Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Using FTP

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is one of the oldest Internet protocols for file sharing that is still in use. It consists of a simple command set for getting lists of available files from servers, as well as for performing file downloads and uploads. (To learn about Mac OS X’s more modern and Finder-friendly notions of file sharing, see Section 7.2.)

The most common FTP transactions occur through anonymous, read-only logins to an FTP server, letting you browse through world-readable directories and download the files found therein. Internet Explorer (or any other web browser; see Section 7.3.1) handles this sort of functionality seamlessly; pointing it at a URL with an ftp prefix, such as ftp://ftp.gnome.org, begins an anonymous FTP session with that location. You can also put a username and password into the URL like this: ftp:// username:password@host (but see the warning below).

To do anything more sophisticated in an FTP session than merely browsing available files, you’ll have to use an FTP client. Mac OS X does not ship with any FTP client Aqua applications, but it does ship with ftp, a rather minimalist command-line program (documented in Chapter 25). For a more sophisticated FTP client program, consider the feature-rich, open source Terminal program ncftp , available at http://www.ncftp.com.

Popular third-party Aqua FTP applications include the shareware programs Fetch (available from http://fetchsoftworks.com/ ) and Transmit (available at http://panic.com/ ...