Difference between revisions of "Learning FTP (1)"

Revision as of 13:57, 24 April 2016

This article introduces File Transfer Protocol and FTP clients for the beginner.

It explains how to use an FTP client to:

• Connect to a remote server
• Upload files to the remote server
• Download files from the remote server

It does not cover FTP servers, other than explaining how to reach an FTP server from an FTP client.

Requirements

• FTP client - for example FileZilla or Fetch
• Credentials - remote server host name, user name, password, etc.
• Network connection to remote server

Download and install FTP client

Download and install an FTP client of your choice.

• FileZilla is popular, and available for Windows, OS X, and Linux
• Fetch (OSX only) is simpler and easier to use

Any FTP client will do -- they all do essentially the same thing.

Different FTP clients have different interfaces, and some are easier to use than others.

You should not have to pay for an FTP client. FileZilla is one of many free FTP clients.

You may already have FTP client capability: some programs, such as Dreamweaver, have built-in FTP clients, which can be used for general FTP purposes.

Configure FTP client with remote server credentials

FTP clients require remote server credentials.

The credentials consist of:

• Host name for remote server
  • Typically a domain name such as somedomain.com
• Username
• Password
• Remote folder
  • Remote folder is often required, but not always

Different FTP clients have different interfaces for entering the credentials, but all FTP clients behave essentially the same.

Typically, FTP clients let you enter credentials in two ways:

• On an immediate, one-time use basis, where you type in the credentials each time you use the FTP client
• In a configuration manager -- a dialog box which allows you to store the credentials for later re-use

Configuration management is useful because you can store multiple sets of credentials, for multiple remote servers. This is common in web design.

Activate the connection

Activate your pre-configured connection, or enter you credentials for an immediate one-time connection.

Your client will display a dialog box showing files and folders on the remote server.

You may see one or two separate panels, with two sets of files (and folders):

• Remote files only (one panel)
• Local files and remote files (two panels)
• Local files only (one panel - less common, Dreamweaver has this feature)

Remote files only

Programs like Fetch have one panel which displays files on the remote server.

To upload files, use a Finder window to select the files and folders you want to upload, then drag the files and folders to the Fetch windows.

To download files, use the Fetch window to select the files and folders you want to download, then drag the files and folders to a Finder window (wherever you want those files/folders to go).

Local files and remote files

FileZilla displays two panels with files/folder:

• Local files (on your hard drive)
• Remote files (on remote server)

To upload files, select files and folders in the Local panel, and then either:

• Right-click and select Upload
• Drag to destination in Remote files panel

To down files, select files and folders in the Remote panel, and then either:

• Right-click and select Download
• Drag to destination in Local files panel

FileZilla behaves like the Finder (Mac) and Windows Explorer (Windows) -- that is, you can navigate files using a tree structure, made up of folders containing subfolders.

Be careful when transferring files

Be careful when transferring files.

Picking the right files/folders to transfer is usually easy to get right, and difficult to get wrong.

Picking the destination folder is easy to get wrong. This is especially true with click-and-drag, where you can easily drag the files to the wrong destination folder. But even with right-click download, it's easy to get wrong.

Simple mistakes can cause you (and others) lost work, lost time.

FTP is easy to get right: be mindful when navigating, selecting, and transferring files.

See also

• Fetch
• File Transfer Protocol
• FileZilla
• FTP client
• FTP server
• Host (computing)
• Server (computing)
• Web server

External links

• File Transfer Protocol @ Wikipedia