FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

from Windows. . .

to UMBC's gl server

1. The Internet Connection

First you need a connection to the Internet. You can use a private connection if you have one, but if you don't, all UMBC students who have computers can set up a PPP (that's Point to Point Protocol) connection through the university free.


2. Install / Setup FTP Application

Okay, now that you're connected you need to have an FTP application setup on your computer.

WS_FTP is a great freeware FTP program.
WS_FTP is a good choice if all you need is just a straight-forward FTP application.
There is also a version for Linux called WX_FTP, which has the same basic interface.
This is the UMBC gl setup for WS_FTP.

However, if you would like more functionality and a more user-friendly interface, try FTP Voyager.
This shareware program displays your entire directory tree for fast easy access. It also comes with its own scheduling program and much more. It's definitely worth trying!
Here is a general tutorial on using FTP Voyager.
This is the UMBC gl setup for FTP Voyager.


FYI (For Your Information):

If you are transferring text files between Windows and Unix (or vice versa) they need to have their format changed.

Important Note:

This is done automatically if you use FTP in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) mode to transfer your text files. This is part of the protocol design. If you have followed the appropriate setup link above, then the FTP application you chose is setup to automatically detect text files (with certain extensions) and transfer them in ASCII mode.

The reason for the change is this...
DOS/Windows text files use "newline" and "carriage return" characters to end a line of text. Unix only uses the "newline" character; it doesn't recognize the "carriage return" character. So these "carriage return" characters need to be stripped out of the files if you're sending them from Windows to the Unix system, or added in if you're sending them from Unix to Windows.

Here's a nice little freeware Windows utility to take care of this little change over.
It's called Unix Edit. Here's how to USE Unix Edit.

This file is a .ZIP file (compressed), so you'll need some "zipping" software to unzip (decompress) it.

And the fun doesn't stop there. There is also a couple of utilities on UMBC's IRIX system to make this change.
Here's how they work:

prompt% to_unix <dos_file> <new_unix_file>
This changes a file from DOS/Windows format to Unix format.

prompt% to_dos <unix_file> <new_dos_file>
This changes a file from Unix format to DOS/Windows format

Both of these utilities will also accept input from stdin and output it to stdout.


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