SecretSchool.Org

What is FTP ?

FTP is a method to transfer files (documents, images, …) over the Internet from one computer to another. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol.

What do I need to transfer files by FTP?

The best thing you can use is a specific FTP program. For PC you can use WSFTP, for Macintosh there is Fetch. Both can be downloaded from our anonymous FTP server (WSFTP, Fetch) and both are free to use for educational institutions.

Note: nowadays, you can also use recent Internet/Web browsers to transfer files with FTP.
How does it work?

FTP uses the so-called client/server model. On one side, there is the customer – you – and on the other side there is a server, on which files are stored.

If one wishes to store or retrieve files to/from a server, simply start your FTP program, and specify the hostname of the server, and a username and password. Once you have logged on succesfully, you will be able to browse through the files and directories on the remote server, and upload and download files.

See the examples on how you can use WSFTP and Fetch.

Note: to logon onto an FTP server with an Internet/Web browser specify the address ftp://username@server.name.com/ username being the ID to logon onto the server server.name.com (the browser will ask for the password to logon).

What’s anonymous FTP?

To be able to logon onto server, you usually need a username and password. Sometimes persons wish to offer or exchange files with other persons on the Internet, without the latter having such a username and password on the server in question. As giving your username and password to someone else is very dangerous, some FTP servers allow persons to login with the username ‘anonymous’ and specifying their email address as password. This method of logging on and exchanging files is called Anonymous FTP.

Why not use e-mail for file transfer?

It is true that e-mail is very easy to use. And with a mouseclick you can send and receive attachments by e-mail.

However, a lot of servers refuse e-mails that are larger that a certain size. For instance, the maximum size of an e-mail message sent to or from the VUB/ULB is 16 million bytes (15.25 Mbytes). And other providers even impose more restrictive limits (sometimes even as low as 300 kbytes).

Also documents that are sent by e-mail have to be encoded in some way, making the document even larger (about one third). So a document that is 7.5 Mbytes large would become 10 Mbytes when sent by e-mail.

http://www.vub.ac.be/BFUCC/net/how2ftp.html