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Indiana University Northwest

Web Services and Web Technical Infrastructure

SFTP - Secured File Transfer Protocol and Telnet

Definitions

SFTP (Secured File Transfer Protocol) is used at IU Northwest for putting locally designed web files on the web server so the pages can be seen on the world wide web. An sftp client is used to transfer the files. This client is secured.

Telnet command and program is used to login from one Internet site to another on the network. The telnet program runs on your computer and connects your PC to a server. The telnet command/program gets you to the login prompt where you enter a valid username and password of that server. From there you are running applications from that computer/server. You can then enter commands through the telnet program and they will be executed as if you were entering them directly on the server console.

For those unfamiliar with the term client, it is a software program that is used to contact and obtain data from a server software program on another computer, often across a great distance. Each client program is designed to work with one or more specific kinds of server programs, and each server requires a specific kind of client. A Web Browser is a specific kind of client as is the ftp or telnet client or the e-mail client.

Indiana University's Knowledge Base has general Information on FTP, SFTP, Telnet, information on Mac Fetch, How to use Fetch and other computing answers to questions . For another overview on FTP and Telnet, the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Computing office is another source with information on ftp, information on telnet, Fetch Internet Tip Sheet.

Our professional website server, Webserve, is a unix operating system. File permissions are needed to allow the pages to be seen on the world wide web. If your pages are not being displayed, you may need to make changes to the file permissions. Please review Changing File Permissions in Webserve, professional web. For step-by-step instructions changing file permissions for SSH Secure File Transfer Client please see either the PC or the MAC instructions.

Suggested Clients

  • SFTP, a secured PC client, can be used to connect to Mercury (personal web pages) and Webserve (professional web pages)servers from campus or from home (you must connect using the IU Northwest vpn).
  • SSH2 or MACSSH, are secured clients. As an FTP client, it must be used for Mercury (mypage personal web pages) and Webserve (professional web pages). As a Telnet client, it also must be used to connect to either Mercury or Webserve.

Uploading Your Web Page to the Web Server

As a reminder, SiteShare, Telnet or SFTP web access to IU Northwest web servers from off campus can be done through a vpn connection.