File transfer using HTTP

Applications IP Networking
1

I have Apache running on a Solaris server. Does anyone know how I go about using HTTP for a file transfer ( or I guess more properly termed in HTTP as a document transfer ) ? I have a requirement that restricts my file transfer options to HTTP only !

Is there any changes I need to make to the Apache Config ?

What do I add to a URL to do a file transfer ?

Can I get the tranfer to acknowlege success / failure ?

2

Are you talking about from the client or server side?

From the client side you could use "curl" or "wget".

From the server side, as long as you can view files, you can download them, as that is what a client has to do inorder to view them.

3

Thanks, I am talking transfers from the client side.

Is there anywhere I can get more infor on 'curl' and 'wget' and their syntax - I am a newbie when it comes to HTTP !

thanks

4

The traditional approach is

man curl

or

man wget

if that fails then

google curl

or

google wget

.

5

Thanks.

Apart from the freeware client tools you have highlighted, does HTTP have any native transfer capability that you can simply specify via the URL in a Web Browser ?

6

There are content type flags you can set that cause browsers to download a file rather than display content, eg browses generally download .tar, .tgz, .exe, etc but display htm, html.

Do you want this to be something somebody has to run a browser to do or something they run a script to achieve?

7

Basically I want a user to be able to transfer a file to my server from their Web Browser

8

Like some Web email interfaces allow you to upload attachments?

9

I am interested in any means of doing this

10

If you are talking about uploading files to your Apache server, there are several options. Perhaps, the easiest, is a little php application. To achieve this you would have to add php support to your Apache and write some code. A little Google search pointed me to, for instance:
PHP File Upload
Which may meet your needs.
Other option is to configure mod_dav (DAV extensions to HTTP) on your apache. Have a look at:
mod_dav: a DAV module for Apache
I personally prefer PHP, though both systems could be potentially dangerous...
Regards.

11

does HTTP have any native transfer capability that you can simply specify via the URL in a Web Browser ?

Unless it's blocked, the following should work.

ftp://username@host

unless you include username, anonymous user is assumed. If using other than the default port #21: use username@host: port
Note there's no space between the colon and port, I put space there so I didn't get a smily.