FTP (Client) Guides

As before, I'll be posting my SmartFTP client tutorial here in Duminas' thread.
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SmartFTP is my client of choice, and I recommend using it to log into my FTP, since it is what I test my FTP with. Following is a wordy, but step-by-step guide to using SmartFTP and an introduction to some of its best features. For the purposes of this guide, I'm going to assume that you just downloaded SmartFTP from here and have finished installing it. So, open the program.

When you first run it after installing, you'll see a preferences dialog. Click on connection. Change 'retry delay' to 60 seconds. This will prevent SmartFTP from hammering. You may also want to change the number of retries to something like 50 or so. Take note of the data connection section. You'll see a box where you can select PASV or PORT; set it to PASV and make sure the box beside 'Force Server IP for PASV Mode' is checked. Click OK. The way you get back to these settings is Tools -> Settings. Remember that because you might need to change your data connection mode later. Okay, that's pretty much all the setup you need. Let's connect to an FTP now.

The first step of connecting to an FTP is reading the first post of the FTP op's thread completely. Make sure you are familiar with the op's rules--I cannot stress enough how important this is. You MUST read and obey the rules. Now then, the FTP server ops in the Gamingforce forums will provide you with 4 pieces of information you'll need to paste into the bar at the top of SmartFTP. We'll use my server as an example, but note that my FTP now runs on a whitelist system, so you won't be able to log in unless you first PM your IP address to me. You can always use the look account though, simply use the password "look". Anyway, my address is tenseiken.mine.nu, so you copy that and paste it into the address bar. Next, make sure "anonymous" is not checked. To log into my FTP server, you must use your gamingforce nick as your username, so I would type "tenseiken" into the username box since that's my gamingforce nick. The password for my download account is "download". My server is on port 21, so type that into the port box. Hit enter and SmartFTP will attempt to connect. Now pay attention to the log. If it says no connection can be made, or the host does not exist, my server is offline so you might as well quit now. If it says 'there are already 8 users connected' or 'too many users connected', then that's exactly what it means and I don't personally care if you retry once every 60 seconds. SmartFTP will do this for you if you don't close the window.

Let's assume that you were able to log in. If the log says 'user logged in' but you don't see any files listed, then that means my server did not accept the list data mode you chose (PASV if you followed my setup instructions). If you see some folders and files, skip ahead in the guide a bit. Close the remote connection window, go to the connection settings again and switch to active or PORT mode. Also, it's probably a good idea to select 'Manual' in the 'PORT IP Mode' box if you are on a router. If you do that, you should then paste your WAN IP address (you can get it from WhatIsMyIP.com) into the box directly below that one. If you aren't on a router, I recommend selecting 'Auto' for the 'PORT IP Mode' box. Okay, now you should attempt to log in again. This time you should see a list of folders, i.e. 'MP3 Directory', 'MPC Directory', etc. Let's go to 'MP3 Directory'. Now on the right, you'll see a list of all the contents of the 'MP3 Directory' folder. Let's open the 'Game' folder, and then 'Actraiser Symphonic Suite' by double clicking on it. Now you see a list of the MP3s in the Actraiser folder. Want to download them? On the left, click on 'Game' again. You're back out to a list of all the folders within the 'Game' folder again. Right click on 'Actraiser Symphonic Suite' on the right side. A context menu appears. Point to 'download', then 'direct' then 'select folder'. Use the folder browse dialog to go to the folder you want to download to and hit OK. The download will begin immediately. Note that while downloading you are not able to browse the rest of my files. Sucks, right? Let's go over SmartFTP's session queue.

Now, when you chose 'download', you probably noticed some other options, i.e. session queue and global queue. Cancel your download of Actraiser (assuming you started it) with the abort button at the top (red circle with an x in it). Now, right click the actraiser folder again, point to download, session queue, and select folder. Select your folder and hit OK. Now let's do the same thing with Arc the Lad 2. After you've done it with Arc 2, look right below the log window and you'll see two tabs, one says 'Log', one says 'Session Queue'. Click on session queue. Where the log was will now turn into a list of the two folders you chose to download. Right click the first one and click transfer. The download will start and keep going until it finishes (or you get disconnected). The benefits of session queue is that you can set several things to download and start the download when you're ready. Let's go over one last thing, the global queue.

Cancel your session queue downloads with the abort button and delete them from the list (highlight, press delete). Click the log tab again. Now, right click on actraiser, point to download, then global queue, then click select folder. Select a folder and hit OK. Do this again with Arc 2. Now, down at the bottom you'll see 4 tabs. Queue source, global queue, connections, and speed. Click the global queue tab. You'll see that the two folders you chose to download via global queue are there. Now close the remote window and log out of my server. Click the 'play' button to start the download. The global queue will attempt to log into my server and download the folders you chose. If it can't log in, it will use the retry delay and attempt number you specified in connections. The benefit of this is if you keep getting knocked off a server, this will automatically retry. Also, if the server is busy, you can login with the look account, choose to download a few folders via global queue, then right click on the items in the global queue list, click properties, and you'll see two text boxes. The first one, source, will have something like ftp://look:look@tenseiken.mine.nu:21/*thing you want to download*. Click the 'Select URL' button beside the source text box. If you change the username and password from the one for the look account to the one for the download account, the queue will try to use the download account to download rather than the look account. This is really nice to have when a server is very busy.

Jam it back in, in the dark.