CIS*1650 LAB 1: Introduction to Working Environment and Tools

Seminar #1 12 Sept 2003

FTP Introduction

The Central/General Login Account Besides to bring a diskette to the lab, there is another "cool" way to store your work in a safe place: ftp or e-mail it to your central login account. Each registered student in UofG is given a central login account (some call it the general login account, or central account, or general account. It is the same thing). Think of it as a storage space allocated to you by the University. As long as an Internet connection is available, you can access this account from anywhere. Using this account, you can access your files or send/receive e-mails (Webmail) from all around the world. Here we introduce how to use ftp to process file transfer.

FTP Command FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is used to transfer files between two computers. The process is referred to as upload/download. Upload is to transfer files from your computer to another computer; download is the other way around. There are many FTP tools like WS_FTP and BulledProof. Some are free, some are not. But most operating systems such as Windows, Macintosh, Unix and Linux provide primitive ftp service. This article only discusses how to use ftp in Windows.

Upload Procedure Assume your file is stored in directory c:\temp\cis1650\lab1. The file is exercise1.java. You want to transfer it to your central account. The web address is general.uoguelph.ca Here is how it works:  Open a Dos shell (In W2K, Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt)  Change to the directory where your file is stored. In this example, it is c:\temp\cis1650\lab1. (cd c:\temp\cis1650\lab1)  type in the following commands (highlight in black): 1. ftp general.uoguelph.ca 2. It will ask for your login ID and password. 3. binary 4. put exercise1.java 5. If you need to upload more than one files, repeat step 4 and replace exercise1.java with whatever file you want to upload. 6. When you are done, type in bye command to end the program.  Simple as described, your work is safely rested in your central account.

Download Procedure Now your file is placed in your central account. You go home, refresh up and ready to continue to work on your exercise1.java at your home computer. The procedure to download a file from your central account to your computer is the same as upload except replacing the put command with get command: 1. Change to the directory where you want to store the file. Assume it is c:\cis1650\lab1. 2. ftp general.uoguelph.ca 3. login ID and password. 4. binary 5. get exercise1.java 6. repeat step 4 to download more than one file.