RGFN User's Guide

FTP

File transfer protocol (FTP) allows you to transfer computer files back and forth between any of the computer sites on the Internet. You can use the FTP command to copy computer files from your computer to a remote computer or from a remote computer to our own. You can copy computer files containing maps, music, software, text, images, movies, radio programs, books, journals, and executable software applications.

One frequently used FTP method is called anonymous FTP. It allows anyone in the world to have access to a certain area of disk space on a remote computer. With anonymous FTP, people can make files publicly available, and you can easily transfer these files to your computer. Some systems have dedicated entire computers to maintaining extensive archives of information. With anonymous FTP you login to a remote computer as the user "anonymous" and use you use your complete Email address as a password. Once inside the remote computer you can move around the various files and directories just as you can move around on the hard disk on your personal computer. You can select files and even whole directories to transfer to your own personal computer or mainframe computer account.

Word of Caution

Remember when you use FTP you are a visitor in someone else's home. Extend the utmost care, caution and courtesy when using their facilities. Your image and behavior in this environment reflects on all of the users of Rio Grande Free-Net. Ask for assistance if you are not sure of how to do something. There is someone on the Net always willing to give advice and guidance.

Starting FTP

Select the FTP gateway from the menu in the Teleport area. You will be asked to provide the Host's address. This can be entered in two ways: by name or by numeric address. The form of the Host's address depends on the information you have and the way the Host works. For example, a name is rgfn.epcc.edu. Some Hosts do not recognize these names and require their numeric address, which is in the form of four groups of digits. An example is 198.213.188.2 which is the address of the Rio Grande Free-Net.

Next you will see the connect information of the computer system you requested. That is if the system is available and not overworked with others trying to FTP also. You will need to login as 'anonymous' and then for your password you will use your complete User ID (aa100.rgfn.epcc.edu), this is a method that is used to track the useage for the system by different sites.

	     Example of  FTP connection information  

220 uunet FTP server (Version 5.100 Mon Feb 11 17:13:28 EST 1994) ready.
Name (ftp.uu.net:jm): anonymous                 <== You type in
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
Password: userid@rgfn.epcc.edu                  <== You type in
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply
ftp>

Discovering What is Available

At the ftp> prompt, you enter commands to move around, transfer files and to discover what is available.

Commands

dir: This command gives you a listing of the files and directories of where you are presently located. For example, after issuing a dir command the following information will be displayed:

200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 4
drwxr-xr-x  2  7  21 512  Nov 21 1988  work  <== this is a directory
-rw-rw-r--  1 7   11 1200 Feb 16 1993  .login   <== this is a file
226 Transfer complete.
777 bytes received in 0.7 seconds (4.9 Kbytes/s)
ftp>

cd: To move from directory to directory type cd and the name of the directory. You can move back one level by using cd .. (that's cd and two periods)

Example cd pub
		250 CWD command successful.
		ftp>

pwd: To find out what directory you are currently in type pwd. This shows you the directory path of your current location.
get: The command to receive a file is get See below Receiving a File.
put: The command to send a file is put See below Sending a File.

Identifying File Types

Knowing the type of file is important when it comes to transferring the file. There are filters in the different systems that will eliminate some information if the type is not set properly. Before getting or sending a file, you need to set the type, which you do as follows:

For ASCII Files                 For Binary File
---------------                 ----------------
ftp> ascii                      ftp> binary
200 Type set to A.              200 Type set to I.

The A refers to ASCII mode. The I refers to Image format, for pure binary transfers.

Receiving a File

The command to receive a file is: get filename1 filename1 is the name of the file you want to get. optional filename2 is the name you would like the file saved as in your home directory. Remember to set the type before you begin.

Sending a File

If you have permission, the command to send a file is:
put filename1

filename1 is the name of the file you want to send from your work directory. optional filename2 is the name you would like the file saved as at the destination directory you are logged into. Remember to set the type before you begin.

Multiple Files

You can send and receive multiple files with FTP using the 'mget' and 'mput' commands. The commands use wildcards in the file names. FTP will normally prompt you for the next action. If there are a lot of files being transfer and you don't want to have to confirm each file, at ftp prompt type the word prompt and this toggles off the interactive mode. To reactive just type the word prompt again.

example:  mget *.txt   <= receive all files with the extension of .txt
	  mput c*      <= send all files that start with a c

See FTP Commands in this guide for more commands.

WS_FTP

This program is available in the RGFN Download Library. It is a Windows-based FTP client. You must be running Windows 3.1 to use WS_FTP. It allows you to connect to hosts on the Internet using FTP protocol. WS_FTP comes with pre-configured profiles for several of the most popular FTP sites.

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