File Transfer Protocol (FTP) File Transfer Protocol Sometimes browsing for information is not sufficient you may want to obtain copies of software programs or data files for your own use and manipulation. Examples of such transfers: you may want tthe latest tupgrade for a particular software product, or you might find samples from a new CD. FTP is a method of transferring files from one computer to another over phone lines. This feature allows access to information quicker and cheaper than sending disks and hardcopy materials through regular or express mail. What is FTP? What is Anonymous FTP? FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is an application that allows a person to transfer / move files between two computers, generally connected via the Internet. If your system has FTP and is connected to the Internet, you can access very large numbers of files available on a great number of computer systems. When using FTP, you use a program, called a 'client' to connect to a machine that holds the files, a 'server'. Many computer systems throughout the Internet make files available through anonymous FTP. That is, you can access a machine without having an account on that machine (i.e. you don't have to be an official user of the system). These anonymous FTP servers contain: software documents of various sorts files for configuring networks graphic images song lyrics and all sorts of other information.
FTP Procedure FTP will not allow you outside the FTP 'root' directory. Moving about the entire system is generally not permitted. You will get 'Permission denied' messages (or plainly not receive any message and still not be able to change to the directory). Note that all this is subject to change, access is a privilege il and the person responsible for the machine can shut it down at any time. Anonymous FTP permits you to log in with the user name 'anonymous' or the user name 'ftp'. When prompted for a password, type your e-mail address --it's not necessary, but it's a courtesy for those sites that like to know who is making use of their facility When you retrieve files, you have to know where the files are going to end up on your machine Typically, a directory called 'pub ' is where the interesting things are stored. Procedures File Formats To initiate FTP - give the command in the Browser window: ftp:// server-name After a short wait, you will be prompted for your username. If you do not have an account on the remote system, some systems allow you to use 'anonymous'. This gives you a restricted access path (meaning that you can only run certain commands like' dir ' or 'ls' and are allowed only access to certain directories like 'pub' When prompted for a password:some systems will tell you to send your real identity as the password.in most cases, it is suggested to give your e-mail address. DO NOT TYPE A PASSWORD THAT YOU USE ON YOUR OWN SYSTEM. Usually, files are grouped in archive files, so you don't have to get a large number of small files separately. The most common archival file formats for the Internet are tar and zip Files are often stored in a compressed format, to save space on their disks.-- for Unix, the most common compression 'scheme' is the 'compress' program,indicated by a.z suffix on the file name. Other schemes :Arc, Zoo, Arj,Lzh, gzipped or Zip files Other schemes :Arc, Zoo, Arj,Lzh, gzipped or Zip files For.zipfiles use zip and unzip (or pkzip/ pkunzip), For.gz files use gzip and for.z files use compress
The most common file types WinSCP pc based FTP client SUFFIX FTP TYPE.gif g bin Graphics Interchange Format.gz bin GNU Zip (Not compatible with Zip..hqx q asc HQX (Mac, Mac equivalent of uuencode).jpg bin JPEG (graphics format).tar bin Tape Archive (mostly Unix).uu ascii uuencode/uudecode (also.uue).zip bin Zip (either PKZip or Zip/Unzip) WinSCP3 pc based FTP client
WinSCP3 pc based FTP client Location on remote system Click & Drag files: from 1 window into next Dialogue
Set Permissions on file(s) Click & Drag files: 1 window into next Right click on any file & select Properties Closing the ftp session - like logout!