MSSL Basic User Note #11:

Transferring files

Philip Smith 19/10/95 V0.0

This document: http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_computing/buns/ftp.html

Contents
Introduction
ftp
PC Diskettes
Netscape and URLs

Introduction

The File Transfer Program/Protocol (ftp) is a program used on TCPIP platforms to transfer files (programs and data) from computer to computer. The MSSL DECs (VMS and Unix), most Unix machines, and some PCs and Macs have it installed.

ftp

General case

In a normal ftp session, you ftp to the remote machine with

	ftp remote-machine

The remote machine will prompt for a username and password for the remote machine.
If you get your username or password wrong you will not be allowed to do very much until you use

	user login-name

after which you will be prompted for your password again. (You could of course just quit and try the whole ftp again if this is simpler.)

You will be in your home directory. Use

dir

and

cd

to look for the file(s) you would like to transfer or the directory you would like to transfer file(s) to.

Next select a file transfer type. If the file is just a plain text ascii file, use:

	ascii

or if the file is a binary file (or you are just not sure), use:

	binary

Using ascii will make sure that new-lines are converted to the right type of new-line for the system in question. Remember compressed files are usually binary and postscript, uuencoded and binhex programs are ascii. Then you can get a file by typing

	get filename

or if you would like to call the file something else locally,

	get filename local-filename

or put a file by typing

	put filename

	put filename remote-filename

If you would like to get a number of files use

	mget files

where files can contain a wildcard.
You will be prompted yes/no for each file but you can toggle this off (and then back on again) by typing

	prompt

To close the connection type:

	close

you can then open another connection using

	open remote-machine

or just quit with

	quit

Unix

Here is an example.

Say we want to transfer a file letter.tex from mssls7 to mssly3
First go into the directory on the machine you would like the file to be (mssly3):

	cd letters

and type

	ftp mssls7

The remote machine (in this case mssls7) will prompt you for your login name and password for that machine.

	Connected to mssls7.mssl.ucl.ac.uk.
	220 mssls7.mssl.ucl.ac.uk FTP server (SunOS 4.1) ready.
	Name (mssls7:your_name): your_name
	331 Password required for your_name.
	Password:your_password

If you logged in correctly you will get the following message and prompt:

	230 User your_name logged in.
	ftp>

Now change directory to get to where letter.tex resides:

	cd ~/docs/tex

Because the letter is a TeX file (and is therefore human-readable), you should choose type ascii:

	ascii

and then get the file:

	get letter.tex

Finally you can close the connection and quit:

	close
	quit

or just say quit or bye:

bye

If you wanted all your tex files in ~/docs/tex you should do as above but instead of the `get' command first type:

	prompt

and the:

	mget *.tex

VMS

VMS ftp is a little different to the standard UNIX ftp.

The default for prompting is off rather than on.
The filenames are all uppercase and have a version (semicolon number) at the end.
Some of the more modern ftp commands (like tar) are not available.

Only the version numbers will cause a real problem. What can happen is if you transfer files from VMS to Unix using mget, the files can end up on the Unix account in uppercase and with a semicolon number (e.g., `;1') at the end. If this happens you can either do the following to a directory full of VAX files under Unix:

	foreach FILE ( * )
	  mv $FILE `echo $FILE | cut -f 1 -d ';' | tr A-Z a-z`
	end

or just log onto VMS, ftp to Unix and `put' them from VMS to Unix (rather than logging onto Unix, ftping VMS and `get'ting then from VMS to Unix).

VMS disks and directory names aren't much of a problem just use cd (e.g.,

	cd disk$xray:[user.files]
	cd morefiles

Here is an example.

You want to transfer all your TeX documents on mssla3 to mssly3.
You know that on the VAX the filenames have version numbers and you don't want to convert them when they get to mssly3 so you decide to `put' the files from mssla3 to mssly3 (rather than get them from mssla3 to mssly3).

	set def disk$u1:[your_name.letters]
	ftp mssly3

	220 mssly3.mssl.ucl.ac.uk FTP server (OSF/1 Version 5.60) ready.
	Connected to mssly3.mssl.ucl.ac.uk. 
	Name (MSSLY3:your_name): your_name
	331 Password required for your_name.
	Password: your_password
	230 User your_name logged in.
	FTP> cd ~/docs/tex
	250 CWD command successful.
	FTP> mput *.*
	FTP> close
	221 Goodbye.
	FTP> quit

Further information

To change your local directory while in ftp use:

lcd

To execute something in a shell while in ftp use an exclamation mark, for example to check your local directory use:

!ls

Typing `help' at the ftp prompt will give a list of commands available in ftp on the remote machine (this will be different for different machines).

Other commands which might prove useful (if available) are:

delete - to delete a remote file (only if you are allowed to)
hash - to show transfer progress
mkdir - to make a remote directory (only if you are allowed to)
rmdir - to remove a remote directory (only if you are allowed to)
system - to see the remote system type
more - use like `get FILE |more' to read a file immediately

For more detailed information

	man ftp

Anonymous ftp

Many sites have an anonymous-ftp server which allows (almost) anyone to ftp there and get (and sometines put) files.

Use

	anonymous

as the Name
and your mail address

	your_name@mssl.ucl.ac.uk

as the password.

Anonymous ftp can also be accessed with WWW browsers like Netscape using URLs of the form

	ftp://site.address.whatever.country/directory/subdiretcory/file

The .netrc file

To store information on frequently used ftp addresses, use a ~/.netrc file (i.e. a .netrc file in your home directory).

This file stores the machine name, login, password and lists of ftp commands to execute at that site.

Do NOT store any passwords other than anonymous ones in this file An example file is:

	machine src.doc.ic.ac.uk
	login anonymous
	password user@mssl.ucl.ac.uk

	machine ftp.funet.fi
	login anonymous
	password user@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
	macdef init
	cd /pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus/v1.2
	bin
	prompt
	get linux-1.2.13.tar.gz
	close
	quit

	machine unix.hensa.ac.uk
	login anonymous
	password user@mssl.ucl.ac.uk

This example contains three entries the first and thirs of which just save the user from typing in the anonymous login name and email address as password.

The second shows the macdef command which defines a macro for frequently used command sequences. In this case the macro is a special one called `init' and so will run automatically after typing `ftp ftp.funet.fi'.
This can be used in conjunction with the `at' command to ftp something automatically at night when network traffic is lower.
To do this create a file (for this example called `go_ftp') containing just

	ftp sitename

and make it executable

	chmod 755 go_ftp

Then set off the go_ftp command at a suitable time:

	at 0400 ./go_ftp

and the next time it gets to 0400, the go_ftp file will run the ftp command it contains and ftp will look in your .netrc file, see the `macdef init' and run the commands therein automatically.

Entries in the .netrc file must be separated by a blank line as in the example and MUST NOT CONTAIN ANY REAL PASSWORDS or your .netrc file will be permanently removed.

For more information

	man netrc

PC diskettes

The linux DOS-like commands are like the MSDOS commands but with an `m' in front. To copy files to a PC diskette, place the diskette in the PC's floppy drive and type

	mcopy  file  a:

To copy files from a PC diskette to the current directory, use

	mcopy  a:file  .

where the dot `.' just means the current directory and could be replaced with a different directory. To delete files on a floppy use

	mdel  a:file

To do a dir use:

	mdir  a:

The full list of DOS-like commands is

mcopy
mattrib
mcd
mcopy
mdel
mdir
mformat
mlabel
mmd
mrd
mread
mren
mtype
mwrite

For more help do

	man mtools

Note that when using wildcards (`*' and `?') you must use single quotes around the wildcard filename, e.g.,

	mcopy  a:'*.*'  ~/dosprogs/

Warning DOS ascii files use CARRIAGE-RETURN (0D) LINEFEED (0A) to mark the end of a line while UNIX uses just a LINEFEED (0A).
Problems with this will show up as something like `^M', `LF' or `LINEFEED' in editors.
When copying DOS ascii files to Unix for use under Unix you will probably want the files' `new-lines' converted during to copy to be Unix-like. If this is the case use the `it' switch with mcopy, e.g.,

	mcopy  -t  a:letter.doc  .

Netscape and URLs

The main World Wide Web browser used at MSSL is Netscape. This is an X-Windows program so you must be using a computer with an X-display running.

A URL is a Universal Resource Locator - a unique address to specify the type of file, the machine it is on (anywhere in the world), the path to the file (the directories) and the filename itself.

The URL of this document might be is:

	http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/www_computing/buns/ftp.html

Here the http specifies that the document is made available via http (other types are ftp for `ftp'able files, file for local files).
msslag.mssl.ucl.ac.uk is the full hostname of the computer which holds the document
buns is the directory containing the doument (this could be much longer, e.g., local_documents/general/buns/bun10/)
ftp.html is the filename - the extension html means the document was written in HyperText Markup Language

To access a URL, select `Open' in Netscape and type in the URL or type it into the `Location' Window (if there is one showing) and press ENTER.

For example, if you want the program make-3.74.tar.gz in the /gnu directory at src.doc.ic.ac.uk you would use the URL

	ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/gnu/make-3.74.tar.gz

P.J.Smith --- pjs1@mssls7.mssl.ucl.ac.uk