How to use UNIX FTP

How to use UNIX File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

By Nicholas Seet

FTP enables files to be transferred from one machine on a network to another. FTP is useful as it allows you to store or retrieve files from any computer in the world. Many different FTP 'clients' or programs have been written, but the first and most commonly available is the text mode FTP which can always be found on Unix systems, or in 'DOS' under Windows'95 or NT.

Learn by Example

Learn by Syntax (advanced)

Learn by Example

Just say someone tells you to 'Go and get the file list.txt from ftp.cdrom.com/pub/games/' or you may have found a file in 'archie', the file searching program.

1. At your command prompt type:

          ftp ftp.cdrom.com

FTP starts the program, and connects to the site ftp.cdrom.com

2. You will see something similar to:

          >Connected to sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch.
          >220 wcarchive.cdrom.com FTP server (Version wu-2.4.2(18) Thu
	  >Dec119:28:12 MET 1997) ready.
          >Name (carchive.cdrom.com:user):

Type:

ftp

You will then see:

          >331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
          >Password:

Type in your email address. (You don't really have to type in the stuff after the @ symbol)

3. After the welcome message, you are now 'in' the site.
We must now change our directory to the directory '/pub/games'.

Type:

          cd pub

cd stands for Change Directory. Now we are in the 'pub' directory.
Generally, you will find downloadable material in the 'pub' directory of most sites.
You must also make sure that you only use capitals when the directory has capitals in it, otherwise it won't work!

Type:

dir

to see a list of all the files there. You should see the 'games' directory in the list:

          drwxr-xr-x   6 731       730 512 Nov  4 05:11 games

You can tell that it is a directory because there is a 'd' at the far left.

If 'dir' does not work, then you must type 'ls -aFl'.

4. Use 'cd' to change into the remaining directories:

Type:

          cd games

5. Use 'dir' to find the file:

Type:

          dir l*

to get a listing of all files which start with 'l'. You should see:

          -rw-rw-r--  1 2066  ftp-game  234868 Jun 30  1997 list.txt

Because there is no 'd' at the far left, you know that it is a file, not a directory.
The 234868 is the file size, it is 234,868 bytes big (approx. 234Kb). It was last modified on the 30th June 1997.

6. To download, type:

bin

This will make your download in 'binary' form.
This mode will always work for all files, whereas the default mode 'ascii' will only work for text files.
So always make sure you type 'bin' before you download or you will get garbage!

Type:

          get list.txt

and type 'y' when asked to confirm.

'list.txt' will now download, and will soon be on the computer you ran 'ftp' from.
Alternately, if you want to download multiple files, you could type: 'mget *', this would download *all* files in the directory; 'mget l*' would download all files beginning with 'l'.
If you do not wish to confirm each download one by one, type 'prompt' to turn that off. If you wish to have a download indicator, type 'hash'.

6b. To upload:

To upload a file you must be in a directory you are allowed to upload into.
You would type 'put list.txt' if you wished to upload 'list.txt' or 'mput l*' to upload all files beginning with 'l' for example.
Make sure that you type 'bin' again before you upload anything.

7. Logging off. Type:

bye

to close the connection and quit FTP.

If you have any questions type either 'man ftp' (for unix) or 'help ftp' (for windows) at your command prompt;
...or email nik@ying.com

Learn by Syntax

Following are the basic commands that will allow you to successfully ftp.
Click on them or scroll down for notes on usage.

ftp [sitename]
cd [directory]
pwd
dir [filespec]
bin
prompt
hash
get [filename]
mget [filespec]
put [filename]
mput [filespec]

Advanced commands:

Where the contents of [square brackets] are customizable and
[filespec] means either a full file name (ie. 'list.txt') or a filename with wildcards
ie. 'l*' means all files beginning with 'l', and '*.txt' means all files ending with '.txt'

          ftp [sitename]

Connects to [sitename]
Login: ftp
Password: [emailaddress]

          cd [directory]

Changes to [directory]

pwd

Print working directory (tells you which directory you are in)

          dir [filespec]

Lists details about the filespec
Alternate is 'ls -aFl'

bin

Changes to binary mode
You must do this!

          prompt

Turns off confirming uploads/downloads

          hash

Turn on hash indicators for download/upload status

         get [filename]

Downloads [filename]

         mget [filespec]

Multiple download of [filespec] files

         put [filename]

Uploads [filename] from your current local directory

         mput [filenspec]

Uploads multiple files matching [filespec]

Advanced

lcd

Changes your local directory (the directory from which you started 'ftp' from).

Allows you to suspend ftp and use your command prompt, type 'exit' to return to 'ftp'.