;
[download]

I checked with our network admin, who said the inactivity timeout is one hour, i.e. if there is no data being sent in a 1 hour period, the firewall will close the connection. I'd think there's probably something similar on the ftp server side as well. However, I can't see, from the debug output above, why a long period of inactivity would happen. As I mentioned, it seemed like it was about to do a directory listing, then got cut off.

Below is the code in question. While I'm creating my own directory structure, I'm creating an ftp connection for each directory and changing directories each time, so I don't see why this should be causing this problem.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Carp;
use Data::Dumper;
use Net::hostent;
#use Net::Ping;
use Net::FTP::Recursive;
use Log::StdLog { level => 'info', file => $0 . "log" };
#use Log::StdLog { level => 'warn', file => $config{log}{file} . $0 . 
+"log" };

my %params = (
    site => "ftp.dell.com",
    basedir => "Browse_For_Drivers/Servers, Storage & Networking/Power
+Edge",
    modeldirs => [
            "PowerEdge R810",
            "PowerEdge R610",
            "PowerEdge R720",
            "PowerEdge R620",
            "PowerEdge M620",
            "PowerEdge M1000E",
    ],
);

print {*STDLOG} info => "Starting $0, creating dirs.";
for my $dir (@{ $params{modeldirs}}) {
    mkdir $dir;
    chdir $dir;
    FTPConnect (\%params, "$dir");
    chdir "..";
}
print {*STDLOG} info => "Finished $0.";

sub FTPConnect {

    my $ref_params = shift @_;
    my $dir = shift @_;

    my $ftp = Net::FTP::Recursive->new($ref_params->{site}, Debug => 1
+, Timeout => 15);
    if ($ftp) {
         print {*STDLOG} debug => "OK: connected via FTP to " . $ref_p
+arams->{site} ;
         $ftp->login("anonymous",'me@here.there');
         $ftp->binary;
         $ftp->cwd($ref_params->{basedir} . '/' . $dir);
         print {*STDLOG} info => "Starting download for dir $dir.\n";
         $ftp->rget(
            #FlattenTree => 1,
            MatchFiles => qr/\.txt$/,
         );
         print {*STDLOG} info => "Finished download for dir $dir.\n";
         $ftp->quit;
   }
   else {
    print {*STDLOG} warn => "ERROR: FTP for host $ref_params->{site}\n
+"
   }
   return ;
}


sub GetFiles {
    return;
}
[download]

Any thoughts on why the connection dying? It's happened a number of times already.