An Introduction to FTP

FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is a method of transfering files between computers on the Internet. WebCom customers often use FTP in the creation and maintenance of their Web sites, transferring files they've created on their personal computers to their accounts on our servers, and vice versa.

Do I need FTP?

Some HTML authoring tools, like Netscape Communicator, handle the FTP process of transfering HTML and binary files to your account for you. If you are not using this kind of software, you'll need to use FTP in any of the following situations:

• You want to put a graphic, image, sound, or other binary object on your Web page.
• You have some pre-existing Web pages or other files you want to move into your WebCom account.
• You want to backup some files or your entire WebCom directory (see our FAQ on how to backup your entire account in one step), or transfer in a group of files all at once.

Many WebCom customers who use FTP regularly prefer the WebCom File Manger for making quick and minor HTML changes since it's so convenient. However, in any of the above situations you'll need to use FTP. FTP comes standared with every TCP/IP (Internet) protocol software package, and it's very easy to use (especially graphical FTP clients for Mac and Windows).

If for some reason, you do not have software enabling you to use FTP, there are very popular publicly available shareware FTP Client such as LeapFTP and Fetch. These can be found at our HTML tools resource.

What FTP can do

FTP allows you to: list files and directories; create new directories and delete old ones; upload and download files, as well as delete old ones; rename directories and files--in short, do everything you would normally do on your local machine, except create new files from scratch, and change the contents of old ones while using your WebCom account.

FTP also supports uploading and downloading large groups of files at one time. If you have a graphical FTP program, transferring files is as easy as pointing and clicking with your mouse. There is even a program which integrates FTP into the Windows File Manager, so that you can use your WebCom directory just as though it were another hard drive on your Mac or PC, or your local network (LAN).

The FTP Server at WebCom

WebCom uses WuArchive (Washington University Archive) FTPD, which is virtually a standard for large FTP sites. This program supports a number of advanced features:

1. You can control whether or not people can list and/or download your files
2. You can compress, archive, and uncompress files as you transfer them from the WebCom server to your computer.
3. People downloading your files can do this as well, as they are transfering them; this enables you to store compressed files in Unix formats, while still allowing people without Unix to download them. More information on this is available at ftp.webcom.com/~webcom /pub4/webcom/help.html.
4. Translates ".htm" file extensions to the more standard ".html" if you specify port 2121 when connecting to the FTP server. If you do not wish to have the extensions of your files translated in this way, you simply use the default port 21.