The ftp utility allows you to transfer files between computers
connected to the Internet. To use ftp, type ftp machine,
where machine is the name or IP address of the
remote machine you're transferring
to. If the connection is successful, you will be prompted to login to the
other machine. Once you have logged in, you can use the commands
get filename and put filename to get files
from and put files on the remote computer. You can list files that
are available and change to various subdirectories on the remote
computer with ls and cd, which work like the corresponding
Unix commands. To exit ftp, type bye or quit.
One thing which you should be aware of is that binary files such as compiled programs, compressed archives, and graphics files need to be transferred in ``binary mode'', which requires you to type bin before beginning the transfer. ASCII-encoded text files should be transferred in ``text mode'', which requires you to type ascii before starting the transfer. For more help with ftp, please check the man pages, or type help at the ftp> prompt.
More sophisticated ftp clients, such as ncftp, are also available, and some other programs (like Netscape) are also able to act as ftp clients.