How Do I use FTP?
This page is a step by step procedure for using FTP to move a file from your disk to
the university extension Web site so that it can be included in your organization's Web
pages. If your Web pages are housed on a server other than oseda.missouri.edu or
outreach.missouri.edu, these instructions are generally valid for any UNIX server, but the
directory names and host name will vary.
These instructions assume you are using the WS_FTP client (available for Windows
95 and 3.1 from the UO/E software tools page).
Similar clients will work fine if they show a directory listing of both your local files
and the remote machine's files.
If you are using a Macintosh, refer to these directions for
using Fetch on a Mac.
Directions
- The text in bold represent text on the computer screen, and text in
"quotations" represent text that you type. Do not type the quotations.
- Follow the steps below exactly as they are written. There are 9 steps.
- Once you have created a Web page or graphic and are ready to send it to the server, save
the file on your hard-drive or on a floppy disk. The ending extension on the file name
should correspond to the type of file it is, so if it is an HTML file, the name should end
in .htm or .html. If it is plain text without any HTML formatting, name it with .txt at
the end. Graphic files must be either .gif or .jpg format to be visible on the Web.
- Click on the FTP icon so that your computer will open the FTP software. Two windows will
appear. The bottom one will be titled WS_FTP, the top one will be titled Session
Profile. First focus on the Session Profile window.
- In the space provided next to Host Name, type "oseda.missouri.edu".
Then move the cursor to the space next to User ID, and type in the login that you
were given. Then move the cursor to the space next to Password, and type in your
password. When you have filled in these spaces, click on the Ok button.
- There is a gray box across the bottom of the window that says WS_FTP. If you did
something wrong, like mis-typing your password, the long gray box will read logon
failure, so quitting. If this is the case, then click on the button at the lower left
hand corner of the screen that reads Connect, and return to the beginning of step
3.
- If the box says something other than logon failure, so quitting then everything
is O.K., and the button at the lower left hand corner of the WS_FTP window will
read Close.
- You should now be looking at another window that is split into two sections: Local
System on the left side and Remote System on the right side. The computer that
you are working at is the Local System. The Outreach Web Site is the Remote
System. On the Local System side, click on the ChgDir button on the top
part of the screen. You will now be prompted to type in the local directory name. If your
files are on a disk type the letter of the drive that the disk is in followed by a colon
i.e. "a:" or "b:". If the files are on your hard-drive type in
"c:". You should then be able to see your files in the bottom half of the
"Local System" side of the screen.
- When you got your account, you were told where to place your Web page files. If it is in
a directory other than the current directory, you will need to change your current
working directory. For example, if the top left of your FTP client says under Remote
System: /home/your-userid/ but you need to put your files in
/wwwexthome/regions/cmregion/ then click on the ChgDir button. Type the following:
"/wwwexthome/regions/cmregion/" . Press OK
- Remember the machine is case sensitive so type it lower case and the slashes lean to the
right.
- You should be able to see files that have already been put on our machine in the lower
half of the Remote System box.
- Below the windows where you see the local and remote files, there are three radio
buttons that read ascii, binary and auto. For best results, always make sure
Binary is checked. If you send image files in ascii mode, they may be garbled after
the transfer.
- Now click on or highlight the files in the lower half of the Local System box
that you want to FTP or move to the Outreach machine. You may select more than one file to
FTP.
NOTE: Any time you copy a file to the Remote System side it will
automatically write over an old file with the same name.
Once the files that you desire to FTP have been selected, click on the arrow between
the Local System and Remote System boxes that points to the right or from
the Local System to the Remote System. After a few moments, the files should
appear in the lower half of the Remote System box indicating that the FTP was
successful.
- If you do not see the files listed in the lower half of the Remote System box,
then click on the button on the Remote System side that says Refresh.
- In order to rename a file in FTP do the following:
- Select the file in the lower half of the Local System box that you wish to
rename. You may only rename one file at a time.
- Click on the button in the Local System box that says Rename.
- You will now be prompted for the new name of the file. Type it in making sure that you
keep the extension, the part of the file name after the period, the same:
".gif", ".jpg", ".htm", etc. the same.
- Click on the button that reads Ok or hit the return key on the keyboard.
- If you FTPed your main home page, remember it needs to be named index.html. The
procedure is nearly the same as the procedure described in step 8. The only differences
are that the file to be renamed is in the lower half of the Remote System box, and
the name will stay the same expect that the extension, the part of the file name after the
period, should be changed from ".htm" to ".html".
You have now successfully FTPed. If you have questions or get stuck, send e-mail to
Kate Akers, Webmaster: kate@oseda.missouri.edu.
