Gorga wrote:Excuse me if I seem a bit computer illiterate, but I have no idea what is meant by "logging into ftp through the command line"...
Okay, assuming you're using Windows since you haven't mentioned anything to the contrary:
Start -> Run gives you a window to type a command.
Windows NT/2000/XP: type "cmd"
Windows 95?/98/ME: type "command"
You get a black window with some text and a prompt that looks like:
c:\>
or something similar.
If you've never used command line, it's very simple. The only thing that works is the keyboard. The mouse makes things change colors but really doesn't do anything. If you ended up with a full screen command prompt, press Alt-Enter to return to windows mode.
I'm going to use my site as an example because I don't want to go through looking up your site names.
first, type "ftp faub.keenspace.com" and press enter.
You get somthing that looks like this:
ftp wrote:
Connected to faub.keenspace.com.
220 ProFTPD 1.2.9 Server (KeenSpace::YDK FTP Server) [ydk.keenspot.com]
User (faub.keenspace.com:(none)): faub
331 Password required for faub.
Password: <your password will not appear when you type>
230 User faub logged in.
If you actually have a problem logging in, you will get an error. I got this for typing my password incorrectly. There may be a number of errors that will appear here. It depends on how dead your ftp account really is.
ftp wrote:
530 Login incorrect.
Login failed.
To close the ftp session, type "bye" at the ftp> prompt.
ftp wrote:
ftp> bye
221 Goodbye.
You can actually use command line ftp to copy files from your account to your computer or from your computer to your account. This is where things get touchy, though.
- CD or CHDIR: Changes directories within your ftp tree. If you open windows explorer (not just my computer), on the left you will see a directory tree. You can click the +/- to expand and hide the subfolders. This is the same concept as the ftp directory tree except that you don't have a pretty graphical interface. YOU have to remember where you are in the tree. Your Keenspace directory will look something like this:
-+ / (root directory)
-|---+ /public_html (the "hot" directory where the real files are stored)
-|---|---- /public_html/images
-|---|---- /public_html/d (your comic archive pages)
-|---|---- /public_html/comics (your comic images)
-|---|---- /public_html/workspace (this a symlink to /workspace)
-|---+ /workspace (put indextemplate.html and dailytemplate.html here)
-|---|---- /workspace/webpages (put all other .html or .css here)
-|---|---- /workspace/images (this is a symlink to /public_html/images)
-|---|---- /workspace/comics (put all comics here)
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Examples:
cd /workspace [i](moves from anywhere in the tree to /workspace)[/i]
cd images [i](moves from /workspace to /workspace/images)[/i]
cd .. [i](moves backward from /workspace/images to /workspace)[/i]
- PWD: Literally "print working directory." This will display the current path you are in. "Path" means the path you would have to traverse from the root of the directory tree to reach the directory you are in.
- MODE or ASCII or BINARY or BIN or ASC: These commands determine the mode of the file transfer. In FTP there are two modes, ascii which is meant to transmit only text and binary which is meant to transmit images and executables. DO NOT transmit an image using ascii mode. You will get a corrupted image. You CAN safely set the mode to binary and transmit text files, though.
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mode binary (set to binary mode)
200 Type set to I
mode ascii
200 Type set to A
binary
200 Type set to I
ascii
200 Type set to A
bin
200 Type set to I
asc
200 Type set to A
- PUT: put copies files from your hard drive to your ftp account.
This will copy coolpic.jpg from your images directory to the images directory on Keenspace. NOTICE: The directory you are in on the command line MUST have an images directory containing the file coolpic.jpg for this to work. Alternately you can type out the origin AND destination address but this takes work. Better to set everything up right beforehand.
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put c:\keenspace\images\coolpic.jpg images/coolpic.jpg
- GET: get copies files from your keenspace ftp account to the current directory on your computer. It works exactly the same way as put except the direction the file travels is reversed.
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get indextemplate.html
or
get images/coolpic.jpg c:\keenspace\images\coolpic.jpg
- DEL or DELETE: This will delete a file on the ftp site. This will NOT delete a directory. Keenspace generates some files on your account that you cannot overwrite. /public_html/index.html is an example (not that you should want to delete it). In order to copy your own version of a file into Keenspace you may need to first delete the original. If you're only uploading to /workspace/webpages then you shouldn't have a reason to use this command. Notice, though, that you can only delete one file at a time. Entering "del *" will actually return an error. This makes deleting all the files in a directory (/public_html/d/*) a problem. This is where GUI clients are very useful because they will send a del for each file without making your type the command each time.
- MDIR: Literally "make directory." This will create a new directory under the current subdirectory. Or you can specify a full path to the directory you want to create.
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mdir banners
or
mdir /workspace/data
- LS: This is unix shorthand for "list" and is used to get a list of files present in the current directory of your ftp account.
Notice that ls -l gives you much more information that just a list of files. You may notice your user name listed next to some of the files. This means that you are the owner of said files. You have the right to do whatever you like to them. There is also a "0" user. This is autokeen. You do NOT have the right to overwrite these files. You DO have the right to delete them. The column just to the right of your username is the group numer. You and autokeen share the same group and this gives you some minimal access to autokeen's generated files.
- ?: This is the help command. Using it alone will give you a list of available commands. In windows there are 42. In unix there are a few more. I'm not listing all of them here. You need to do some research for yourself.
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Example of Updating a comic with the command line:
(I keep all my Keenspace stuff in a directory called "keenspace." The rest of the directory structure matches the Keenspace FTP site on my computer.)
c:\>d:
d:\>cd keenspace\workspace
d:\keenspace\workspace\>ftp faub.keenspace.com
... stuff ...
ftp> cd workspace
200 command successful
ftp> put comics/20040101.jpg
... stuff ...
ftp> put indextemplate.html
... stuff ...
ftp> put images/somebodys_banner.jpg
... stuff ...
ftp> put webpages/links.html
... stuff ...
ftp> bye
SimSim: FTP requires that the server be able to connect back to you. It's a two way connection. It sounds like your firewall is letting your connect to the ftp server but it's not allowing the ftp server to connect back to you. That's the "unable to build data connection" error.
IE is supposed to use a one-way ftp (passive ftp). I can't think of a reason why you would be getting the data connection error using that. You do have "Enable Folder view for FTP sites" checked in advanced internet properties, right?
