FTP: File Transfer Protocol

What is FTP?

The name FTP is an acronym for "File Transfer Protocol." This is the Internet service which allows you to transfer files from one computer to another. When you copy a file from a remote computer to your own computer, you are downloading the file. When you copy a file from your computer to the remote computer, you are uploading the file.

In FTP terminology, your computer is called the local host and the other computer is called the remote host. It doesn't matter where the two computers are located, how they are connected, even if they are using the same operating system. Using FTP, the two computers can, through the Internet, exchange files.

Anonymous FTP

Anonymous FTP is a facility that lets you connect to certain remote hosts and download files without having to be registered as a user. To do so, you log in using a special user name: anonymous. By using this special user name to logon, you do not need a regular password. Instead, you type in your email address. For example, if I logged onto an FTP site as anonymous, I would use jlagier@hartnell.eduas my password.

Transferring Files

If you access the Internet via PPP or a direct network connection, as in the computer lab, you will use a graphical ftp client that runs on your computer. In this example, we will use Cute FTP. All FTP clients work more or less the same way. Your screen display window will be divided into two sections, one on the left and one on the right. The left section shows you information about your local computer. The right section shows the names of the directories and files on the remote computer.

The general process of accessing an anonymous FTP resources involves the following steps:

Establish a connection to the remote host.
Navigate to the directory on the remote host that contains the file you want.
Set the options you want for the transfer. You can use either an "ASCI" transfer for text files or a "binary" transfer for software or graphic image files.
Select the file to be transferred.
Navigate to the directory or drive on your computer into which you wish to download the file.
Initiate the file transfer.

Downloading Files and Software

At times, you may wish to download extremely large files or entire software programs. To reduce the cost and space of storage and download time, large files are frequently stored in a compressed format. Such files should be treated as binary files. The problem is that getting the file transferred from the remote host to your local computer is only half the process. Once it is there, you will need to compress or unzip the file to make it usable. Page 84 of The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog provides a table listing the most common compression utilities.

When using FTP, you may want to move an entire directory or collection of directories. At this time, there is no standard command or effective means to accomplish this is a single step. Instead, the most common practice is to move multiple files from an FTP archive or backup a selection of files into an aggregate file which then can be moved.

FTP Exercises

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