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Batch FTP

Last updated 4th August 1998

• What and who is this service for?
• Sending Requests
• Retrieving Files
• Limitations and common problems
• New features
• Notes

What and who is this service for?

Batch FTP allows you to send a request via email for some files to be downloaded from a remote host by FTP or HTTP. They are placed in your home directory on our FTP server from where you can then download them. This has advantages for you: you don't have to wait for slow links and slow servers while online, so you spend less time on the phone; getting files recommended by others can be done "offline" without you having to remember complex URLs, as these can be simply copied into the body of a mail message.

When the files have been fetched, a mail message is sent back to you indicating the success or failure of the request.

Sending Requests

To make a Batch FTP request, send mail to ftp@demon.net. The message body should contain a number of commands, one on each line. There are currently five commands available:

• help
• get
• list
• delete
• quit

When the email has been processed, you will be sent a reply containing details of the Batch FTP session.

help

The help command includes instructions on how to use Batch FTP in the reply email.

get

The get command retrieves a file or a directory listing via FTP or HTTP. Some examples of get commands are:

get ftp://ftp.domain.com/path/to/file.zip

get

http://www.domain.com/path/to/file.shtml
get ftp://ftp.domain.com/path/to/directory
get ftp://ftp.domain.com/path/to/really-long-file-name short.nam

The third example shows how to get a directory listing.

The last example allows you to choose the name that the file is given in your home directory, i.e. short.nam instead of really-long-file-name.

Some briefer formats for getting files by FTP are also recognised. Since get is the default command, it can be omitted, so

ftp://ftp.domain.com/path/to/file.zip

is the same as the first example above. For backwards compatibility, you can also use the syntax <hostname>:<filename>, for example:

ftp.domain.com:/path/to/file.zip

To avoid confusion, the common abbreviation

ftp.domain.com/path/to/file.zip

also works.

list

The list command includes in the reply email a list of the files that are in your home directory.

delete

The delete command deletes files from your home directory. Files that you have requested will be automatically deleted after seven days, but this command allows you to tidy up your files yourself. This command is also useful if you have used all of your space quota.

For example:

delete file.zip

deletes file.zip, and

delete *.exe

deletes all files whose name ends in ".exe".

delete *

will delete all your files.

quit

The quit command tells the Batch FTP program to ignore the rest of your message, so (for example) it doesn't try to fetch your home page from the URL in your signature. Batch FTP also recognises the "-- " signature separator as a quit command.

Retrieving Files

When you have received mail telling you that the files are available for you to download, make an FTP connection to ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/. Log in with your Demon Internet host name and dial-up password. The files will be available in your current working directory.

Please note that this is not the same login method as the one you use when logging in for anonymous FTP. If your host name is "sample.demon.co.uk" then you should enter "sample" at the FTP login prompt and your PPP or SLIP password at the FTP password prompt. If you have forgotten your PPP or SLIP password, you can find it by looking at your dialler login script.

Some packages allow you to specify a default directory when you log in to an FTP server. For instance, Fetch on the Apple Macintosh when shipped from us has ftp.demon.co.uk set to /pub/mac. When logging on to collect your files, delete this default directory so that it is blank. You will then be placed in your home directory.

To access your home directory from a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, you must specify your username, password, and home directory in the URL. For example, if your hostname is "sample.demon.co.uk" and your password is "password ", the URL is

ftp://sample:password@ftp.demon.co.uk/%2Fu/demon.co.uk/s/sample/

(where the "/s/" is the initial letter of the hostname).

Note that you can only collect Batch FTP files when using your Demon dial-up; the FTP server will deny access if you try to log in from elsewhere. Also note that until you successfully use Batch FTP for the first time, your directory will not be created so you won't be able to log in. You are not missing out on anything so don't be concerned!

When we get the files we will use binary mode. This means that no conversion to the file is done. When you download the file from us you will use FTP; at this time you should specify ASCII or binary as appropriate.

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Limitations and common problems

Many people have problems with their editor doing "line wrap" on their Batch FTP requests, so that a command that should be on one line is split over two or more lines. Batch FTP tries to spot when this happens, but it cannot detect all cases. Make sure that you have turned off your editor's line wrap function when you are editing a Batch FTP request.

If you still have problems with line wrap, you can insert a backslash where you split the line, for example:

ftp://ftp.domain.com/very/deeply/nested/path\
/making/a/really/long/file-name.zip

instead of

ftp://ftp.domain.com/very/deeply/nested/path/making/a/really/long/file-name.zip

Note that Batch FTP does not support wildcards in filenames; that is, the command "get ftp://ftp.domain.com/pub/*" will not cause Batch FTP to try to get all the files in /pub.

Strange characters in filenames or passwords can be included by using the URL character encoding system. This represents "unsafe" characters as %nn, where nn is the hexadecimal character code. The unsafe characters and their respective encodings are:

space (%20), " (%22), # (%23), % (%25), & (%26), / (%2F), : (%3A), ; (%3B), < (%3C), = (%3D), > (%3E), ? (%3F), @ (%40), [ (%5B), \ (%5C), ] (%5D), ^ (%5E), ` (%60), { (%7B), | (%7C), } (%7D), and ~ (%7E).

If you try to fetch a file with Batch FTP and it fails owing to an inability to log in to a server, it may be that the server does not conform to the Internet standard for login name "anonymous" and password <email address>. It is possible to specify these in an FTP URL, for example ftp://username:password@host.domain.com/path/to/file.

Note that if the password is important for security, it should not be sent via email. Files obtained using this facility will be deleted from ftp.demon.co.uk after one week. Please make sure that you download your files before this period expires.

Batch FTP has a quota system to prevent people from using excessive space on ftp.demon.co.uk. The limit is enforced "weakly", i.e. Batch FTP allows you to fetch big files that exceed the quota, but once the quota is exceeded it will not fetch any more files. You must use the delete command to be able to retrieve more files. This facility is restricted to our customers. If you area Demon customer and you want to send a request from a non-Demon mail address, you should make sure that the request's "Reply-To:" header contains your Demon email address, e.g. <user@sample.demon.co.uk>.

New features

Features that have been added to version 2:

• Batch FTP understands URLs.
• You can now fetch directory listings.
• You can fetch files by HTTP as well as FTP.
• You can (at last) specify a different local name for the file.
• Batch FTP now knows about Mail Forwarding customers.
• You can specify an FTP or HTTP username and password.
• Batch FTP now understands MIME Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable messages.
• Batch FTP now works with Microsoft FTP servers.
• Batch FTP uses the Web Caches to help preserve our international bandwidth.
• You should find that the turn-around time is shorter.
• Batch FTP tries to patch up lines that look like they have been broken by an editor with word-wrap turned on.
• Batch FTP tries to deal with customers that have a broken email configuration.

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Notes

Please report any Batch FTP problems to the demon.ip.support newsgroup, not to the helpdesk@demon.net email address.

The service can have an advantage to us as it probably means you may spend less time on a phone line, and we also use cacheing which means that when a popular new file comes out and more than person gets that file via Batch FTP or the Web Caches we will simply copy it to your home directory to save time.

All Batch FTP transactions are logged. If you object to this practice then please do not use the Batch FTP facility.

Please do not disclose the contents of your download directory to any third party. The delete command opens up the possibility of "Trojan Horse" files being substituted for the files you have downloaded if you disclose the names of these files. Keep this information to yourself.

We will not accept responsibility for any loss or damage, consequential or otherwise, incurred through the use of, failure to use or inability to use this facility.