SLIDE 30 FTP (CONT)
3. To support the synchronization of entire trees of files between computer accounts.
- By using a client that provided for “recursive” FTP operations, users could
push entire directory trees from one of their accounts to another, and server administrators could clone or install new services without having to re-build them from scratch on a new machine.
- When using FTP like this, users were generally not aware of how the actual
protocol worked, or of the many separate commands needed to transfer so many different files: instead, they hit a button and a large batch operation would run and then complete.
4. Interactive, full-fledged file management
- The early FTP clients presented a command-line prompt that felt something
like a Unix shell account itself, and—as we shall see—the protocol borrows from shell accounts both the idea of a “current working directory” and of a cd command to move from one directory to another. Later clients mimicked the idea of a Mac-like interface, with folders and files drawn on the computer screen.
- But in either case, in the activity of filesystem browsing the full capabilities of
FTP finally came into play: it supported not only the operations of listing directories and uploading and downloading files, but of creating and deleting directories, adjusting file permissions, and re-naming files.
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