How to use an FTP program to transfer files to and from a remote computer. April 00

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1 How To How to use an FTP program to transfer files to and from a remote computer. April 00 What A file transfer protocol utility (or FTP utility) is useful for transferring files on a remote computer to your own computer and vice-versa. FTP is particularly useful for transferring files that are too large to conveniently transfer on diskette or as attachments. For example, you might work on a document while at Fuqua and then later want to access the document on your home PC. No need to put the document on diskette or attach it to to transfer it. You can instead store the file in your FuquaNet account and then use FTP to access the account from home. These notes describe how to use the WS_FTP95 utility 1 in use at Fuqua. Starting the FTP Program Open the FTP program by double-clicking its icon or finding it in your program list. (If you don t have a copy of the FTP program, contact Fuqua s Technical Support Center.) The FTP program presents you with a Session Profile display that looks something like the one below. In this dialog you indicate what remote computer (or host) you want the FTP program to access. In the initial Session Profile dialog, you must provide the Host Name, the Host Type, and your User ID and Password. 1 Hereafter referred to as just FTP program.

2 In this example, imagine you re working at your home PC and you want access to files you stored on your FuquaNet H: drive. To remotely access your H: drive space on FuquaNet, you d complete the FTP Session Profile dialog as follows: For: Host name Host Type User ID Password Do the following: Enter faculty.fuqua.duke.edu Leave at Automatic detect Enter fuqua, a slash (/), and your Duke ID (Note: No aliases are permitted here.) Enter your Duke password The key entries in your Session Profile should look something like this: Then click the OK button. The FTP program connects to the computer you named in the Host Name box, in this case the Fuqua faculty server computer. Because you provided your ID and password, you can now accesses your space on that computer for file transfer operations. FTP permits you to transfer files to and from your account on the remote computer. More on How FTP Works: A Sample Local to Remote FTP Session When you point the FTP program to a remote computer and access it as described above, FTP removes the Session Profile window and presents you with a new session window. This window is divided into three parts: 1. At the left of the window is your local file location (Local System). It s a picture of your local diskette or hard drive. 2. At the right of the window is the remote location (Remote System) to and from which you ll copy files. 3. At the bottom and stretching across the entire window is a status area. In this area appears information about the status of your session and of the FTP commands you enter. Also important are the left- and right-facing arrow buttons between the Local System and Remote System parts of the window. These buttons let you copy files between your local PC and the remote computer.

3 In the illustration above, the left-hand portion of the window currently shows a folder on the local PC s C: drive. The right-hand portion of the window shows my personal H: drive space on the Fuqua faculty server computer. For the purposes of this description, imagine that you want to copy a file called test.doc from the C:\TEMP drive on your local PC to your FuquaNet H: drive. Step One: Change the Local System to reflect the location of test.doc. Click the ChgDir button to the immediate right of the Local System part of the display. An Input dialog box appears that prompts you to name the local directory you want. Enter C:\TEMP in this dialog and click OK. (Alternatively, click the down-arrow to the right of the Local System drive location and click c:\ to see a listing of all the folders on your C: drive. Scroll down the list if necessary to find C:\TEMP in the list. Then double-click C:\TEMP to make it the current folder.)

4 Whichever method you use, the result is that your Local System shows C:\TEMP as the current folder and you can see the test.doc file in the file list for that folder. Step Two: Change the Remote System to point to the location on your FuquaNet H: drive space where you want to put the copy of test.doc. Change folders on the Remote System the same way you changed folders for the Local System. Single-click the entry for test.doc in the Local System part of the display. Single-clicking selects the file. It displays in reverse video. Then click the right-facing arrow between the Local System and the Remote System to transfer a copy of the file from your local PC to your FuquaNet H: drive.

5 FTP transfers a copy of the file; it doesn t move the file. When the transfer operation is complete, you ll see a listing for the test.doc in both the Local System and the Remote System file lists. Both the Local System and the Remote System file lists show test.doc. Step Four: Check the FTP program s status area to confirm that the transfer was successful. The status area at the bottom of the FTP window displays a message to confirm that the operation worked OK. Remote to Local Copying a file from a remote computer to your local computer works the same way as described above, just reversed. To move a file from remote to local, use the left-facing arrow button between the remote and local displays in the FTP window.