Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

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 8.2.3.)

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. Entering a URL with an ftp prefix, such as ftp://ftp.gnome.org in Safari will pass the request on to the Finder, which will mount the volume as described earlier. Internet Explorer (or any other alternative web browser; see Section 8.3.1) also handles this sort of functionality seamlessly; pointing it at an FTP URL begins an anonymous FTP session with that location, allowing you to browse the directories using the browser window itself. You can also put a username and password into the URL like this: ftp:// username:password @ host (but see the warning that follows).

To do anything more sophisticated in an FTP session than merely browsing available files, you have to use an FTP client. Mac OS X doesn’t ship with any FTP client Aqua applications, but it does ship with ftp, a rather minimalist command-line program (documented in Chapter 28). For a more sophisticated FTP client program, consider the feature-rich, open source Terminal program ...