Please Whitelist This Site? I know everyone hates ads. But please understand that I am providing premium content for free that takes hundreds of hours of time to research and write. I don't want to go to a pay-only model like some sites, but when more and more people block ads, I end up working for free. And I have a family to support, just like you. :) If you like The TCP/IP Guide, please consider the download version. It's priced very economically and you can read all of it in a convenient format without ads. If you want to use this site for free, I'd be grateful if you could add the site to the whitelist for Adblock. To do so, just open the Adblock menu and select "Disable on tcpipguide.com". Or go to the Tools menu and select "Adblock Plus Preferences...". Then click "Add Filter..." at the bottom, and add this string: "@@||tcpipguide.com^$document". Then just click OK. Thanks for your understanding! Sincerely, Charles Kozierok Author and Publisher, The TCP/IP Guide

NOTE: Using software to mass-download the site degrades the server and is prohibited. If you want to read The TCP/IP Guide offline, please consider licensing it. Thank you.

The TCP/IP Guide  9  TCP/IP Application Layer Protocols, Services and Applications (OSI Layers 5, 6 and 7)       9  TCP/IP Key Applications and Application Protocols            9  TCP/IP File and Message Transfer Applications and Protocols (FTP, TFTP, Electronic Mail, USENET, HTTP/WWW, Gopher)                 9  TCP/IP General File Transfer Protocols (FTP and TFTP)

TCP/IP General File Transfer Protocols (FTP and TFTP) 1 FTP Overview, History and Standards

The primary general file transfer protocol in the TCP/IP suite shows its “generality” directly through its unqualified name: the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). FTP is one of the most widely used application protocols in the world. It was designed to allow the efficient transfer of files between any two devices on a TCP/IP internetwork. It automatically takes care of the details of how files are moved, provides a rich command syntax to allow various supporting file operations to be performed (such as navigating the directory structure and deleting files) and operates using the TCP transport service for reliability.

In this section I describe the operation of the File Transfer Protocol. I begin with an overview of FTP, a discussion of its long history and the standards that define it. I then describe how FTP works in two subsections. The first discusses the key concepts behind how FTP functions and discusses its operation in general terms. The second provides specific details of FTP commands and reply codes. Finally, I provide a sample illustration of a user FTP session showing the internal commands used for each action.

TCP/IP General File Transfer Protocols (FTP and TFTP) 1 FTP Overview, History and Standards