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| author | raphaelh |
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| date | Sun, 12 Sep 2004 14:03:47 +0000 |
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gFTP Users Guide version 2.0.13 (06/10/2002) Copyright (C) 1998-2002 Brian Masney <masneyb@gftp.org> gFTP is a multiprotocol file transfer program for both X Window and the console. Some of the gFTP features are: * Downloading files * Uploading files * Transfering files between 2 remote servers * Downloading multiple files in one run * Downloading entire directories and subdirectories * Simultaneous downloads using multithreading * Supports resuming interrupted file transfers * Bookmarks menu to allow you to quickly connect to remote sites * FTP and HTTP proxy host support * Supports the FTP, FXP, HTTP and SSH protocols * Supports both passive and non-passive file transfers * Supports UNIX, EPLF, Novell, MacOS, and NT (DOS) style directory listings * Fully Internationalized. gFTP is currently available in Bulgarian (bg), Chinese (zh_TW.Big5, zh_CN.GB2312), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), Finnish (fi), French (fr), German (de), Italian (it), Korean (ko), Japanese (ja), Norwegian (no), Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt_BR, br), Russian (ru), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv) and Turkish (tr) gFTP is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. You can read the GPL by clicking on Help->About->License Agreement. This document is a tutorial on how to use gFTP and describes some of its functionality. I welcome any changes or additions to this document to make it better, and easier to read. CONTENTS 1. Connecting to a remote site 1.1. Connecting using the Open URL button 1.2. Connecting using bookmarks 1.3. Connecting using the toolbar 1.4. Connecting using command line parameters 2. Downloading files 2.1. Traversing remote directory trees 2.2. Downloading a single file 2.3. Downloading multiple files 2.4. Downloading from multiple sites 2.5. Simultaneous downloads from multiple sites 2.6. Differences between downloading in ASCII and BINARY mode 3. Uploading files 3.1. Selecting the remote directory 3.2. Working with the remote file tree 3.3. Uploading a single file 3.4. Uploading multiple files 3.5. Passive and non passive file transfers 4. Transfering files between remote sites (FXP) 4.1. Connecting to the receiving site 4.2. Selecting the receiving directory 4.3. Working with the receiving file tree 4.4. Connecting to the sending site 4.5. Traversing the sending site directory tree 4.6. Selecting files from the sending site 5. Resuming transfers 5.1. Manual resumes 5.2. Automatic resumes 6. FTP password and user id 6.1. Anonymous FTP 6.2. Secure FTP password and user id 6.3. FTP security concerns 7. Local directory 7.1. Specifying the local directory 7.2. Working in the local directory 7.3. Formating the local directory window 8. Remote directory 8.1. Specifying the remote directory 8.2. Formating the remote directory window 9. Transfer window 9.1. Queue 9.2. Progress 9.3. Formating the transfer window 10. Log and log window 10.1. Log commands 10.2. Formating the log window 11. Bookmarks 11.1. Using a bookmark entry 11.2. Adding a bookmark 11.3. Editing bookmarks 11.4. Bookmark passwords 11.5. Bookmark security concerns 12. FTP protocol 12.1 Invoking FTP 13. HTTP protocol 13.1. Invoking HTTP 14. SSH protocol 14.1. Configuring SSH 14.2. Invoking SSH 14.3. SSH and SSH2 14.4 Invoking SSH 15. Miscellaneous commands 15.1. Window 15.2. SITE commands 15.3. Bidirectional transfers 15.4. Clear cache 15.5. Compare Windows 15.6. Disconnect 16. Using gftp-text (the command line version of gFTP) 16.1. Downloading entire directories and subdirectories 16.2. Documentation for gftp-text 17. Using gftp-gtk (the GUI version of gFTP) 18. Configuring gFTP 18.1. Proxy host setup 18.2. Proxy security concerns 18.3. Configuring file extensions 18.4. Desktop icon 19. Staying in touch 19.1. gFTP bugs 19.2. gFTP mailing list 19.3. gFTP home page and FAQ 20. Legal section 20.1. Copying gFTP 20.2. Warrenty 20.3. Source code 1. Connecting to a remote site This section describes the various ways that you can connect to a remote site using gFTP. 1.1. Connecting using the Open URL button On the top line of gFTP you will see the word "Remote". Click on Remote and you will get a pop down menu. Click on "Open URL" and you will get a command line which has several uses. You can enter a URL name in this command line in a manner very similar to the way it works in most web browsers. You can type in the URL, paste the URL from the clipboard, or Drag and Drop a URL from another application (say Mozilla). gFTP will automatically disconnect from the site that you are connected to, if any, and connect to the site you specified in the Open URL window. When you click on the Open URL button, several things are checked (in the following order): - If you are already connected to a site and you click the Open URL button, you will be disconnected from the site that you are connected to. - If you have a hostname entered on the toolbar, it will connect to that host. - If the above 2 conditions are false, then it will bring up the Open URL dialog window where you can enter a FTP URL to connect to. FTP URL's can look like some of the following: ftp://ftp.myhostname.com/pub (this will log in as anonymous) ftp://user@ftp.myhostname.com/pub (log in as user. You will be prompted for a password) ftp://user:password@ftp.myhostname.com/pub (log in as user/password) 1.2. Connecting using bookmarks Bookmarks are the easiest way to connect to a remote site. Click on Bookmarks and select which site you want to connect to from the pop down menu. If gFTP doesn't have a password for the site you are trying to connect to, it will prompt you for one. Due to security reasons, gFTP will not save a password in your bookmark file when gFTP obtains the password from a prompt. 1.3. Connecting using the toolbar You can use the toolbar at the top of the window to connect to a remote site. The only mandatory field to fill in is the hostname. You can type in the hostname or you can copy it from the clipboard. When entering a hostname in the toolbar do not include a directory name and file name. If you do enter a complete URL gFTP will eventually give you an error message: "Cannot look up hostname (hostname): Name or service not known". If you have a complete URL to enter or paste, a better method would be to go to section 1.1 and use the Open URL button. The way to handle a complete URL name on the toolbar is to split up the URL with the hostname in the Host field and the directory and/or file name in the directory name field on the right side of the screen just above the message that says "Not connected*". All of the other fields in the toolbar are optional: If you don't fill in the port, it will default to the ftp port in your /etc/services file (usually port 21). If you don't fill in a username, it will default to logging you in as anonymous. Once you have all your information filled in, you can either hit enter in any of the host, port, user or password fields and gFTP will connect you to the remote site. 1.4. Connecting using command line parameters You can start the GUI version of gFTP by using a KDE desktop application link or a Gnome desktop application link. If you want to go to a specific site immediately on startup you can tell gFTP to connect to that site by typing in that site's URL after the gftp command. For example: gftp ftp://ftp.myhostname.com/pub gftp-gtk is a the name of the GUI version of gFTP. The command gftp is actually a script which decides whether, under the circumstances, to launch gftp-text or gftp-gtk. If gftp does not launch the version that you want you can use gftp-text or gftp-gtk. 2. Downloading files Once you have successfully connected to a remote site you can then select the files that you want and download them. This section describes several ways that you can select and download files in gFTP. 2.1. Traversing remote directory trees In the center of the right half of the gFTP screen you will find two windows. The upper window shows what remote directory you are currently connected to. The lower window is a listing of that directory's contents. To open a directory, double click on the directory name. To go back up to a parent directory double click on the .. at the top of the direcory listing. Be careful that you are not double clicking on a file name unless you intend to download that file. You can also change directories by clicking on Remote->Change Directory. You can control which files are shown in the remote directory window by clicking on Remote->Change Filespec. Then enter the filespec that you would like to see. For example you could enter *.rpm to eliminate everything but rpm files in the directory listing. You can also control which files are shown in the remote directory window by clicking on Remote->Show Selected. Then the remote directory will only show the file names of files that are also on the transfer queue. Almost every FTP site limits the portion of their directory tree that you can access. When you double click on the .. at the top of the directory listing and nothing happens that means that you are as low in the directory tree as you are allowed to go. 2.2. Downloading a Single File To download a file double click on the file name. Or Drag and Drop a file name from the remote directory window to the local directory window. Or Drag and Drop a file name from a web browser (such as Opera) to the gFTP local directory window. Or Click on the file name and click on the left arrow near the center of the screen. 2.3. Downloading multiple files If you want to specify several files to download one after the other then you must first throw the "Start file transfer" toggle off. What this means is that when the toggle is on, gFTP starts downloading immediately when you select a file. When the toggle is off you can stack up as many selections as you want on the transfer queue without gFTP starting to download. You can use any of the selection methods described in the previous section on downloading single files. You can also select several files at once by using some of the commands on the Remote menu. Click on Remote. Click on the appropriate command(s) and then click on left arrow. The commands are: Select All Files - select every file in the current directory Select All - select every file in the current directory and every file in every subdirectory of the current directory Deselect All - erase your selections and start over Then when you have finished selecting files you turn on the "Start file transfer" toggle on and gFTP will begin working its way through all of the downloads, one by one. To turn the toggle on click on FTP->Options->Start file transfers->Apply->OK. 2.4. Downloading from multiple sites One of the features of gFTP is that you can queue download files from different remote sites. Once you have a file(s) download started, you can safely disconnect from the remote site by clicking on Remote->Disconnect, and it will not harm the download in progress. You can then connect to another remote site, and select another file(s) to download. gFTP will add the new selections to the transfer queue and download all of the files in the queue sequentially. 2.5. Simultaneous downloads from multiple sites In the previous section I described how to queue up downloads from multiple remote sites. gFTP also has the ability to download from multiple sites simultaneously. Whether gFTP does the downloads sequentially or in parallel is controlled by the "Do one transfer at a time" button. To find this button: click on FTP->Options. When the "Do one transfer at a time" button is on then gFTP will download files sequentially. When the "Do one transfer at a time" button is off then gFTP will open up a connection to each remote site listed in the transfer queue and do as many downloads simultaneously as there are remote sites in the transfer queue. Whether simultaneous downloading is an advantage to you or simply a confusion factor depends on how you are connected to the Internet. If you are connected to an ISP with a dial-up modem then simultaneous downloading buys you nothing, you should leave the "Do one transfer at a time" button on. If you are on a high speed local network connected to a proxy host which is attached to multiple trunk lines then simultaneous downloads could save you a lot of download time. If you are not on a dial-up modem and haven't a clue about your network line configuration I suggest that you turn off the "Do one transfer at a time" button and give gFTP a real workout as a speed test. If you get any interesting results let me know. 2.6. Differences between downloading in ASCII and BINARY mode If you download a file in binary mode, gFTP will transfer the file as is, making no modifications to it. But, if you are downloading text files, you should consider downloading them as ascii (unless you're downloading them from another unix machine, in which case either ascii or binary works fine). The problem is that DOS and Unix use different methods to show end of line. In DOS, the lines in text files will have a carriage return and line feed after them: This is a line in a DOS text file\r\n But, in unix the file will just be stored with a line feed at the end: This is a line in a UNIX text file\n If you download a text file from a DOS machine as binary, and open it up in an Unix program like vi, you will see some weird Ms at the end of each line. These are the carriage returns. To get around this, download the file in ascii mode, and gFTP will do the proper conversion for you. You can change between ascii and binary in the ftp menu. 3. Uploading files Uploading is a lot simpler if you collect all of the files that you want to upload in the local directory before you connect to a remote site. The local directory is the directory you specified in FTP->Options->Startup Directory. Once you have successfully connected to a remote site you can then select the files that you want and upload them to a specific place on the remote site. This section describes several ways that you can select and upload files in gFTP. 3.1. Selecting the remote directory In the center of the right half of the gFTP screen you will find two windows. The upper window shows what remote directory you are currently connected to. The lower window is a listing of that directory's contents. To open a directory, double click on the directory name. To go back up to a parent directory double click on the .. at the top of the direcory listing. Be careful that you are not double clicking on a file name unless you intend to download that file. You can control which files are shown in the remote directory window by clicking on Remote->Change Filespec. Then enter the filespec that you would like to see. For example you could enter *.rpm to eliminate everything but rpm files in the directory listing. You can also control which files are shown in the remote directory window by clicking on Remote->Show Selected. Then the remote directory will only show the file names of files that are also on the transfer queue. Almost every FTP site limits the portion of their directory tree that you can access. When you double click on the .. at the top of the directory listing and nothing happens that means that you are as low in the directory tree as you are allowed to go. 3.2. Working with the remote file tree Uploading often consists of more than simply copying a file to a remote site. You may have to create or rearrange portions of the file tree on the remote site. Right click on a blank spot in the directory window for the remote site and you will get a pop up menu which contains some commands for manipulating the remote site file tree. These commands include: Delete - delete a remote file or directory Make Directory - create a directory on the remote site Rename - rename a remote file or directory Edit - edit a remote file using the editor specified in FTP->Options->Edit program View - view a remote file using the editor specified in FTP->Options->View program Chmod - change the attributes of a remote file or directory 3.3. Uploading a single file To upload a file double click on the file name in the local directory window. Or Drag and Drop a file name from the local directory window to the remote directory window. Or Click on the file name in the local directory and click on the right arrow near the center of the screen. Or Drag and Drop a file name from a file manager such as Midnight Commander to the gFTP remote directory window. 3.4. Uploading multiple files If you want to specify several files to upload one after the other then you must first throw the "Start file transfer" toggle off. What this means is that when the toggle is on, gFTP starts uploading immediately when you select a file. When the toggle is off you can stack up as many selections as you want on the transfer queue without gFTP starting to upload. You can use any of the methods described in the previous section to select files to upload. You can also select several files at once by using some of the commands on the Local menu. Click on Local. Click on the appropriate command and then click on right arrow. The commands are: Select All Files - select every file in the current directory Select All - select every file in the current directory and every file in every subdirectory of the current directory Deselect All - erase your selections and start over Then when you have finished selecting files you turn the "Start file transfer" toggle on and gFTP will begin working its way through all of the uploads, one by one. To turn the toggle on click on FTP->Options->Start file transfers->Apply->OK. 3.5. Passive and non passive file transfers When uploading files to a server you will find that some servers support passive file transfers and others do not. Those sites which do not support passive file transfers usually block them because they consider passive file transfers too insecure. When you run into a site that does not support passive file transfers you can try toggling passive file transfers off. You can find the passive file transfers toggle by clicking on File->Options. Click on the Passive file transfers button to toggle passive file transfers on and off. The most common error message given out by a site that does not support passive transfers is: Cannot create a data connection: Connection refused 4. Transfering files between remote sites (FXP) The File Transfer Protocol has a subsection called File eXchange Protocol. gFTP can use FXP to transfer files between two remote sites. gFTP will set up a direct connection between the two remote sites so that the transfer proceeds from one remote site to the other without your machine acting as an intermediary. In order for gFTP to do a FXP transfer both remote sites must support FXP transfers. Also the receiving site must support passive transfers and the sending site must allow gFTP to open a port to the receiving site. If you cannot get the two remote sites to do a FXP transfer then the fall back method is to download the file(s) from the source remote site to your machine and then upload the file(s) to the receiving remote site. The fall back method will take at least twice as long as a FXP transfer and perhaps as much as an order of magnitude longer. The next several sections describe the sequence of actions that you must do in order to start a FXP transfer. This explanation of FXP will assume that you know how to use gFTP to download and upload files. Check the sections on downloads and uploads to fill in the details missing in the FXP explanation. 4.1. Connecting to the receiving site You connect to the receiving remote site the same as if you are doing an upload to that site. 4.2. Selecting the receiving directory You select the receiving remote directory the same as if you are doing an upload to that directory. 4.3. Working with the receiving file tree You manipulate the receiving remote file tree the same as if you are doing an upload to that site. 4.4. Connecting to the sending site On the top line of gFTP you will see the word "Local". Click on Local and you will get a pop down menu. Click on "Open URL" and you will get a command line window. You can enter an URL name in this command line in a manner very similar to the way it works in most web browsers. You can type in the URL, paste the URL from the clipboard, or Drag and Drop an URL from another application (say Konqueror). gFTP will connect to the site you specify in the Open URL window. 4.5. Traversing the sending site directory tree In the center of the left half of the gFTP screen you will find two windows. The upper window shows what remote sending site directory you are currently connected to. The lower window is a listing of that directory's contents. To open a directory, double click on the directory name. To go back up to a parent directory double click on the .. at the top of the direcory listing. Be careful that you are not double clicking on a file name unless you intend to transfer that file to the receiving remote site. You can also change directories by clicking on Local->Change Directory. You can control which files are shown in the left directory window by clicking on Local->Change Filespec. Then enter the filespec that you would like to see. For example you could enter *.deb to eliminate everything but Debian files in the directory listing. You can also control which files are shown in the remote directory window by clicking on Local->Show Selected. Then the local directory will only show the file names of files that are also on the transfer queue. Almost every FTP site limits the portion of their directory tree that you can access. When you double click on the .. at the top of the directory listing and nothing happens that means that you are as low in the directory tree as you are allowed to go. 4.6. Selecting files from the sending site If you want to specify several files to transfer one after the other then you must first throw the "Start file transfer" toggle off by clicking on FTP->Options->Start file transfers->Apply->OK. If you are only transfering a single file then you can ignore the "Start file transfer" toggle. To transfer a file double click on the file name in the left directory window. Or Drag and Drop a file name from the left directory window to the right directory window. Or Click on the file name in the left directory window and click on the right arrow near the center of the screen. Select as many files as you want from the left directory window and gFTP will place them on the queue. You can traverse the left directory window while you are selecting files. You can also select several files at once by using some of the commands in the Local menu. Click on Local. Click on the appropriate command and then click on right arrow. The commands are: Select All Files - select every file in the current directory Select All - select every file in the current directory and every file in every subdirectory of the current directory Deselect All - erase your selections and start over When you are finished selecting files then toggle "Start file transfer" on and gFTP will start transferring the files in the queue. 5. Resuming transfers The File Transfer Protocol has the ability to restart an interrupted transfer at the point where it left off. gFTP supports the resume function. If the remote site you are dealing with also supports resume (most FTP sites do, HTTP sites do not) then you can resume an interrupted transfer. 5.1. Manual resumes You can interrupt a transfer in the middle by exiting from gFTP and later resume the transfer at the point where it left off. To resume a download start up the download just like any other download. gFTP will find the partially downloaded file in the local download directory and then ask you whether to resume the download or to start all over. Choose resume. Then gFTP will connect to the remote site and negotiate with the remote site to resume the download at the point where it was interrupted. Uploads and FXP transfers can be resumed in a manner analogous to resuming a download. The only sticking point with exiting gFTP and then starting it up again is that you will lose the queue. gFTP erases the queue when you exit and when you start up again you will have to rebuild the queue. If you are doing a single file transfer then erasing the queue is unimportant. Resume is a well defined Internet protocol which requires the cooperation of both gFTP and the server software. Occasionally you will run into a server which does not support the Resume protocol. In the case of downloads all is not necessarily lost. gFTP will try to resume any download when it finds the file name in the local download directory. You might be able to salvage the download by finding another remote site to download that same filename from, a site that supports the FTP Resume protocol. 5.2. Automatic resumes If gFTP is in the process of transferring some files and the connection closes for some reason, gFTP will try to reconnect again and continue with the file transfer where it left off. You can set how many times to reconnect and how long to wait in the options dialog. In order to specify reasonable reconnect options you need to understand some of the things that can go wrong with a transfer. The most common cause of transfer problems is an overloaded FTP server. When a server becomes overloaded there will be times when the server just can't get around to passing gFTP the next block of data (or receiving the data in the case of an upload). In the gFTP progress window you will get a message that the transfer is stalled. If the transfer is stalled for over 30 seconds gFTP will time out the transfer and disconnect. (Don't mess with the Read timeout Option unless you know what you are doing. You can get timeouts for a lot of other reasons that an overloaded server.) gFTP then waits the time interval specified in FTP-Option and then reconnects. Some servers recognize when they are overloaded and begin deliberately disconnecting clients until they get back down to the maximum number of transfers that they can reasonably serve. If gFTP gets disconnected it waits the time interval specified in FTP->Options and then reconnects. These servers sometimes remember who they have just bounced off and if you try to reconnect immediately they may tell gFTP to stop trying to automatically reconnect. So in the Options (Ftp->Options->Network->Retry sleep time) you want to wait just long enough that the busy server will have forgotten you and then reconnect. The gFTP default is 15 seconds. The other reconnect Option that you are interested in is Connect retries (Ftp->Options->Network->Connect retries). Connect retries is the number of times that gFTP will reconnect before giving up altogather. There two ways to approach this option: If gFTP has to keep reconnecting to a remote server then the transfer can be very slow. You might want to switch another remote server which is faster. If the file name on the new server is exactly the same as the file name on the previous server then you can resume a download at whatever point you got to on the first server. In this case set FTP->Options->Connect retries to 3, which is the gFTP default. If you want to keep chugging away at the transfer until it finishes, no matter what, then set FTP->Options->Connect retries to 0. 6. FTP password and user id The standard File Transfer Protocol requires the use of a user id and a password. gFTP will always use a user id and a password for each FTP connection. 6.1. Anonymous FTP Many FTP server sites are public sites which make their files freely available to anyone who wants to download them. To get around the nuisance of user ids and passwords public sites use the standard anonymous FTP protocol. gFTP uses an user id of anonymous and a password that looks like a valid email address (internet@linux.local). You can change the anonymous email address/password by clicking on FTP->Options->General and changing the Email address field. 6.2. Secure FTP password and user id Some FTP server sites are private sites which are very selective about who can download files from that site. Almost all upload sites are selective. Private sites insist that you obtain a user id and a password, perhaps even pay money for them. Then you have to use that particular user id and password to access the private FTP site. If you want to save your password for a bookmarked site in the bookmark file, you should read the section on security concerns first. Then if you still want gFTP to remember your bookmark entry passwords there are two ways to do it. The easier way is to add the password manually to the bookmark file (/home/user/.gftp/bookmarks) using a text editor. Or you can have gFTP add the bookmark password by: click on Edit bookmarks, right click on the appropriate bookmark entry, click on Properties, and turn off "Log in as ANONYMOUS". Then gFTP will make the Username and Password fields available for editing. You can tell gFTP not to use anonymous FTP by entering the user name in the URL. For example: ftp://user@ftp.myhostname.com/pub (log in as user. gFTP will prompt you for a password) You can give gFTP both the user name and password in the URL. For example: ftp://user:password@ftp.myhostname.com/pub (log in as user/password) 6.3. FTP security concerns Some private FTP sites require you to use a valid email address as either the user id or the password. An organization with a reputable name to protect will not spam your email address. With other people or organizations you are vunerable to spamming. You might consider opening a free email account somewhere and use it for spam bait only. 7. Local directory The local directory is the directory on your computer from which you will upload files or which you will use to receive downloaded files. A window showing the local directory is located in the middle left of the gFTP screen. 7.1. Specifying the local directory You can set the default local directory by clicking on FTP->Options and then typing in the local directory path into Startup Directory. Or You can change the local directory by entering the new name into the small window just above the local directory window. Your new name will be entered into the local directory history but the new name will not replace the default name in Options. Or You can select a name from the local directory history list. Click on the down arrow to the right of the local directory name and then click on the history entry you want to use. Your new name will be entered into the local directory history but the new name will not replace the default name in Options. Or You can traverse the local directory tree by clicking on the directory names in the local directory window. To open a directory, double click on the directory name. To go back up to a parent directory double click on the .. at the top of the file listing. Be careful that you are not double clicking on a file name unless you intend to upload that file. 7.2. Working in the local directory There are several operations that gFTP can perform in the local directory. You can perform the following operations regardless of whether you are connected to a remote site or not: Make a directory - Right click on a blank area in the local directory window. Then left click on Make Directory. Enter the new directory name in the pop up window and click on Create. Delete a directory or filename - Right click on the directory or filename. Then left click on Delete. Rename a directory or filename - Right click on the directory or filename. Then left click on Rename. Enter the new name in the pop up window and click on Rename. Change the attributes of a directory or filename - Right click on the directory or filename. Then left click on Chmod. Set the attributes in the pop up menu and click on Change. Edit a file - Right click on the filename. Then left click on Edit. The file will be opened in the editor that you specified FTP->Options->Edit program. View a file - Right click on the filename. Then left click on View. The file will be opened in the program that you specified FTP->Options->View program. Refresh the listing - Right click on a blank area in the local directory window. Then left click on Refresh. gFTP will refresh the local directory listing. Change the filespec - Click on Local->Change Filespec. Then enter the filespec that you would like to see. For example you could enter *.html to eliminate everything but html files in the directory listing. 7.3. Formating the local directory window You can arrange the format of the local directory window by sliding the Filename, Size, User, Group, Date, and Attribs labels to wherever you want them. You can change the overall size of the local directory window by using a text editor to change the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftrc). The parameters which control the local directory window size are listbox_local_width and listbox_file_height. 8. Remote directory The remote directory is the directory on a remote site from which you will download files or which you will use to receive uploaded files. A window showing the remote directory is located in the middle right of the gFTP screen. 8.1. Specifying the remote directory When you enter a URL in the Remote->Open URL window, gFTP shows that portion of the URL which designates a remote site directory name in the small window just above the remote directory window. 8.2. Formating the remote directory window You can arrange the format of the remote directory window by sliding the Filename, Size, User, Group, Date, and Attribs labels to wherever you want them. You can change the overall size of the remote directory window by using a text editor to change the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftrc). The parameters which control the remote directory window size are listbox_remote_width and listbox_file_height. 9. Transfer window The transfer window is the second window from the bottom. It shows the queue and the progress of the current file transfer(s). 9.1. Queue The left hand side of the transfer window shows the queue of transfers to be done. You can stack several transfers in the queue and gFTP will work its way through the queue transferring the files in the order that they were entered in the queue. Whether gFTP does the transfers sequentially or in parallel is controlled by the "Do one transfer at a time" button. To find this button: click on FTP->Options. When the "Do one transfer at a time" button is on then gFTP will transfer files sequentially. When the "Do one transfer at a time" button is off then gFTP will open up a connection to each remote site listed in the transfer queue and do as many transfers in parallel as there are remote sites in the transfer queue. You can manipulate the entries on the transfers queue by first clicking on the entry to highlight it and then clicking on Transfers. The Transfers pop up menu makes these commands available: Stop Transfer - highlight the queue entry for the file currently being transferred and then click on Transfers->Stop Transfer Start Transfer - highlight the queue entry for the file you want to transfer next and then click on Transfers->Start Transfer Move File Up - move the file up one position in the queue Move File Down - move the file down one position in the queue Remove File - delete the file from the queue Skip Current File - leave the file name on the queue but do not transfer the file gFTP does not save the transfer queue when gFTP exits. If you exit gFTP and then start it again you will have an empty queue. 9.2. Progress The right hand side of the transfer window shows the status of the transfer(s) in progress. gFTP shows the % completion of the entire queue, the size of the file currently being transfered, how many bytes of the current file have already been transferred, which files are finished transfering, and which files are waiting to begin transfering. The progress report also shows the current transfer rate and gives an estimated length of time until the entire queue is transferred. Your milage may vary. 9.3. Formating the transfer window You can arrange the format of the transfer window by sliding the Filename and Progress labels to wherever you want them. You can change the height of the remote directory window by using a text editor to change the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftrc). The parameter which controls the transfer window height is transfer_height. 10. Log and log window gFTP keeps a log (/home/user/.gftp/gftp.log) which records what gFTP has done. The log is erased and begun anew at each startup of gFTP. The log entries are displayed in the window at the bottom of the gFTP screen. You can specify a different location for your log file by clicking on FTP->Options and entering the now location in Log file. 10.1. Log commands If you right click anywhere on the log window then a pop up menu will appear with three commands: Clear - double clicking on Clear erases all of the log entries. View log - double clicking on View log launches the program you specified in FTP->Options->View program to display the log. Save log - double clicking on Save log opens a file tree display window which you can use to save the gFTP log anywhere that you want to put it. The Clear, View log, and Save log commands can also be accessed by clicking on the Logging button at the top of the gFTP screen. 10.2. Formating the log window You can change the overall size of the log window by using a text editor to change the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftrc). The parameters which control the remote directory window size are log_height= and max_log_window_size=. You can change the colors of the various message types in the log window by using a text editor to change the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftrc). The parameters which control the log window message colors are send_color=rrii:ggii:bbii, recv_color=rrii:ggii:bbii, error_color=rrii:ggii:bbii, and misc_color=rrii:ggii:bbii. rrii:ggii:bbii is the color code where each letter stands for a hexidecimal digit from o through f. rr - amount of red in the color gg - amount of green in the color bb - amount of blue in the color ii - intensity of the color examples: bright red rrii:ggii:bbii = ffff:0000:0000 dull brown rrii:ggii:bbii = a000:8d80:4600 11. Bookmarks gFTP has a bookmarks file which looks and acts very similar to the bookmarks file in a web browser. gFTP comes with several popular download sites listed in the bookmarks file. 11.1. Using a bookmark entry To connect to a remote site, click on Bookmarks and a drop down menu appears. Navigate the tree until you find the site you want to connect to. Click on that entry and gFTP will connect to that site. If gFTP doesn't have a password for the site you are trying to connect to, it will prompt you for one. For security reasons, gFTP will not save this password in your bookmark file when it prompts you for it. 11.2. Adding a bookmark There are two ways to add a bookmark entry to the gFTP bookmark file: When you are connected to a site you can click on Bookmarks->Add bookmark. gFTP will open a window in which you enter the entire path name for the new entry. For example: If you find a Czech mirror site for SuSE downloads you could file the bookmark as SuSE Sites/Czech mirror and gFTP will add Czech mirror to the existing SuSE Sites folder. At any time, connected or not, you can add a bookmark entry by clicking on Bookmarks->Edit bookmarks. Then right click on a blank area of the bookmarks window. A menu will pop up. Click on New item. Then enter the entire path name of the new entry in the pop up window. (For example: To create the first site in a new Mandrake folder enter Mandrake Sites/USA mirror.) Click on create. At this point you have created a bookmark entry that does not point anywhere. Now right click on the new entry, click on Properties, and fill out the information requested in the pop up form. Click on Apply and click on OK. You are now finished adding the new bookmark entry. 11.3. Editing bookmarks You can change the details in a bookmark entry by clicking on Bookmarks->Edit bookmarks, right click on the bookmark entry, and click on Properties. A form will pop up which you can use to edit the entry. Then click on Apply and OK. You can delete a bookmark or an entire folder of bookmarks by clicking on Bookmarks->Edit bookmarks, right click on the bookmark entry, and click on Delete. You can rearrange bookmarks with drag and drop. Rearrangement of the bookmark entries in gFTP works very similar to the way that it works in most web browsers. You drag the entry to the appropriate spot in the directory tree and drop it. With a little practice you can get the entries to go where you want them to go. 11.4. Bookmark passwords If gFTP doesn't have a password for the bookmarked site you are trying to connect to, gFPT will prompt you for one. Due to security concerns, gFTP will not save this password in your bookmark file. If you want to save your password for a bookmarked site in the bookmark file, you should read the section on security concerns first. Then if you still want gFTP to remember your bookmark entry passwords there are two ways to do it. The easier way is to add the password manually to the bookmark file (/home/user/.gftp/bookmarks) using a text editor. An example of a bookmark entry containing a password is: ftp://user:password@ftp.myhostname.com/pub Or You can have gFTP add the bookmark password by: click on Edit bookmarks, right click on the appropriate bookmark entry, click on Properties, and turn off "Log in as ANONYMOUS". Then gFTP will make the Username and Password fields available for editing. Enter the Username and Password fields. Click on Apply and click on OK. 11.5. Bookmark security concerns When you save a password in the gFTP bookmark file you are creating a potential security vulnerabilty because gFTP does not encrypt stored passwords. Any cracker could write a program to extract passwords from the gFTP bookmarks file. You should weigh the chances of a malicious attack on your machine and the value of the password protected data versus the convenience of storing the passwords before deciding whether or not to store passwords in the bookmark file. 12. FTP protocol File Transfer Protocol is a hardware and software independent Internet protocol which is used to transfer information between servers and clients. Servers are computers which give out information and clients are computers that receive information. It is possible for a computer to be both an FTP client and server. gFTP allows your computer to act as a FTP client. When gFTP contacts a FTP server it establishes two connections, a control connection and a transfer connection. gFTP first establishes a control connection by sending an user id and a password to the server. Then gFTP requests that a particular file(s) be transferred. Once gFTP has started a FTP transfer gFTP can drop the control connection without interrupting the transfer. 12.1 Invoking FTP gFTP knows to use FTP by the first three letters of the URL. An URL for a FTP transfer begins with ftp://. Or Click on the button immediately to the left of the red light and click on FTP 13. HTTP protocol HyperText Transfer Protocol is a hardware and software independent Internet protocol which is used to transfer information between servers and clients. It is probably the most used protocol on the Internet. gFTP can act as a HTTP client. From the client standpoint the HTTP protocol is far simpler than the FTP protocol. Among other things, HTTP has no user ids and passwords. This simplicity makes file transfers using HTTP somewhat more simple minded. 13.1. Invoking HTTP gFTP knows to use HTTP by the first four letters of the URL. An URL for a HTTP transfer begins with HTTP://. Or Click on the button immediately to the left of the red light and click on HTTP. 14. SSH protocol SSH (Secure SHell) is a protocol which provides a high level of security for transfering files from one computer to another across the Internet. gFTP implements the SSH protocol by calling upon an SSH program to wrap a layer of security around what would otherwise be an ordinary FTP tansfer. In effect FTP "tunnels" through a secure SSH connection. 14.1. Configuring SSH In order to configure your SSH transfers click on FTP->Options->SSH and fill out the form. The required entries are: SSH Prog Name - This is the name of the program which provides the SSH wrapper. SSH Extra Params - These are the parameters that the SSH wrapper program needs to build an encryption key. 14.2. Invoking SSH gFTP knows to use SSH by the first three or four letters of the URL. An URL for a SSH transfer begins with ssh:// or ssh2://. Or Click on the button immediately to the left of the red light and click on either SSH or SSH2 14.3. SSH and SSH2 SSH recently went through a major revision to plug known security holes. The latest version of SSH is called SSH2. SSH and SSH2 are not compatible with each other. gFTP supports both SSH and SSH2. 15. Miscellaneous commands 15.1. Window You can reverse the roles of the local window and the remote window. Click on FTP. The Window 1 and Window 2 buttons can be used to switch the roles of the local and remote windows. Window 2 is the default and this user's guide describes everything as set up by Window 2. Clicking on Window 1 switches the roles of the two windows to the mirror image of that described in this document. 15.2. SITE commands One of the features of the File Transfer Protocol is the ability to create SITE commands. A FTP server administrator can create customized commands for a FTP client program, such as gFTP, to use. These customized commands are called SITE commands. If you want to use a SITE command while you are connected to a FTP server then click on either Remote or Local, whichever is connected to the remote site in question. Then click on Send SITE Command and a pop up window will open. You can enter the SITE command in the window. Then click on OK and gFTP will send the SITE command to the FTP server. 15.3. Bidirectional transfers It is possible that you may want to open a connection to a remote site and transfer files in both directions. Click on Transfers and you will find some commands to help you change the direction of the transfers without having to drop the connection and restart it in the other direction. These commands are: Put Files - send the files on the transfer queue to the remote site Retrieve Files - copy the files on the transfer queue from the remote site to the local site 15.4. Clear cache gFTP keeps a cache of data from remote sites. It is possible that while you are working with a remote site other people are making changes to that site. To get rid of stale copies of the remote directory tree in the cache click on Tools->Clear Cache. 15.5. Compare Windows An easy way to check which files have been transferred and which files have not is to click on Tools->Compare Windows. gFTP will highlight any file names which appear in either the local directory or the remote directory but not both. 15.6. Disconnect You can disconnect from a remote site at any time. Disconnecting does not stop any transfers already in prograss. You can disconnect by: clicking on the red button when it is lit up Or clicking on Remote->Disconnect Or clicking on Local->Disconnect 16. Using gftp-text (the command line version of gftp) The gFTP package includes a completely functional command line version of gFTP. You can launch the command line version by typing in the command, gftp-text, at your console prompt. The command gftp is actually a script which decides whether, under the circumstances, to launch gftp-text or gftp-gtk. If gftp does not start the version that you want you can finesse that problem by using gftp-text or gftp-gtk instead of gftp. 16.1. Downloading entire directories and subdirectories If you want to download entire directories including subdirectories you should look at using gftp-text. Some downloads are simpler to invoke using gftp-text. For example: gftp-text -d ftp://ftp.somesite.com/someplace If someplace is a directory, it'll automatically download all its subdirectories as well. If you want to transfer a file through SSH instead of FTP then change the ftp:// to ssh:// 16.2. Documentation for gftp-text gftp-text will give you a prompt: ftp> You can learn more about gftp-text by typing in help at the ftp> prompt. You can also get instructions in how to use gftp-text by typing in "man gftp" or "info gftp" at the console prompt. 17. Using gftp-gtk gftp-gtk is the name of the GUI version of gFTP. The gftp command is actually a script which decides whether, under the circumstances, to launch gftp-text or gftp-gtk. 18. Configuring gFTP All of the gFTP configuration options are specified in the file /home/user/.gftp/gftprc. 18.1. Proxy host setup If your computer is on a local network then you are probably connected to the internet through a proxy host. A proxy host can connect several users to the internet. A proxy host often also acts as a firewall, possibly filtering messages in both directions. If you are connected to the internet through a proxy host then gFTP needs passwords and other configuration information to make a connection through the proxy host to the internet. To set up your proxy host and/or firewall configuration, click on FTP->Options. You can click on HTTP Proxy and FTP Proxy to set up your proxy hosts, user names, and passwords. In the FTP Proxy form, you can set up how you want gFTP to log into the proxy host. I have many of the common types of proxy hosts that you will encounter already descried in gFTP. If you are using a very complex proxy host configuration then you may have to use a text editor to edit the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftprc). The fields in the config file that pertain to proxy host and/or firewall configuration are: # Firewall hostname firewall_host= # Port to connect to on the firewall firewall_port=21 # Your firewall username firewall_username= # Your firewall password firewall_password= # Your firewall account (optional) firewall_account= # This specifies how your proxy server expects us to log in proxy_config= # Firewall hostname http_proxy_host= # Port to connect to on the firewall http_proxy_port=80 # Your firewall username http_proxy_username= # Your firewall password http_proxy_password= 18.2. Proxy security concerns When you have gFTP save a proxy password you are creating a potential security vulnerabilty. gFTP does not encrypt stored passwords. They are kept in plain text in the file, /home/user/.gftp/gftprc. Any cracker could write a program to extract passwords from the gftprc file. You should weigh the chances of a malicious attack on your machine and the value of the proxy passwords versus the convenience of storing the passwords before deciding whether or not have gFTP store proxy passwords. Also if you are on a local network then you are probably a member of a beaurocracy, lucky you. In that case you should give a passing thought to your organization's security rules. 18.3. Configuring file extensions gFTP has the ability to use mime types. Some mime types come pre-configured with gFTP and you have complete control to configure the gFTP mime types any way that you want. Towards the bottom of the config file (/home/user/.gftp/gftprc), there is a section that has some ext= lines. Here you can control via a file extension, the icon in the listbox for it, the default transfer method (ascii or binary), and a default view/edit program. For example, let's take the line: ext=.xcf:gimp.xpm:B:gimp The first token, .xcf, is the file extension. The next token, gimp.xpm, is the default icon to use in the listboxes. You don't have to specify one if you don't want to. By default, gFTP will search ~/.gftp, $(PREFIX)/share/gftp (where prefix is your installation prefix), and then /usr/share/icons in that order. The files must be valid xpm files. The next token, B, specifies whether or not to transfer a file as Binary or Ascii. If you want to have something transfer as Ascii, put an A there. If you omit this field, then gFTP will transfer the file according to whether ascii or binary is selected in the FTP menu. The final token, gimp, specifies the name of the program to run to view or edit a file with that extension. You can omit this as well if you like. 18.4. Desktop icon You can set up gFTP to be started from your Gnome or KDE desktop. The program name can be either gftp or gftp-gtk. Some suitable gFTP icons are available in /usr/share/gftp: gftp.xpm down.xpm world.xpm 19. Staying in touch 19.1. gFTP bugs gFTP is released under the GNU General Public License. As such there is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRENTY with gFTP. That said, if you run into ANY bugs in gFTP please let me know. I take pride in making gFTP as bug free as possible. Since gFTP is used on a wide variety of hardware and software configurations bugs will sometimes crop up that I never could have anticipated on the configuration I use to develop gFTP. Please include as much information as possible in your bug description. It is better to report too much detail than to report too little detail in your bug report. Basically, I need enough information to be able to recreate the bug on my machine. The information that might be useful to me could include: The gFTP version number you are using and what installation method (tarball or rpm). For example: I am using gFTP-2.0.13.tar.gz. Please tell me your hardware and software configuration. For example: Configuration: AMD 1.2G CPU with 256M ram Mandrake 8.1 distribution KDE 2.2 desktop KWvDial 0.10 -> dial up modem kernel 2.2.10 Please tell me enough about the problem so that I can try to recreate it. For example: I was connected to jungle.metalab.unc.edu, which is a Mandrake mirror, to do some downloads. I connected OK using the Remote->Open URL window. I went to a directory called /pub/Linux/distributions/mandrake/Mandrake/8.1/SRPMS/ and double clicked on the file alien-7.27-1mdk.src.rpm. gFTP entered this file name in the queue twice and downloaded it twice. I think gFTP should have only downloaded it once. This happens intermittently. Sometimes gFTP downloads files once and sometimes it downloads files twice. gFTP always downloads alien-7.27-1mdk.src.rpm twice. Please attach the gFTP log file (/home/user/.gftp/gftp.log) to your report. If you are having trouble with gFTP bookmarks please attach the gFTP bookmark file (/home/user/.gftp/bookmarks) to your report. If you are having trouble with the gFTP configuration please attach the gFTP configuration file (/home/user/.gftp/gftprc) to your report. If you keep passwords in your bookmark file or your configuration file you might want to x out the passwords before you send the file to me. Please send your bug report to: Brian Masney masneyb@gftp.org Elkview, WV USA If you find a bug in an older version of gFTP, that bug might already be fixed in the latest version of gFTP. You can find the latest version at the gFTP download site by clicking on Bookmarks->General Sites->gFTP. 19.2. gFTP mailing list There is a mailing list available where you can receive announcements about new versions of gFTP. It is an extremely quiet mailing list and I promise not to spam you. To subscribe to the gFTP mailing list, send a message to majordomo@seul.org with the words subscribe gftp-announce in the body. 19.3. gFTP home page and FAQ You can find the latest information about gFTP at the gFTP home page or on the gFTP Frequently Asked Questions. gFTP home page: http://www.gftp.org/ gFTP FAQ: http://www.gftp.org/faq.html 20. Legal section Click on Help->About->License Agreement to find a copy of the GNU General Public License 20.1. Copying gFTP This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to: Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330 Boston, MA 02111 USA 20.2. Warrenty This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. 20.3. Source code gFTP is open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. You can find the gFTP source code by clicking on Bookmarks->General Sites->gFTP. The tarballs on the gFTP web site contain both source and binary. The rpm packages are split into binary rpms and source rpms. The Debian packages contain both binary and source. You may use the gFTP source code in any way that you wish as long as you conform to the terms of the GNU General Public License. If you fix any bugs or add any useful features to gFTP you might consider sending your changes to me to be incorporated into a future release of gFTP. I welcome any help you might give me in improving gFTP.