FTP no longer works reliably as a protocol due to changes in the way networks are managed (it doesn't pass through firewalls well). More importantly, it's considered insecure due to lack of encryption. Possible alternatives for transferring files:

• SFTP/SCP
• HTTP (web)
• Netfiles

The web server can provide a more convenient way to transfer files than FTP (especially as we no longer support non-anonymous ftp).

You can place the file(s) to be shared in the public_html directory of your unix account, and either create a link to it, or simply e-mail the recipient to let them know the name. You can also create symbolic links within public_html to other directories - the web server will follow them as long as the directory ownership matches.

The files can then be downloaded it from http://www.physics.umn.edu/~yourname/filename

If there are many files involved, there are a few possibilities to make the download easier.

• You can bundle all files into a single archive, using zip or tar.
• Or, the recipient can use the wget tool to do a bulk download. The following command will download all files in your myfolder directory:

    wget -nd -r -l 1 http://webusers.physics.umn.edu/~username/myfolder/

If you choose this approach, you might also place the following lines in a .htaccess file within the download directory:

    IndexOptions -FancyIndexing
    IndexIgnore . ..

This will make the file listing simpler (so wget doesn't download any filename thumbnail images) and supress the parent directory.

The University Netfiles service can be useful for securely distributing files. In short, you upload the files you want to distribute to your Netfiles space, then have it send an email to the people who should get the files. They are issued a ticket which allows them to download the file without needing an account.