WebCom's system uses wuarchive ftpd, a popular, flexible ftp server. Here are some instructions on how to best take advantage of some features it offers.

A file ending in .Z has been compressed by the Unix "compress" program distributed with many versions of Unix.

A file ending in .gz has been compressed by GNU zip ("gzip"), a program which has the advantages of being freely available, and much better at compression than the standard Unix "compress".

The GNU utilities are available for nearly every type of computer, if you would like to be able to uncompress these files on your own system and are interested in locating them.

A file ending in .tar is a Unix "tar" archive file, which contains multiple files and the directories they were stored in. A GNU version of this (which is what is used with the WebCom FTP Server software), is also available.

A file ending in .tar.gz or .tar.Z has been both archived, and compressed. NOTE: this will not work if your computer (for example, Windows/DOS) uses a file system which can not handle files of this type. In that case, you must use .tgz (for "gzip") or .tgZ (for "compress).

To uncompress or ungzip a file as it is being transmitted from WebCom to your computer, you type "get [filename]" (omitting extensions).

To compress, gzip or tar a file as it is being transmitted from WebCom to your computer, you type "get [filename].[extension]"

Examples:

To uncompress a file in a WebCom account called "verybig.gz" as it is being transferred to your computer, "get verybig" (no extension).

To compress a file in a WebCom account called "verybig" as it is being transferred to your computer, "get verybig.gz" (add extension).

Actual Filename         Specified Filename      Result
on WebCom Account       with "get".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[filename].Z            [filename]              Uncompress file before
                                                transmitting to your computer.

[filename].gz           [filename]              Ungzip file before
                                                transmitting to your computer.

[filename]              [filename].Z            Compress file before
                                                transmitting to your computer.

[filename]              [filename].gz           Gzip file before
                                                transmitting to your computer.

[directory]             [directory].tar         Tar directory before
                                                transmitting to your computer.

[directory]             [directory].tar.Z       Tar and compress directory 
                        or                      before transmitting to your     
                        [directory].tgZ         computer.

[directory]             [directory].tar.gz      Tar and gzip directory 
                        or                      before transmitting to your 
                        [directory].tgz         computer.