Authored by Erin Karper

If you would like to work on documents such as your course website at home, or if you are working on a PC on campus that is not connected to the Purdue ICS network, you can access your Purdue career account using an FTP program. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and FTP programs will let you copy documents from your home computer to the Purdue servers, or from the Purdue servers to your home computer. When you want to put files from your home computer into your career account, this is called uploading a file or "putting" a file.

This documentation will show you how to upload and download files to your career account using an FTP program called WS_FTP.WS_FTP is available in the ICS labs, the IMP lab, the EPL, and the grad lab. If you do not have WS FTP on your computer at home, you can download this program to your PC for free. To download it, visit http://www.download.com/3000-2160-10018456.html and click on the Download link. Then double click on the file and follow the directions to install it. After you have installed WS_FTP, you can then follow these directions.

1. Start WS_FTP. You can do this by clicking on the start menu, clicking on programs, and selecting WS_FTP from the list. The program will launch, and a dialog box will appear that says "Session Properties." Click on the "New..." box.

2. Enter the information that appears in the screen shot below into the session properties box. You will need to use your Purdue career account login and password.

3) Click on the OK button. The program will then establish a connection to the file server. A new window will appear that looks like this:

The left window represents the local system. The local system window stands for the files on your computer. The right window represents the remote site. The remote site window stands for the files on the server. This documentation will refer to the left hand window as the local system window and the right hand window as the remote site window. Now, you need to decide whether you are uploading or downloading files. If you are uploading files, read the uploading a file section. If you are downloading files, read the downloading a file section. You can upload and download files in the same session.

Uploading a file

1) In the remote site window, find the directory that you want to put files in and double click on it. If you want to upload a web page, you will need to open up your WWW directory. After you have opened the directory you want, the screen will refresh and look something like this:

2) In the local system window, find the file you want to upload. You may have to delete the information in front of the C:\ prompt and then search through the directories until you find it. Then click on the file you want to upload. If you want to select multiple files at once, you can hold down the shift key and click on each file. The file or files you want to upload will be highlighted.

3) Click on the right arrow button in between the two windows. (It looks like this: ). The program will now upload your selected files. When it has finished, there will be a copy of the document on both your computer and on the server and the file name will show up in both windows.

4) If you have more files to upload, repeat steps 2 and 3

5) When you are done, click on the close button in the lower left hand corner to close the connection. Then click on the X in the upper right hand corner to exit the program.

1) In the remote site window, find the directory that you want to put files in and double click on it. If you want to download a web page, you will need to open up your WWW directory. Remember that you will also need to download all of the other files that go along with your web page such as images if you want to be able to work with those, too. After you have opened the directory you want, the screen will refresh and look something like this:

2) ) In the remote system window, find the file you want to download and click on it. If you want to select multiple files at once, you can hold down the shift key and click on each file. The file or files you want to download will be highlighted.

3) Click on the left arrow button in between the two windows. (It looks like this: ). The program will now download your selected files. When it has finished, there will be a copy of the document on both your computer and on the server and the file name will show up in both windows.

4) If you have more files to download, repeat steps 2 and 3

5) When you are done, click on the close button in the lower left hand corner to close the connection. Then click on the X in the upper right hand corner to exit the program.