Looks like rpm-4.4.9 was busted wrto network downloads, but
perhaps I deliberately changed. The issue of rpm accessing
a networks is somehow controversial even 7+ years later.

Adding an explicit "r.ufdio" is as good as the other fix,
changing the default to make rpmio always network aware.
I still haven't identified why ftp access works on rpm-4.5,
but not in rpm-4.4.9, but I doubt its a solaris peculier issue.

The "end == NULL" sets the default type of rpmio to be non-network
aware. Nuke that test, and all rpmio should attempt network access.

 From rpmio/rpmio.c Fopen()
...
     if (end == NULL || !strcmp(end, "fdio")) {
if (_rpmio_debug)
fprintf(stderr, "*** Fopen fdio path %s fmode %s\n", path, fmode);
         fd = fdOpen(path, flags, perms);
         if (fdFileno(fd) < 0) {
             if (fd) (void) fdClose(fd);
             return NULL;
         }
     } else {

Choosing the default behavior in rpm is always hardest, I get whiplash
from the discussions.

I'd suggest spending some time upgrading to rpm-4.5 as well. There  
should
be very very few surprises, and there were some significant cleanups  
wrto
removing void ** casts and more.

Still no idea what the EPASV vs PASV problem root cause is.

73 de Jeff