CSC102 How the Internet Works
Lab: Moving your Web pages


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You all have the right, as a Smith student, to get an account on the host sophia.smith.edu, which runs a web server. This is a Unix (Linux) machine much like beowulf, so you should be familiar with it. There are many ways to make the transfer. I discuss two below. The easiest way to transfer all your files from beowulf to sophia is to use ftp in Unix, as follows:

1. ftp in Unix

  1. First, get an account on sophia via the ITS. Only then will the following directions be relevant.
  2. Connect to beowulf and log in to your 102a-xx account.
  3. $ cd public_html to place yourself inside the directory containing your files.
  4. $ ls -l to be sure you are there, and remind yourself of the names of your files.
  5. Now you are ready to FTP. Here is a transcript of me doing it, to my sophia account. Please read the explanation below the transcript before trying it -- it is easy to get lost in this process! 
    [beowulf]$ ftp sophia.smith.edu
Connected to sophia.smith.edu.
220-SOPHIA.SMITH.EDU  (Smith College)
220-
220-All file transfers and commands from your host "beowulf.csc.smith.edu"
220-are logged.  There is no anonymous ftp on this server.  Direct
220-questions and comments to:  root@sophia.smith.edu
220-
220-
220 sophia.smith.edu FTP server (Version wu-2.4.2-academ[BETA-15](7) Sun Sep 28 12:58:46 EDT 1997) ready.
Name (sophia:orourke): orourke
331 Password required for orourke.
Password:
230-Welcome to Sophia
230-
230-News:  Sophia is very low on disk space.  If you are receiving out of space
230-errors and need to update information please email jcrowley@email.smith.edu
230-
230-A new sophia is being worked on.  The new sophia will be a PowerEdge 6400
230-running linux with approximately 40gigs of space for home directories.
230-It will be running the latest apache, and allow for more features (such
230-as perl and php).  This new system should be more stable and secure, and
230-resolve a lot of the minor problems that the current, 12 year old sophia
230-has.   -John Crowley, Unix Systems Administrator, ITS (9/11/02)
230-
230-
230 User orourke logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> cd public_html
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> mput *
mput Q4ans.html? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Q4ans.html.
226 Transfer complete.
5274 bytes sent in 0.02 seconds (293.52 Kbytes/s)
mput Q5ans.html? y
200 PORT command successful.
226 Transfer complete.
3057 bytes sent in 0.03 seconds (85.32 Kbytes/s)
mput Q6ans.html? y
200 PORT command successful.
[...lines deleted....]
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
[beowulf]$
Note that the first ftp command given is cd public_html, which has the effect of changing to that directory on sophia. So now you are in the public_html directory on both ends, beowulf and sophia. The ftp command to transfer all your files is mput *: multiple "put" (upload) of every file -- the * means "any." It then proceeds to ask you one by one for each file, and if you answer y, it is transfered. (Above I transfered Q4ans.html, Q5ans.html, etc.). You might not want to transfer every file, e.g., Lab.html etc.

2. ssh

An alternative method is to move your files from beowulf to your local machine with ssh, and then use ssh again (maybe later) to move your files to sophia.

beowulf->local

  1. Connect to beowulf via ssh, log into your 102a-xx account.
  2. Select New File Transfer from the ssh Window pulldown menu.
  3. The left panel shows your files on beowulf, the right panel the destination (local files). Select the files in public_html that you want to move.
  4. Click on the download arrow.
  5. Navigate to where you want to store them.
  6. Complete the process.
You might want to now save your files to a disk for safekeeping. The reverse process is just as easy: you just ssh to sophia using your sophia account, and click on upload rather than download:

local->sophia

  1. Connect to sophia.smith.edu via ssh, log into your sophia account.
  2. Select New File Transfer from the ssh Window pulldown menu.
  3. The left panel shows your files on sophia, the right panel the local files. Select public_html as your destination. Select the files you want to move.
  4. Click on the upload arrow.
  5. Complete the process.
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