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FTP Fundamentals

Uploading and Downloading

Simply put, FTP allows you to enter a directory on a computer connected to the internet and transfer a file to or from that directory to another directory on another computer. Normally, you will be transferring the file to or from a large, multi-user computer and your own computer. File transfer can go in two directions. "Downloading," refers to a transfer of a file from a remote computer to your computer. "Uploading" refers to a transfer of a file from your computer to a remote computer.

In order to upload or download a file by FTP, you need to do four things:

  1. Login into a remote computer that has been configured as an FTP "server".
  2. Submit a username and a password to gain access to the remote system.
  3. Go into a particular directory on the remote system that contains the file you are interested in downloading or to which you wish to upload a file.
  4. Transfer the file to or from the system in question.

Anonymous and Non-anonymous FTP

There are two types of FTP connections available on the internet: "anonymous" and "non-anonymous". The most widely used type is anonymous FTP. In fact, you may have used it without even knowing it. Many web pages contain links to files that you can download. Often these links point to a file in an anonymous FTP directory. If a file is stored in an anonymous FTP directory, virtually anyone with internet access and an FTP program of some sort, even a web browser, can download the file. Uploading, on the other hand, is not possible with anonymous FTP. Anonymous FTP, therefore, is used primarily to give the internet public download access to a particular directory of files. Anyone can download files from the directory, but only the "owner" of directory can upload to the directory.

When you connect to any FTP directory, the host system asks for your username and password before allowing you access to the directory (this process is done behind the scenes when you use a web browser to access an FTP directory). With an anonymous FTP directory, any user can gain access because the username is always "anonymous" and the password is always the user's e-mail address.

Non-anonymous FTP, on the other hand, requires you to know the unique username and password for the FTP directory in question. Normally, you will use non-anonymous FTP to get access to directories that YOU OWN on an internet computer. For example, when you sign up with a commercial internet service provider (ISP), or get an internet account through school or work, you normally get a "home" directory on the ISP's computer assigned to you. You can use the disk space in this home directory for any purpose you choose. To get access to that directory, however, you will normally need to use FTP. Your ISP can tell you the name of the FTP "host" computer you must connect to as well as the username and password you must use to get access to your home directory.
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