What is an FTP connection? And do I need FTP to transfer files?
If you are a newbie in the field of application deployment and web application field, you would have heard the term ‘FTP’ and would think of it as a big gigantic thing in servers. But seriously, its too much simple than we think about it.
FTP according to Wikipedia
if you go to Wikipedia, you will find the definition of FTP as
“The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network.”
Don’t worry, if you didn’t get what this means. To understand the real thing you just need to know some points about how the servers work.
Little basics to understand server-client relation
- There are always two sides on the Internet, first one is the Client(i.e. your browser or system’s program who is sending request) and the second one is the Server (i.e. the server which is handling the request sent by the client and responding), that’s why we call it client-server connection.
- The browser is not the only thing that sends requests to the server, there are so many other programs and codes that can send the request to the same server but all the request entities have to follow some specific protocols.
- Inside a server, many programs run, so to send the request to a specific program on a server, we should also know the port number of the program on which it is running on the server.
If you have understood the above three points that you can easily understand the FTP in a minute.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) connection is a specific type of connection between server and client which was designed specifically to transfer files between the FTP server and FTP client.
Real-life example for FTP
For example, if we take our real world, we have planes, cars, buses, couriers and many things to transfer humans, animals, and objects from one place to another but still we use the plane’s seat for the human and luggage cabinet for luggage because that was specifically designed for it although we can carry a little luggage to the seat with us too. In the same manner, our internet works, we can upload files through the browser but that is not specifically designed for files. And that is the main reason why we use FTP connection.
How to use FTP
To use FTP connection between server and client, you would need two things
- FTP server
- FTP client
FTP SERVER: In most of the shared hosting platforms, the FTP server is already installed and you just need to create an FTP account in that like the GoDaddy Shared Hosting.
But if you are using a dedicated server like Google Cloud or AWS, then you would have to specifically install the FTP server into it.
FTP CLIENT: You will also need to download an FTP client on your local machine to start an FTP connection. After you download it, you just need to run the client and connect the FTP server with connection credentials (Hostname, Username, Password, Port number).
Advantages of using FTP connections
- You can send multiple files and folders in bulk over the network.
- Organizing the files and folders is easy.
- Progress is not lost, even if the connection is timed out.
- You can define the accessed folder to FTP users to not let change the other files than the specified directory.
Top FTP applications
- FileZilla (Mostly used and preferred globally)
Conclusion
Being new in deployment field, FTP seems like a very big and huge word but it is a simple concept about file transfer between the server and client which is going to make your deployments and your life very much easier.
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