How does FTP work, EXACTLY!?

Question

I have a free message board there on a website. How do I alter the HTML on it and then upload it. I've heard that it involves something called "FTP" Any help would be appreciated! It looks very complex, and Google.com does NOT explain it well!

Answer 1

It's really that complex, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is simply a method of transferring files between computers. That basically is all you need to know - if you want to see EXACTLY how it works then go to a college or univeristy library and you'll find several text books going into long and tedious detail about OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) and other subjects.



There are FTP servers and clients. The one you'll be more interested in is a FTP client which connects to a FTP server. All OS's (Windows, Macs and Linux) come with a command line FTP client. In a Windows command prompt type FTP /? which will bring up a help file for the Windows FTP program.



All browsers have support for FTP built into them. In IE or any other browser type ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/ to connect to Microsoft's public FTP server.



Microsoft's public FTP server only supports downloads and does not require a password. Other FTP servers require passwords and will allow either uploads, downloads or both.



To download a file from a FTP server you can either right click on the file you want as choose "Save As" from the menu or you can open Windows Explorer and drag the file from IE to WE.



Some FTP servers will allow you to upload and download entire directories at a time, others restrict you to one file at a time.



For ease of use then use a purpose made FTP client like FileZilla - http://filezilla-project.org/



These clients do all the connection stuff - you just provide the address of the FTP server, your username and password on that server and which port you would like to use. The Filezilla site also contains a FTP server if you want to play around with that.



You web host will supply the details you need to connect to their FTP server.



Ports - FTP servers actually uses two ports, usually 20 and 21. 21 is used for commands (get, put, ls etc.) - don't worry about these too much, a FTP client has a GUI like any other program which sends these commands to the server. Port 20 is used to actually transfer the data.



There are two modes, Active and Passive. Some FTP servers will only allow commuication using either Active or Passive modes. So if one doesn't work then try the other.



FTP overview - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol

FTP Active/Passive - http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html

Answer 2

You can FTP from a Windows command prompt, but you have to know all the commands, which is a pain in the neck. Either get a separate FTP client - I use WS_FTP, which is old and clunky but reliable - or use a Web-based FTP client like the open-source WebFTP. After that, it's a matter of establishing a session and then dragging files from your machine to the message board.

Answer 3

Is there not a built in FTP client? All FTP means is this:



You want to add a file to a website, you put that in your FTP client and it takes it to your sites root folder. Think of FTP as the middle man.



FTP = File Transfer Protocol...in case you're wondering.