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Faculty and Staff

FTP Using Fetch for Mac

The Basics

FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol, a method of transferring files. Using an FTP client, you can copy files from a remote server to your local disk, or from your local disk to the server. FTP client software such as WS-FTP (for Windows) or Fetch (for Macs) are shareware programs that are included in the URI FTP Software Archive. The instructions below pertain to ftp using WS_FTP95. Since FTP clients work somewhat differently, if you use a different version of FTP software, you will need to rely on the software documentation or contact the URI Help Desk for assistance.

Download Fetch (OS9) or Fetch (OS X) now.

Pro-FTP Interface

Departmental units at the University of Rhode Island may use the Pro-FTP interface to publish and maintain their Web pages on URI's central Web server. Using an FTP client, the Pro-FTP interface allows departmental units to connect directly to the Web server and create, delete and rename files and directories on the Web server.

To connect to URI Web server:

Before you can upload, download or change the contents of your www directories, you must establish a connection to URI Web server.

New Connection Input Screen

Here is what you need to do:

  1. Open Fetch.
  2. Select New Connection from the File menu to open a connection.
  3. In the Host field, type www.uri.edu.
  4. In the User ID field, type your Web account login id.
  5. In the Password field, type your password.
  6. Leave the Directory field blank.
  7. Click OK.
  8. Save the domain names of Web sites that you commonly use as bookmarks by clicking Save Bookmark in the File Menu after you have established a connection. For easier access, a bookmark can be added to the Shortcut list by draggin its icon to the Shortcut window (in the Window Menu).
  9. Open a connection a previously saved site by selecting Open Bookmark File or Open Shortcut from the File menu.

To Transfer Files Between Your Mac and the Web server

To transfer folders or multiple files, use the Get and Put commands in the Remote menu. You can also view file contents, or delete or rename files and directories using Remove commands if you have read and write permissions.

  1. Once a connection has been established, you will see your department's home directory contents in the connection window.
  2. To download a file from the Web server to your computer, either double click the filename or select the file and click Get File.
  3. To upload a file from your computer to the Web server, select the file and click Put File.
  4. To transfer folders or multiple files, use the Get and Put commands in the Remote menu. You can also view file contents, or delete or rename files and directories using Remote commands if you have read and write permissions on the Web server.
  5. Click on the Text button to transfer files in ascii mode and on the Binary button to transfer files in binary mode. When transferring a Macintosh binary file to the Web server, select Raw Data rather than MacBinary II as the file type in the Put File dialog box.
  6. Fetch can recognize and automatically decode various compressed files, including those with .hex and .sit extensions.
  7. Exit Fetch.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please email webmaster@uri.edu.

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