Hands-on web training

Secure FTP tips

set up | which program? | practicing ftp | other tips

Before your training, please let us know (via the web training questionnaire) which secure, MIT-approved FTP program you will be using.

If you are not already familiar with an FTP program:: - meet with your LTE to have your site set up with a Dreamweaver secure FTP program, or
- ask Marion to spend some time on this topic.

We recommend either of two Dreamweaver FTP options:

Dreamweaver MX 7, which is freely available to MIT employees.
- Set up MX7 for secure FTP

Dreamweaver MX 8, for which MIT has a limited number of licenses.

- How to obtain Dreamweaver MX 8:
Ask the head of your Libraries department to contact Nina to request a copy.

Details for department heads:

This software is made available free of charge to authorized members of the MIT community for installation only on MIT-owned machines. It's available via the IS&T Volume License Program.

Departmental request form

IS&T purchased Dreamweaver licenses for distribution to the community. Before you request licenses please check with your department or office head for existing registrations. It is recommended that one person from a department be designated to request licenses for that department. This will allow for easy tracking of use; we are required by the vendor to track the licenses.

Practicing FTP:

1) Set up personal Athena directory & practice under supervision

Every member of the MIT community receives a personal MIT directory, with this path:

/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/[first letter of your username]/[second letter of your user name]/[your entire user name]

Example: Marion's path, based on the username mlcar, is /afs/athena.mit.edu/user/m/l/mlcar

Create a simple page in Dreamweaver and FTP it to your personal directory.

Then download it again to your HD. Edit it, then upload it and view the change in your browser.

Note: When you set up your site you may get the message

"This site has been set up for use by Macromedia Contribute users. Do you want Dreamweaver to enable all required site settings for compatibility with Contribute sites?"

Select "No"

2) Download a sample subject page from the Libraries site. Example: the Linguistics index page, at

/var/www/libraries.mit.edu/htdocs/guides/subjects/linguistics/index.html

This is a subject guide, so you need to build a mirror of the folder within your www/guides/subjects directory, to hold the page you've downloaded.

3) Make a small edit and then upload the file to the test directory.

/var/www/libraries.mit.edu/htdocs/guides-test/subjects/linguistics/index.html

Download the live file again from /guides/ and upload it, without editing it, to /guides-test/. You'll see your edit disappear from the test directory!

Remember: always upload an edited page first to the test directory to check for problems before uploading it to the "live" directory.

FTP tips

Choose sides for local and remote files | Put/get dependent files?

Choose the side on which my Dreamweaver FTP site window shows local and remote files?

On a PC, choose Edit > Preferences... Site .
On a Mac, choose Dreamweaver > Preferences... Site .

Choose on which side local and remote files will appear when using the built-in FTP file menu:

side choice

The result:

Site window

How to configure Dreamweaver's FTP program so that it doesn’t automatically upload dependent files.

The Dreamweaver FTP program asks, "Put [or Get] dependent files?" and we're given the option to disable this question.

Our answer is, No! , but it's not clear whether disabling the question will prevent the undesired upload/download.

The answer, from Adobe's Support Forum:

Enable the option to prompt. Upload a file. When prompted to upload
dependent files, select NO. Then disable the option to prompt. Now it will
not upload dependent files.

How to access and format the option to prompt or not for uploading dependent files:
- On a PC, choose Edit > Preferences... Site .
- On a Mac, choose Dreamweaver > Preferences... Site .