Chapter 5 - FTP Upload

FTP is the best way to upload your pages to your host. When you build your site, you do it all on your computer. I recommend setting up your folder the same on your hard drive as it will be on your server. Doing it this way means you always have a backup of all of your information. If your host goes down, it is a simple matter of re-uploading your files.

What is FTP?

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is the most popular method of moving files around on the Internet. Many download sites, especially for Unix, offer FTP as a method for download as well as HTTP. There are many programs available for FTP, and most are very easy to use - just drag and drop.

What FTP program should I use?

Most FTP programs work well, but which one should you get? Free FTP programs are very popular, and work just as well as the expensive ones. For Mac, there is Fetch and Anarchie - both work very well. For Windows, I highly recommend Filezilla.

How do I use FTP?

Uploading your files via FTP is very simple. The process you go through might be different, depending on your host. View their support pages for more details. I will show my example using a very common method.

Step 1: Connect to your server.
Directions: Open up your FTP program and click on “Connect”. Type in your server information, and click OK. What you input to these options will vary from host to host. Contact your host for more details.

Step 2: Find current directory.
Directions: Find the appropriate directory on your host, and on your computer. This is where you will upload your files.

Step 3: Specify Transfer Type.
Directions: There are 2 different modes to transfer data - ASCII, and binary. ASCII, or plain text, is used to upload text and html files. Binary is used to upload programs, images, movies, etc. - everything other than HTML pages. Most FTP programs have an “Auto” feature, so you don’t need to worry about this.

Step 4: Drag and Drop.
Directions: You can drag and drop files between directories to upload(put), or download(get) files. When you are done, disconnect, and open up your pages in a browser to make sure they work, and you uploaded all of its linked documents.

It is as simple as that! Using FTP is easy for HTML files and images, but what about Perl scripts. In this next chapter we will discuss SSH and Telnet - so you can use CGI!

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