Accessing the FTP service

The service is available at ftp.ed.ac.uk.

Logging in

The service is available at ftp.ed.ac.uk. You may login to the service anonymously using the username anonymous and your email address as the password.

Common commands

ls

will list the files in the current directory

mkdir dir

will create a new sub-directory called dir though you cannot create directories in the /edupload and /incoming directories

cd dir

will change your current directory to the sub-directory dir

get file

will fetch the file named file from the archive to your desktop system

put file

will put the file called file on your local system and upload it to the current working directory on the archive

binary

put the server in binary mode for uploading binary files rather than text files

How to upload a file to the server

It is best to use a command line ftp program. Windows, Mac and Linux systems all provide a command line ftp client. Open a command or terminal window and then type:

ftp ftp.ed.ac.uk

Login using the username 'anonymous' and use your email address as password.

Next change your current working directory to either the incoming directory or the edupload directory (be aware that edupload can only be accessed from the University network):

cd /incoming

If the file you are uploading contains binary data and is not a plain text file, then issue the command:

binary

Next upload your file(s) using the put command:

put myfile.txt

Your file will then be loaded on the ftp server. You will not be able to get a file listing of it though as the directory is protected.