Guide to FTP

FTP: the basics
Finding your way in the BADC archive
Managing files in your requests directory via FTP

1 - FTP : The basics

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the standard way to transfer files between different machines. In order to transfer files from the BADC's FTP server you will need an FTP client program on your computer.

Before transferring data files, make sure there is enough disk space on your machine!

NOTE: Problems have been reported with ftp sessions that use extended passive mode, which is the default for some versions of the "pftp" client. Our ftp server will support extended passive mode, but some client-side firewalls appear not to. If you are affected by this, then try typing "epsv off" in your pftp client session before attempting to list or download files.

Opening a connection from the user's computer:

From a PC / Machintosh

From a Unix machine

FTP commands:

The FTP commands you will use most frequently are:

ftp - starts FTP. If a machine is specified, a connection to that machine is made immediately, e.g. ftp.badc.rl.ac.uk, otherwise the FTP command prompt is displayed.
open - opens a connection to the specified machine.
cd - change directory on the remote machine.
lcd - change directory on the local machine.
pwd - print working directory on the remote machine.
ls - short directory listing on the remote machine.
lls - short directory listing on the remote machine.
dir - long directory listing on the local machine.
ascii - set ascii transfer type (for text files).
binary (or image) - set binary transfer type (for binary data, executable files, gzipped files etc.).
get - copy file from the remote machine to the local machine, or append "-" after the filename to display the contents of a remote file on your screen (e.g. the command get 00README - will display the 00README file of the current directory to your local screen).
put - copy file from the local machine to the remote machine.
mget - as for get, but copies multiple files.
mput - as for put, but copies multiple files.
close - disconnects from the remote machine.
quit - terminate FTP session and exit.

An Example

The example below (connecting from an Unix machine) shows the use of a number of the simple FTP commands to log on to ftp.badc.rl.ac.uk, move around the file system and transfer a couple of files. Note the input from the user has been emphasised to distinguish it from the computer's output.



$ftp ftp.badc.rl.ac.uk   (Connect to the BADC)

   Connected to ftp.badc.rl.ac.uk.
   220 ftp.badc.rl.ac.uk FTP server ready.
   Name (my.local.machine:jsmith): anonymous    (Anonymous login to get the public data) 
   331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
   Password:*************             (Enter Email address)
   230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
   Remote system type is UNIX.
   Using binary mode to transfer files.

ftp>ls               (List files in top-level directory)

   200 PORT command successful.
   150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list (130.246.120.21,2367).
   bin
   etc
   pub
   data
   acsoe
   AAAREADME
   AAAREADME.more
   data.saved
   badc

ftp>ascii             (Change to ascii mode for file transfer)
ftp>get AAAREADME -   (Transfer and display the file AAAREADME) 

   (file transferred and displayed to screen) 
       
ftp>cd badc/toms     (Go to the directory called badc/toms)

   250 CWD command successful.

ftp>ls               (list the files in this directory)

   200 PORT command successful.
   150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list (130.246.120.21,2368).
   .tags
   .sys
   data
   cdf
   images
   software
   00README
   226 Transfer complete.

ftp>get 00README     (transfer the file 00README to your machine)

   200 PORT command successful.
   150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for 00README (130.246.120.21,2369) (1264
    bytes).
   226 Transfer complete.
   1264 bytes received in 0.00098 seconds (1.3e+03 Kbytes/s)


ftp>quit             (exit FTP)

   221 Goodbye.

2 - Finding your way in the BADC archive

AS soon as the user as logged onto the ftp server, one should first see a welcome message (welcome.msg) displayed on screen.

At this level of the ftp server, there are 5 directories:

badc
incoming
neodc
project_spaces
requests

badc: this is the gateway to the BADC data archive;
incoming: this area is strictly restricted to registered data providers who submit data and metadata to the BADC. There is also a web-interface to this service (data uploader).
neodc: this is the gateway to the NEODC data archive
project_spaces: this area is restricted to users who have access to a project space, which has been specially set up for them.
requests: this is the area where the data extractor outputs are stored or any other data files that may have been especially extracted for a user. This directory corresponds to My requested data webpage under My BADC.

3 - Managing files in your requests directory via FTP

If you wish to remove files or directories in your requests directory, you can do this through the ftp interface. You only need to navigate to the appropriate folder in your requests folder and then use the command delete filename; to remove a directory it will be rmd directoryname .

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