UNIX Desktop Questions & Answers

Hi there,

I am very new to UNIX. Currently, I am running Mac OS X. I set up a FTP server on my computer so that I can transfer files back and forth between my computer at home and at work. All my data and files are located in a directory in another drive, but when I log in, I would be in my home directory, which is another drive. I am trying to create a directory (link) in my home directory, which when I double click on it or cd to it, it would bring me to the directory located in the other drive.

I can do that under Mac OS X environment with no problem, but then, I think file structure with 'alias' is different from the Mac and the rest of the computing world. Because when I try to FTP to my account or using the Network Neighbourhood connecting from Windows, that 'alias' is a file instead of a shortcut to a directory.

Any suggestion for linking these directories would help. Thanks.

read 'man ln'. You want to create a soft link to the other drive within your own directory.

I would abandon FTP alltogether. Passwords in FTP are sent clear text and anybody with a sniffer on your work network can pull your username and password.

Take a look at using OpenSSH on your box so that you can use sftp (secure ftp) and scp (secure copy) to move files from work to home so that your username and password cannot be compromised so easily.

With secure copy, you can copy from/to any sub-dir that you have access to. It's quick and fairly painless once you learn the command line syntax.

Make sure that OpenSSH is up to date (at least 3.4)