FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL

INTRODUCTION

                              In  a networked environment it is natural to wish to copy files between  computer system. Why  isn’t it always easy to do this?

Computer vendors have devised hundreds of file systems .these file systems differ in dozens of minor ways ,and quite a few drastic major ways too!

This is not just a multivendor problem. Sometimes  it is difficult to copy files between two different types of computers manufactured by the same vendor.

Among the problem that may be encountered when dealing with a multisystem  environment are:
•    Different conventions for naming files.
•    Different  rules for traversing  file directory system.
•    File access restrictions.
•    Different ways to represent text and numeric data within files.

The designers of the TCP/IP protocol suite did not try to create a very complicated general solution to every file transfer problem .Instead ,they evolved a fairly basic but elegant file transfer protocol(FTP) tha is serviceable and easy to use.

The file transfer protocol is designed to be operated by interactive end users or by application programs.
It is one of the most venerable methods of transferring files from one computer to another.

Two crucial aspects of FTP make it particularly useful-
1.    It’s capability to transfer files between computers of completely dissimilar type.
2.    It’s provision for public file sharing.