What’s ftp?

Ftp   or File Transfer Protocol  is a protocol for transferring files between two computers on a network. The two computers must be on the Internet.

The ftp will have a   client and the server.The client will be your machine and server will be the machine on to which you are transferring your file to.

Starting your ftp client

Take command prompt and type  ftp

Ftp commands

When the ftp is started you can see like this

ftp>

Use the quit command to terminate your ftp client:

ftp> quit

 

You can list all the ftp commands using  “?”

ftp> ?

Connecting to a remote computer

Type open<servername>

If the server may or may not prompt for user id and password depending upon whether it is public or private.

Directory commands

ls  – > list file

ftp> dir

 

ld-à list directory

 

ftp> dir

 

Use the cd command to change to a different directory on the remote computer.

Commands to retrieve a file

 

The command get is used to retrieve a file from the server.

ftp> get install.txt

The following  get command specifies the new name readme.txt for the file being retrieved:

ftp> get read_me_first.txt readme.txt

 

The command mget can be used to retrieve a group of files

 

This command will get all the files ending in “.c”:

 

ftp> mget *.c

 

Your ftp client may prompt you before it retrieves each file that matches. If you want it to transfer the file, enter “Y” or “YES”.Files can be transferred as either ascii or binary. An ascii file is a file containing only printable characters. A binary file can contain printable and unprintable characters. Examples of binary files are executable files or files compressed to save space.

To transfer a file in binary mode, enter the binary command before the get command:

ftp> binary

ftp> get test.zip

Commands to send/transfer/upload a file to the server

The put command can  be used to upload a file to the server.

 

ftp> put prog1.txt

 

. For example, this put command specifies the new name prog1.txt:

 

ftp> put prog1.txt test.txt

 

If you are transferring a binary file, use the binary command before the put command:

 

ftp> binary

ftp> put test.exe

 

To transfer a group of files you can use mput . To transfer all files ending in “TXT” to the remote computer, enter this:

ftp> mput *.txt