The peoples' DOS FTP Refresher


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NEW PARTNERS! Share, protect and enhance your internet connection. Check out SMOOTHWALL. FREE SOFTWARE We are now running OPEN SOURCE workshops. Open Source gets the go-ahead from OGC Public bodies urged by Office of Government Commerce to "develop skills in open source development and deployment". (Kable) Geek quote of the day: LINUX is not The Answer. YES is the Answer. LINUX is The Question.	The peoples' DOS FTP Tutorial OVERVIEW: The good ol' vanilla DOS ftp client is really useful for quick access to an ftp resource without having to install a GUI client in windows. GOAL: learn how to download a file off an ftp site to the local machine. HOW-TO: Lets use a live scenario, so you can practise as we go. Say we need the Windows95 log file viewer and we dont have the full installation CD handy. (just how many CDs are we supposed to carry around?) Anyways, it's on microsofts ftp server. Lets go fetch it. COMMENTS COMMAND INSTRUCTIONS OUTPUT Click Start, Run In Win2k/XP type "cmd", In Win9x type "command", then ENTER to get a DOS Prompt TYPE: ftp DISPLAY: ftp> TYPE: open ftp.microsoft.com DISPLAY: "Connected to ftp.microsoft.com. 220 Microsoft FTP Service User (ftp.microsoft.com:(none)):" TYPE: anonymous "331 Anonymous access allowed, send identity (e-mail name) as password." TYPE: "hillbilly@microsoft.com" (Anything that looks like an email address will do) DISPLAY: "230-This is FTP.Microsoft.Com 230 Anonymous user logged in. ftp>" And you're in ;) TYPE: dir or USE "ls" for short format."dir" is not always supported in nix servers DISPLAY: ...directory listings... Now let go get our target file TYPE: cd products DISPLAY: "250 CWD command successful." TYPE: dir DISPLAY: ..directory listing... and so on, you can change multiple dirs in the same command in this way: TYPE: cd windows/windows95/cdromextras/otherutilities dir DISPLAY: ...file listing.. Now we see our taget file. First we issue some commands back to our dos "shell" to make sure we're in the right local directory: TYPE: !dir DISPLAY: ..local directory listing - probably the windows directory, full of loads and loads of files... We need to change to another dir, or well lose our download in there! For sanity's sake, lets make a dir for our download(s) TYPE: ftp> !mkdir c:\downloads ftp> lcd c:\downloads DISPLAY: Local directory now C:\downloads. Now we're ready to download the file..what was it called again: TYPE: dir DISPLAY: "421 Timeout (120 seconds): closing control connection. 421 Terminating connection. Connection closed by remote host." oops. unless youre a fast typeist, you've been logged out for inactivity.. theres a fast way to get back to your target's directory though: TYPE: open ftp.microsoft.com TYPE: anonymous TYPE: a@a.com TYPE: cd products Now hit the UP arrow a few times through your history till the line reads: "cd windows/windows95/cdromextras/otherutilities", hit enter and youre back on target. Target is an exe, ftp's default format is ascii, and that supports only plain text or html. We gotta use "binary". TYPE: binary TYPE: get logvu.exe Once the "ftp>" prompt returns, lets check the file is there: TYPE: !dir DISPLAY: ... Directory listing of C:\downloads.... 25,272 logvu.exe 1 File(s) 25,272 bytes We have it! Now just in case we need more usefull tings from here in the future lets look around and see what else they have: TYPE: cd .. TYPE: dir DISPLAY: ...directory listing of the dir above now you can wander round the site using "cd [directoryname]" to go down a named directory and "cd .." come come back up a level. Try "mget " if you want to grab all the files in a directory. An example of a uniquely useful directory is: /developr/visualstudio/sp3/full (!) To disconnect from the ftp site: TYPE: disconnect to quit the ftp client altogether: TYPE: quit SOME TIPS: - most considerate ftp sites dont have directories with spaces in them, but if you need to perform a command on a directory or file with spaces in the name, then surround that name with quotes eg: cd "dir name with spaces" - at any point you can type "pwd", and that'll show the your current directory. - nix servers are mostly case sensetive, while ms are not, so watch your case! Back to comm-tech Tech Support Resources. ********************************************************* copyleft kazim-at-comm-tech This program/how-to is freeware; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; This program/article is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License (GPL) for more details. **********************************************************	WELCOME TO COMM-TECH THE REAL COST OF BUYING A NEW PC Infoworld article on the real cost behind that pentium four... One more simple reason to start using Firefox TRUSTED COMPUTING Who do you want to trust today?

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