Using FTP through the command line
It is possible to upload files to your web server using the Windows command line. The command line has an inbuilt tool that will allow you to connect to your web server using FTP. However, I would recommend you not to use this as it is a bit difficult and you have to enter commands through the keyboards. There are many free FTP clients available on the Internet. Download one of them and use it instead.
As you may be aware, FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is a way by means of which one can transfer files from one computer to another. FTP is the standard protocol that most web designers use to transfer files to their web servers from their computers. In fact, many tools like Dreamweaver, GoLive, etc come with an FTP client installed so that the user can upload files easily.
Here is how you proceed to use FTP through the command line. Note that the commands are NOT case sensitive and so you can type either in upper case or lower case letters.
Step 1: Open the command line
You can do this by going to Start>Run and then typing “CMD” and pressing Enter. Navigate to the correct folder which contains the files that you want to upload. For example if your files are on the D:, enter d: in the command prompt and it will switch to D:.
Step 2: Connect to your server using FTP
Type “FTP” followed by your FTP address. This is shown below:
In my case ftp.ncaditya.com is my FTP address. It will be like ftp.yourdomainname.com in your case.
Then enter your username and password. If it looks like the image shown below, it means you have successfully connected to your web server.
You might have observed that when you type your password, you won’t see anything on the screen, no dots or asterisk marks. This is to ensure the safety of your password.
Step 3: Uploading your files
In order to upload your files, first you will have to navigate to the correct directory. Usually, the root of your domain will be either “public_html” or “www”. However, in my case it is “ncaditya.com” i.e. name of the domain. You can see the directories that are present on your web server by using the “DIR” command. Just enter “DIR” and you will see all the directories that are present.
To change to the directory the command is cd (i.e. change directory). Type cd followed by the name of the folder you want to change to.
You can check the current directory by typing PWD. Now let us upload a file. In my case, I will uploading a file called mickey-mouse.gif. It is an image file. To do that we have to use the PUT command. Here is how that is done.
To upload a file, just type “put” followed by the name of your file and it will get uploaded. It will also provide you with statistics about the file like its size, how long it took to upload and your network speed.
Step 4: Verifying the uploaded files
You should always verify that the files have been uploaded correctly. You can do this by pointing your browser to yourdomainname.com/nameoftheuploadedfile. In my case, I will point to www.ncaditya.com/mickey-mouse.gif and it opens up perfectly. If something goes wrong, you will have to upload the file again.
Step 5: Closing the FTP connection
You can close the FTP connection by typing “bye” at the FTP prompt.
If you wait for sometime, you will automatically get disconnected. This is for security reasons.
And so this brief tutorial ends. Like I said before, if you have to upload many files download a free FTP client. Also see an earlier post on Using FileZilla to upload files.
