INTERFACING WITH ZONE INTERNET
In all the sections below, a distinction is made between transferring ASCII
files and binary files. This is important -- you must transfer
files in the appropriate mode.
Perl scripts and HTML files are ASCII files, along with many others. If you
use a plain text editor to work with a file, it's an ASCII file. It's not
terribly important to transfer HTML files in ASCII mode, but it is
important for Perl scripts.
GIFs and JPEGs are binary files. They must be uploaded in
binary mode, or will be corrupted. Files that look like garbage in a plain
text editor and require a more advanced program to edit are not ASCII files,
and must be transferred in binary mode.
FTP - Graphical Interface (wu_ftp, fetch, CuteFTP, etc.)
Users with graphical interfaces can run a program such as wu_ftp or fetch
to interface with ZONEIT. Just log into your domain name with the userid
and password we provide you. If you do not have your own domain name, we
will provide you with the name of our host where your userid resides.
See MS Windows Access in Chapter One for details.
FTP - Shell Interface
For Unix users, at the shell prompt, type ftp your-domain.com. Then
enter your userid and password when prompted.
ASCII files (text)
Type ascii to make sure you are in ascii mode.
Type put filename to put a file.
Type get filename to get a file.
Binary files (graphics)
Type binary to make sure you are in binary mode.
Type put filename to put a file.
Type get filename to get a file.
Telnet - Graphical Interface
Simply run the program on your machine that contains telnet in its name.
Then log onto your-domain.com (or .net or .org) with your userid and password.
Once logged on, you may use the following commands (assuming your telnet
program knows or can be taught about ZMODEM, which often isn't the case):
ASCII files (text)
Type rz to put a file.
Type sz -a filename to get a file.
Binary files (graphics)
Type rz filename to put a file.
Type sz -b filename to get a file.
Telnet - Shell Interface
At the shell prompt, type telnet -8 your-domain.com. Then enter your
userid and password when prompted.
Once logged on, you may use the following commands:
ASCII files (text)
Type rz filename to put a file.
Type sz -a filename to get a file.
Binary files (graphics)
Type rz filename to put a file.
Type sz -b filename to get a file.
So why this section? If this seems obvious, sorry, but probably the single
biggest type of problem we have to correct or tell users to do over is problems
caused by having the wrong mode active. We needed this in big letters so
you'd find it.
Macintosh users: in Fetch, the binary mode referred to throughout
the manual is 'raw'. The other option uploads too much data, corrupting the
file.
In case you're wondering what the fuss is about -- aren't text files
standardized? -- here's the explanation. While ASCII is a standard for encoding
text, it does not specify how to end lines. There are two obvious candidates
in the ASCII character set: CR and LF. *nix machines, such as the Zone Internet
www machines, use LF to terminate lines. Macintoshes use CR. DOS, Windows,
and NT machines use CR LF (both, in that order). When transferring files
between machines of different types, you need to account for this, hence
ASCII mode. To avoid damaging binary files (where the bytes don't have the
ASCII semantics) there is binary mode.
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