Technical Document #4001
Technical Document #4001Digital Formation makes available all of its software on our WWW site (website) and on our FTP site. In fact, the links on the Web site are to files stored on the FTP site. This document discusses accessing the FTP site directly, if the Web links fail for any reason, or if you do not have a Web browser.
Downloading files from a Web site is usually as simple as clicking on a link to the file, and letting the web browser perform the download procedure. In some instances, it may be preferable to view the location where the files are stored as a directory listing, and pick files from that list. Most web browsers can do this as well, depending on the server where the files are stored. For Digital Formation files, you can access our FTP site directly from a browser, by entering the URL as:
The browser anonymously logs into the FTP server and then displays the contents of this directory, in a format similar to:
Clients
incoming
LESA
RIS-Info
RIS-View
Utilities
DownLoad.txt
Getting_Started.pdf
Index.txt
Release.txt
In this format, each of the directories listed can be clicked on to change to that directory. Each of the files can be downloaded by either clicking on it, or right-clicking and selecting "Save", depending on your browser.
Accessing the FTP site in this way, using a web browser, allows you a read-only connection, i.e. you can only download files from the site, you cannot post files back up to the site. If you need to send files to Digital Formation, you will need to use the procedure below for the console (DOS) FTP application.
Several of our clients, as well as ourselves, have experienced a problem accessing download files from Internet Explorer (IE), using versions from 3 to 5.5. The problem is that when clicking on a link, the browser will report
"login failed: access denied"
as if a password was required to access the files, or will simply fail to bring up a list of directories and files. The links on our Web site and the files on our FTP site, unless specifically marked, are available through an anonymous connection. The browser should connect to the files as an anonymous user, but occasionally we have found that especially IE 3.0, 3.02, 5.0, and 5.5 will fail to connect properly. One solution that occasionally works is to hit F5, which forces IE to refresh the display. If IE appears to get stuck searching, hit Esc first to cancel the refresh, and try F5 again. The only other solution that we and our clients have found that will solve this problem is to un-install IE completely, and re-install it. In between the un-install and re-install, be sure to reboot your PC, so all shared programs are flushed from the PC memory. After installing IE, you can safely reset all of your preferences and try to access the Web site again; the problem should be solved. This problem may occur with other browsers or versions of IE as well, however we have not seen the problem on IE 4.
Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me have a console (DOS) application for doing FTP transfers. To use it, you will first start an FTP session, login as an anonymous user, change to the appropriate directory to download or upload a file, perform your file transfer, and then end the session. To begin the session, from the Start | Run dialog, type:
Then at the following prompts in the DOS window (console), type:
Username: anonymous
Password: [your e-mail address]
ftp> cd pub
ftp> dir
This will leave you in the main Digital Formation directory, and give you a directory listing. If you would like to download a file, continue:
ftp> binary
ftp> get filename.zip
The binary command forces the computers (our FTP server and your local PC) to talk the same language during the file transfer. If you would like to send us a file, continue:
ftp> cd incoming
ftp> binary
ftp> send filename.zip
The "incoming" is a write-only directory, so once you have uploaded the file you will not be able to see it. You MUST change to this directory to send us a file. Any attempt to send a file into any other directory will give you an "access denied" error. Just notify us by e-mail when you have uploaded a file, and we will go get it. Alternatively, you mail email attachments up to 10MB in size to Support@DigitalFormation.com.
When you are done with your session:
ftp> quit
This will end the FTP session.
There are several shareware packages around for doing FTP transfers, if your Windows setup does not have this console application. Also, many of the FTP packages available will shield you from having to know about binary files, etc., and instead give you an Explorer type interface.
This example will show you approximately what you should see if you went through a procedure similar to the discussion above.
Start | Run: ftp ftp.DigitalFormation.com
Connected to DigitalFormation.com.
220 mail.DigitalFormation.com FTP server (Version wu-2.6.0(1) Fri Jun 23 09:17:4 4 EDT 2000) ready.
User (DigitalFormation.com:(none)): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
Password:
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
Note that you must supply your e-mail address as the password.
ftp> cd pub
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for directory listing.
total 400
drwxr-xr-x 2 511 511 4096 Nov 28 2000 ASCII
drwxr-xr-x 16 511 511 4096 Nov 10 2000 Clients
-rw-r--r-- 1 511 511 3286 Feb 9 11:36 DownLoad.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 511 511 4096 Apr 6 10:00 EagleImage
-rw-r--r-- 1 511 511 131858 Mar 22 12:06 Getting_Started.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 511 511 1840 Feb 9 11:36 Index.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 511 511 4096 Apr 6 11:12 LESA
drwxr-xr-x 2 511 511 4096 Apr 6 11:14 RIS-Info
drwxr-xr-x 2 511 511 4096 Apr 6 11:13 RIS-View
-rw-r--r-- 1 511 511 1203 Feb 9 11:36 Release.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 511 511 4096 Mar 27 18:47 Utilities
drwx-wx-wx 2 511 511 4096 Apr 6 07:56 incoming
226 Transfer complete.
1124 bytes received in 0.02 seconds (70.25 Kbytes/sec)
ftp>
If you are looking for product updates, change directories to the appropriate product.
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> get Index.txt
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Index.txt (2381 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
2381 bytes received in 10.58 seconds (0.23 Kbytes/sec)
The file "Index.txt" will now be on your local hard drive, in probably either your TEMP directory, or your root C:\, depending on your system configuration.
ftp> cd incoming
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> send c:\temp\myfile.zip
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for myfile.zip.
226 Transfer complete.
1671 bytes sent in 0.00 seconds (1671000.00 Kbytes/sec)
ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for directory listing.
226 Transfer complete.
Note that files sent to our "incoming" directory can only be seen by us, i.e. once the file is sent, they will not be seen at all by the outside world, even in a directory listing.
ftp> quit
221-Thank you for using the FTP service on mail.DigitalFormation.com.
221 Goodbye.
This ends the FTP session.
Most modern WWW browsers, like Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, should properly access files through links to an FTP site. The browsers perform this action by logging into the FTP server as an anonymous user, and then downloading the files. Occasionally it may be necessary to access the FTP site directly, either because of a missing or invalid browser configuration, or to send files back to Digital Formation. This document has discussed the procedure to possibly fix browser errors, and to access the FTP site with the DOS FTP application available in Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me.
Copyright © 2001 Digital Formation,
Inc.
Contact information on the Technical Document Index page.