Using the File Transfer Protocol

You already know that File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a subset of TCP/IP and that FTP is used for the transfer of files. In recent years, FTP has become a truly cross-platform protocol for transferring files. Because Internet (and thus TCP/IP) use has skyrocketed, almost every client and server platform has implemented FTP. Windows is no exception. Its TCP/IP stack comes with a command-line ftp utility.

To start the ftp utility, enter ftp at a command prompt. The result is an ftp command prompt:

C:\Users\tlammle>ftp

ftp>

From this prompt, you can open a connection to an FTP server and upload and download files as well as change the way FTP operates. To display a list of all the commands you can use at the ftp command prompt, type help or ? and press Enter. To get help on a specific command, type help, a space, and then the name of the command. Here is some output from the help command:

In the following sections, I’ll give you an introduction...