Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online
Because sites come and go on the Internet daily, the FTP site you read about in last week's Internet Bliss magazine (I just made that name up, but it sounds good, doesn't it?) may not exist anymore, or the archive may have moved to a computer with a different name. Trying to connect to a system that isn't there (because it's permanently offline or you mistyped the system name) will yield an "unknown host" message.
ftp> open nonexistent.com nonexistent.com: unknown hostWhen this happens, check your spelling and punctuation (the Internet treats big-bug.com as a different name than bigbug.com) and try again. If things still don't go right, perhaps the system doesn't really exist, or doesn't operate an FTP service.
You may also find that the FTP site is not currently on the network. If this happens, you'll get a host unavailable message. There's nothing to do but try again a few hours later, or use one of the system's mirrors, if there are any (see Question 6.10 later in this chapter.) A connection denied message means that the computer is known, on the network, but isn't accepting FTP connections.
ftp> open ftp apple.com ftp.apple.com: host unavailableThe most common (for me anyway) problem when trying to connect to popular anonymous FTP sites is that the host computer has reached its maximum user capacity. If a system has reached its preset limit of FTP users, you'll be turned away when you try to connect. In this case, all you can do is wait a few minutes and try again. Or try using a mirror site.
ftp> open mac.archive.umich.edu Connected to mac.archive.umich.edu. 220- 220- Welcome to wuftpd 2.1c installed 220- the U of M Software Archives -- rjc@umich.edu 220- 220- Local Time: Sun Mar 13 14:30:09 1994 220- Name (mac.archive.umich.edu:savetz): anonymous 530- 530- All allowed connections are being used at this time. 530- 530-Due to overwhelming usage during business hours, restrictions to ftp access 530-are now being enforced. PLEASE be considerate and ftp during non-"business 530-hours" as much as possible. Also, please keep connection times short. 530 User anonymous access denied. Login failed.Even if the site exists, is up and running, and isn't overloaded, there is one problem you might encounter: fumble fingers while logging on. If you misspell anonymous when logging in (something that's surprisingly easy to do), you'll see a message telling you a password is required. Whoops. Next time, type more carefully. Alternately, try using the login ftp rather than anonymous--this works on many systems and is a whole lot easier to type.
ftp> open mac.archive.umich.edu Connected to mac.archive.umich.edu. 220- 220- Welcome to wuftpd 2.1c installed 220- the U of M Software Archives -- rjc@umich.edu 220- 220- carpediem.ccs.itd.umich.edu is brought to you by 220- U of M's Campus Computing Sites 220- 220- Local Time: Sun Mar 27 21:22:46 1994 220- 220 carpediem.ccs.itd.umich.edu FTP server (Version wu-2.1c(1) Thu Feb 3 22:20:5 0 EST 1994) ready. Name (mac.archive.umich.edu:waffle): anonymouse 331 Password required for anonymouse. Password: 530 Login incorrect. Login failed.