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Transferring Files with FileZilla from a Windows PC
  
Unless you have a wide screen, the most efficient way to use this Web page is probably to print it out for reference while you are following these steps, rather than trying to flip back and forth between windows.
If you have not changed your OAK password since October 1, 2007, then you must do so before you will be able to connect to the new static-page servers. Use the link at the upper left of http://technology.ohio.edu/myaccount/.
- If this is the first time you are using FileZilla, consult the instructions for installing and configuring it.
The first time you connect to each server, you may get a warning about an "unknown host key"; that is normal and you may choose to tell FileZilla to add the key to its database, so that you won't be distracted by that mesage the next time.
- Specify the "Host" (shaded yellow, below):
for the staging server, specify the host as "wws2.ohio.edu" (do not specify the host as "www.ohio.edu" or "www.ohiou.edu": those are different machines);
for the production server, specify the host as "ww2.ohio.edu" (do not specify the host as "www.ohio.edu" or "www.ohiou.edu": those are different machines).
- Specify the "Username" (shaded red, below) as your own OAK login ID
- Provide your OAK "Password" (shaded green, below).
- Specify the "Port" (shaded purple, below, between the Password and the "Quickconnect" button) as 22, as shown.
- The orange highlights encircle features that will be used in step 11, below.)
- Press the "enter" key to complete the connection.
If Windows displays a message that it has blocked an action of the application, click on the "unblock" button.
You may observe that the Port field at the top is now empty, instead of showing the original "22," but the Host field has changed to "sftp://ww2.ohio.edu" or "sftp://wws2.ohio.edu"; this is normal.
- Observe the chatter in the upper window portion; in order to keep your connection alive while you think or do other things, FileZilla may from time to time send innocuous commands such as "PWD" ("Print Working Directory") or "REST" (if it uses one that our server does not implement, you may see an error message to that effect). This portion of the window will be used to display any error messages. Be especially alert for red text in this section.
If the server disconnects because of too long a time with no activity, click on the Disconnect button on the toolbar (immediately to the left of the "R" tool), and then press the "enter" key or click on the Quickconnect button.
- When the FileZilla session window is displayed, maximize that window or use the mouse, dragging at the lower-right corner of the session window, to increase the space available for displaying file and directory names.
- Observe that the left side is the PC, the right side is the server, and on each side the directories are listed above the files. In addition, you will see both the directory and file listing and also, above that, a tree-structured list.
- Place your mouse over the boundary between the "Filename" and "Filesize" column headings for the Remote and Local Sites (circled with orange highlight, above). The mouse pointer will change to a double-sided arrow when it is directly over the boundary. Then, drag to the right to increase the amount of space on the screen used for the filename column. You can similarly adjust any of the other column widths as needed.
- Navigate with the mouse on the left side to get to the correct directory on your PC's disk drive:
- Double-click on a directory to enter that directory.
- Double-click on the folder with the "..", at the top, to go up to the parent directory of the one currently being displayed.
- Double-click on a drive letter to change drives.
- When the connection is made, you will see a list of everyone's top-level (subsite) folders on the right portion of the FileZilla window. Scroll down, as needed, to find your subsite's folder and double-click with the mouse on that folder (for OAK, find and click on the folder that is labeled "public_html").
- Continue to navigate in your directories on the server on the right portion of the FileZilla window, with the usual Windows techniques, until you are looking at the files that are already in the directory where you want to place the new file. You should now be looking at the corresponding directories on both sides of the FileZilla session window.
- If either side is missing a subdirectory that the other side has, you can right-click on white space (not text or icons) in the directory and file listing area where it is missing, and choose "create directory" from the contextual menu that pops up.
- If FileZilla is configured correctly, it will choose correctly between binary and text file transfer modes for you, so you can leave the mode set to "Auto," in most cases.
- Click once on a file to be transferred, and then if any other files are to be transferred in the same direction, shift-click or control-click to select the entire group. Once all are selected, right-click on any of them and select "upload" to transfer from the PC to the server, or "download" to transfer from the server to the PC.
Warning! At this time, there are problems with uploading an entire folder and all its contents by clicking on the folder and then right-clicking to pop up the menu, and choosing "upload"; the work-around is to create the destination folder manually, by right-clicking on white-space in the appropriate location, open the new folder, and then you can select all the files, and right-click on any of them to choose "upload."
If you have a large or complex collection of files to upload, so that this method would be tedious, please contact webteam@ohio.edu for assistance.
This problem appears to be solved with the latest version of FileZilla using the new server software that is scheduled to be installed early Wednesday morning, August 12, 2009.
- When done transferring files, click the "Disconnect" button on the toolbar, choose "Exit" from the "File" menu, or just close the window.
Return to Chapter III Table of Contents
 
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