What is WS_FTP?

If you plan to publish your Web pages so that they may be viewed on the Web by the world at large, then you will need to transfer them from your local computer to a Web server.
FTP (file transfer protocol) programs allow you to transfer files between different machines and/or different operating systems.
WS_FTP LE (Windows Sockets File Transfer Protocol Limited Edition) is an FTP program that you may obtain from the ITS Help Desk web-site, Software menu. There you'll find a link to download the "WS_FTP LE" zip file. You'll need an archive utility to inflate the zip-file once it is downloaded. Links to different archive utilities may also be found at the Software page.

Note: This document assumes that you have already created Web pages on your local machine. For information on creating Web pages using Netscape Composer, open the Help menu (from the Netscape window) and choose Help and Support Center, then click on the Contents tab and select "Creating New Pages".

Using WS_FTP to publish personal Web pages

This document assumes that you have already installed WS_FTP on your computer.

Creating a Profile

1. Once you have installed WS_FTP on your local computer, you should start the program. Usually you can find WS_FTP by going to Start - Programs - WS_FTP LE - WS_FTP LE. The icon should look similar to the following: .

2. When the Session Properties dialog box opens, click on the New button in the upper right hand corner of the dialog box.

3. In the Profile Name field, supply a unique name that you will remember. Later on, you may use this profile in order to avoid manually supplying the same information again. If you have multiple accounts you may wish to give them names that remind you of which account is which. 4. In the Host Name/Address field, type one of the following (depending on the type of account you wish to connect to): Group/Departments accounts on the io server: www.eiu.edu Faculty/Staff accounts on ux1: ux1.eiu.edu Student (PEN) accounts: pen.eiu.edu For accounts on the research server: research.eiu.edu 5. Leave the Host Type field set to Automatic Detect.

6. In the User ID field, type your user name or login. (Do not include your entire email address, just include the part before the "@".)

7. In the Password field, type the password you would use to access your e-mail account.

8. Verify that Save Pwd field is not checked. If you have this option checked, anyone sitting at your computer will have access to the files in your account.

9. At the top of the dialog box, click on the Startup tab. 10. In the Initial Remote Site Folder field, type public_html. 11. In the Initial Local Folder field, type the directory path where your Web files are saved on your local machine. For example, if you saved your Web files on the C drive, in a folder called documents, in a sub-folder called webstuff, you would type C:\documents\webstuff. 12. Once you have configured all of the entries referenced above, click on the OK button.

13. If you are prompted again to supply your password, do so. (This is a peculiarity with WS_FTP - sometimes it asks for your password more than once). If your connection is successful, you will see a large split screen:

If your connection failed, you will see the same screen, except that the right half will be blank, and in the bottom left hand corner will be a message similar to the following:

530 Login incorrect.
!Logon failure, so quitting

If this happens, click the Connect button below the error message, and then verify your account settings and configurations as outlined in steps 1 - 11 above.

Uploading Web Pages

You should see a directory named either www for non-student accounts or http for student accounts in the "Remote Site" upper right window. If not, you will need to click on the "MkDir" button to create the appropriate directory. This is the directory where you will store your web pages.

To transfer the files from your computer to your web space make sure your "www" or "http" directory is open (on the Remote Site window). This may be accomplished by double clicking on it.
Now, use your mouse to select those files on your Local System (left window) which you wish to publish to your web space. Once your web pages are selected click the arrow "-->" in the middle of the screen to transfer the file.

When the transfer is completed, in the bottom left hand corner will be a message similar to the following:

Received xxx bytes in x secs, transfer succeeded
226 ASCII Transfer complete

and you can click the Close button to end the session.