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 ...
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