Introduction to the File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Introduction
In current times if you want to transfer a file
to a friend, you can just attach it in an email and send it off. With high
speed bandwidth being so cheap and plentiful to the home user, transferring a
file in this manner is usually more than adequate. What if you needed to
transfer the file to someone immediately; there could be no delays, it has to
be fast, and the files you are transferring may be very large. In a scenario
like this, email will most likely not be adequate. This is because most email
providers limit the size of your mailbox on their servers, the size of
attachments you may receive, and that there is no guarantee when you send email
how long it will take for the recipient to receive it or if it will even get
there. This is where FTP comes in.
What is FTP
FTP stands for the File transfer protocol and is
used to transfer files between an FTP server and another computer. In the past,
FTP was much more common than it is today and was the dominant file transfer
mechanism on the Internet. If you needed to transfer files between two
computers, you would use FTP to do so. FTP is still very popular today when a
service requires that a lot of files be hosted for other to people to download.
FTP also tends to be faster than other contemporary methods of transferring
files because it was designed to do so.
Even more important, FTP support Automatic
Resume. This means that if you are downloading the latest new game demo that is
over 600 megs, and for some reason the download stops in the middle of the transfer,
the ftp client will attempt to on the next download of the same file, to
continue from where you left off. This feature can save you a huge amount of
time but is generally only found in specialized FTP client software and not in
your browser software.
How to Connect to an FTP Server
There are two approaches to allowing users to
connect to an FTP Server. The first is to make it so anyone can log in
anonymously, otherwise known as anonymous FTP, or you can assign user names and
passwords to people that they must use to log in to the server.
The two most common ways to connect to an FTP
server is with your Web Browser or with a FTP client such as FileZilla. To connect to a FTP server with your browser you would
prefix the hostname you are connecting to with the ftp:// protocol statement.
For example, ftp://www.want2host.com. It would then try to connect anonymously.
If the server you are trying to connect to requires a username and password,
you can do so in the following format:
ftp://username:password@ftp.somedomain.com
It is recommended when you do connect with a
username and a password that you do not put the password in as well, otherwise
it will show up in your browser's history. Instead do this:
ftp://username@ftp.somedomain.com
This way your browser will prompt you for a
password and you do not have to worry about it being stored in your history
list, which can potentially be a security risk.
The other method is to use a FTP client that is
designed specifically to connect to FTP servers. These types of software are
generally the best as they have been streamlined for speed and support a lot of
the advanced features like automatic resume. You should browse through the list
of FTP
Clients and find one you like.
How to Transfer Files
Whether you are connected to an FTP server via
your web browser or an FTP client, you will be presented with a list of folders
and documents that have files you can download to your computer. If you are
using a web browser, you will click on the file you would like to download and
it will prompt you to save it or open it. Unless you really know what it is you
are downloading, you should save it to a directory that you will know how to
find later, and open it from there.
If you are using an FTP Client, you will be
presented a list of the files that you can download. You should first specify
where you would like downloads to save to, and then you can double click on the
file to start the download. When you are done downloading, you can shut the FTP
client and open the file from where it was stored.
No comments:
Post a Comment