When you connect to an FTP server, you will be prompted for a login name and password. Thus, in the “normal” mode of FTP, you must have an account on the server system.

But some servers also have been set up to provide files to the public at large. By convention, servers that allow this do so by recognizing a special login name, “anonymous” , for which almost any password is accepted. Again, by convention, users who log in as “anonymous” are expected to supply their own email address as the password.35

On the CS Dept server, ftp.cs.odu.edu, you can log in as “anonymous” to gain access to the public area. You cannot, however, access your own files from there. Alternatively, you can log in with your own Unix account login name and password, in which case you will have access to your own files and directories on the Unix network, but cannot access the public area.

This helps explain why you need to learn to use FTP rather than relying on your web browser for file transfer. Web browsers, when directed to an “ftp://” URL, do an anonymous login. If you need access to your own files and directories, that's no help.

To transfer files via FTP, you need to have an FTP client program on the machine at which you are sitting. In a sense, this is very similar to telnet, where you run a “telnet client” program on your local machine and use it to issue commands to a remote one. The ftp client program also runs on your local machine and allows you to issue commands to a remote one, but these commands are all related to file transfers.

Not surprisingly, the way you actually launch and run the client depends upon just which client you have. MS Windows comes with an FTP client, called ftp.36

CygWin provides another client, with the same name, which works almost identically. These offer a text-based interface. However, there are a variety of FTP clients, commercial and freeware, that offer window-GUI interfaces. You'll find some of these listed on the course Library page.

PCs on the labs maintained by OCCS have actually removed the default Windows ftp client program from many machines, and have installed the Hummingbird ftp client, which offers a familiar drag-and-drop style interface. Access this program in the “Start->Programs” listing as “Hummingbird Connectivity…->Host Explorer->FTP” .

GUI interfaces can simplify FTP use, but these interfaces often create problems by hiding the text/binary settings, leading to corrupt transfers.

FTP via a Text Interface:

To use the MS Windows ftp, click the “Start” button, select “Run” , and for the program name type

(Assuming you want to connect to the CS Dept. server. If you have reason to access another FTP server, just replace the machine name accordingly.)

If you are running the CygWin ftp, just type the same command into your shell.

You will then be prompted for your login name and your password. Enter those as usual.

Your next command should be

This simply increases the amount of feedback you get about the progress made during file transfers.

Before actually transferring files, you must decide whether to use binary or text file transfer. If you want binary transfers, give the command

and if you want text transfers, give the command You can switch back and forth between these modes as necessary if you are transferring multiple files, some text and some binary.

Now you can use the commands cd, pwd, and ls to navigate the Unix directory structure as if you were in the shell. usually, you will cd to the directory of the remote machine in which you wish to download or upload files, do an ls to see what's there, and then proceed to transfer the specific files.

You can also change the directory of the local machine in which you will be working by giving the lcd (local cd) command. Note that the directory you give to this command must make sense in terms of the local machine's directory structure. For example,

for the MS Windows ftp client, but under CygWin.

To get a file from the CS Unix machine to your local machine, the command is

To put a file form your local machine onto the CS Unix machine, the command is Neither the get nor put commands can include wildcards (* ?) in the filename, but by changing the commands to mget and mput, you are allowed to use wild cards.37

To end your ftp session, the command is

Here, then, is an example of an ftp session in which three files were downloaded from ~zeil/data on the Unix network into c:\misc\temp on the local PC:

(You may notice that, during the ASCII mode transfer, the number of bytes transferred was larger than the size of the file. That's because, in an ASCII transfer from a Unix machine to a Windows machine, each new-line character is replaced by a carriage-return character followed by a new-line.)

FTP via Hummingbird Exceed:

From the Windows Start menu, launch Hummingbird Connectivity…->Host Explorer->FTP. A dialog box wil pop up asking for infomraiton on the ftp connection you wish to make.

If you want to make a regular connection, make sure the "anonymous" box is clear and fill in:

Leave the other fields in the dialog box unchanged.

If you want to make an anonymous connection, click on the "anonymous" box to select it and fill in:

Leave the other fields in the dialog box unchanged.

After closing the dialog box, you should see two "explorer"-style windows. One of these displays the folders and files on your local PC. The other shows the directories and files avaiable on the ftp server. You can negotiate these two file systems in the usual manner (by double-clicking the folder icons). Dragging files from one window to the other will initate an FTP transfer, copying the files from one machine to the other.

Before you actualy copy any files, however, you should take note of two buttons on the toolbar, one labeled “A” and the other labeled “1010 1010” . These select text (ASCII) and binary mode, respectively, for any subsequent transfers.