File Transfer Protocol Alternative

Because the old FTP protocol and the associated anonymous ftp login are deemed High Security Risks within the University, we had to dismantle this functionality from our systems. So there is no anon-ftp access to the /disks/ftphome/pub directory structure any more.

However, we have created a more secure form of sharing your science data with your collaborators through an https based WEB service. So you can still easily share your public data with others. It works as follows:

You create (or already have it) a directory in the public NFS share /disks/ftphome/pub, e.g. ED_science_data, and you put the files you want to share in this directory. Make sure the files are world readable (use the command line tool: chmod 644 <filename>). If you created subdirectories, then these must be world readable and executable (using the command: chmod 755 <directory>).

Now you tell your collaborator(s) to get the files from the URL: https://ftp.strw.leidenuniv.nl/ED_science_data. When they open this URL they get a directory listing with the file contents.

Clicking the filename downloads the file.

However, your collaborators could also use the command line tool wget. So to download the READ.ME file they would use the command:

wget https://ftp.strw.leidenuniv.nl/ED_science_data/READ.ME

But wget has nice additional functionality, e.g. you can download the full directory content (and subdirectories) in one go by using:

wget -r https://ftp.strw.leidenuniv.nl/ED_science_data

This last command will also download the required additional files to 'allow showing' the WEB page, but those can be easily weeded out.