More information on this topic can be found
in Chapter 9 of the textbook.

Unit 6: FTP Archives

If email is the U.S. Postal service of the internet, think of FTP (file transfer protocol) as UPS or Federal Express. FTP lets you share big files, or collections of files, over the internet. FTP archives exist as virtual filing cabinets on the net, and people use them as a clearinghouse for public information and software programs.

Most email systems balk at file attachments that exceed 60KB, although there's no reason (besides not wanting to overload the mail server) why you can't download or upload large files, as long as you have the patience.

Anonymous FTP is the standard service on the internet -- all that means is that anyone and everyone can access the FTP archives without special passwords.

Uploading is copying a file stored on your computer to another computer.

Downloading is the process of copying a file from another computer or network to your computer.

If you're downloading files from the web, you can use your browser to FTP. The URL will begin with ftp:// instead of http://. Many FTP sites are set up to let people log in as "anonymous" which basically grants access to outside users without requiring an account at the site. This is why FTP is sometimes called "anonymous FTP" - it means someone is running an FTP server and providing public access to it. Your email address is your password.

When you log into an FTP site, look for a file called "readme" or "index" - this will be a text file that will list the files available on the site with some information about them. Many files will be zipped to save space or to compress a group of files in one downloadable file. If you don't have a utility to unzip programs, you can download pkzip (for Windows) or Stuffit (for Macintosh) at http://www.shareware.com.

One way to find shareware or freeware is to go to an FTP site and look around. If you know exactly what you're looking for, you can use Archie to do a specific search. If your ISP doesn't have an Archie client, you can use Telnet to reach a system that does.

Understanding the URL format for FTP:

For the Voice of America ftp site:
ftp://ftp.voa.gov/pub/

  1. All FTP sites start with ftp://
  2. The name of the ftp site follows //: in this case, ftp.voa.gov
  3. The directory name starts with the first single / and goes up to, but does not include, the last /, in this case the pub directory
  4. The name of the file follows the last /, which could be any file included in the archive, such as readme.txt
  5. All the slashes (/) go in the same direction and slant to the right.

Downloading a file by anonymous FTP:

You can either click the file with your left mouse button, view it in the browser (or any helper app it loads), and then save the file using the File menu, or you can download the file directly to your hard drive by right-mouse clicking the file name and then choosing Save Link As from the popup menu, or using the shift key as you left mouse click the link, and saving the file in the Save As dialog box that will open..

Locating FTP archives:

There are several good FTP archives available online:

Archie:

Some files are best searched using Archie, which lets you enter the name or a portion of the file you're looking for, and it returns a collection of hyperlinks to files or directories that match your search criteria.

More FTP Search Tools:

Downloading and working with files from software archives:

You will find that many things available for download via FTP have a .zip extension. ZIP is a compression utility that lets you make a large file smaller, or compress many files into one zipped file to download. You can download a copy of PKZIP, a popular zipping-and-unzipping utility from PKWARE at http://www.pkware.com, or you can download WinZip at http://www.winzip.com. There is a risk any time you accept a file over the internet that it can contain a virus, so you may want to download one of the virus detection programs mentioned in the textbook.

Using an FTP client program:

 If you want to upload files to an FTP site, you'll need an FTP client program, such as CuteFTP, which is available for download here: http://www.cuteftp.com.

Once you have an FTP client that will let you upload files (remember, you can easily download files using just your browser), you can share your own files with people who have internet access. And if you've downloaded and installed a utility such as PKZIP, you can compress large files or a selection of files into one easily managed zip file.

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Last updated: 16 Apr 2003