Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!pacbell!att!occrsh!uokmax!noel
From: noel@uokmax.UUCP (Bamf)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: FTP, a simple HOW-TO
Keywords: Here, its simple, its easy, it short, its FTP, so quit asking already.
Message-ID: <2311@uokmax.UUCP>
Date: 1 Feb 89 16:05:15 GMT
Organization: Big Blue Box
Lines: 51


   As a recent initiate to FTP, I am probably not fully qualified 
to tell you all about it, but what the heck, thats what makes this country
so great...

   FTP is the interface to the DARPA File Transfer Protocol.  What it does, 
(or so I think) is use the Internet stuff that connects unix machines to 
each other, and allows you to logon to machines that you don't have an 
account on, for the sole purpose of file transfers.  
   In order to use FTP, you must start from a machine with an I-net address.
(ie: You must have access to the Internet stuff in the first place)
To use it, you just type "ftp" and you should get a "ftp>" prompt, 
or something along those lines.   Now you can "open" a connection to another
machine.   This is something like smart mailers, in that you simply specify the
destination machine, and the program figures out the 'best' way to get there.

   On machines that allow it, there is a generic logon for everybody:
	user= anonymous, password= your-username
but not all machines allow this.
So, a typical session might look something like this:
 
% ftp
ftp> open swan.ulowell.edu
Connected to swan.ulowell.edu.
username: anonymous
password: noel
etc...

Hostnames are kept in a file, usually /etc/hosts.  This file is usually nowhere
near complete, so sometimes you need the I-net address of a place.  It is 
interchangeable with the name.  ie: "open  129.63.224.1"   is the same as the 
"open swan.ulowell.edu".

    I'm not really going to explain how to transfer files, because thats 
what man pages are for, and it's pretty straigt forward, BUT, if you are 
going to transfer binary, or zoo, or anything other than straight simple 
text, use "binary", or it won't work right.
    Oh, also, I'm not going to post all of the FTP sites for *.amiga.* 
because they can be found on swan.ulowell.edu in the amiga section.
(if you can't get to swan for some ungodly reason, try uunet.uu.net.  If
you can't get to there, give up.)

Happy hunting!
Noel


-- 
 NEVER date a music major.  At least not one that's named her clarinet "Thor" 
----You want it should sing too?------|    noel@uokmax | ngorelic@uokmax
<Dis-Claimer, Dat-Claimer, to look at |        uokmax!tavern!anyone
 'em, you'd never know the diff...>   | "Beam me up scotty, we're outta beer"