Question

In the past I used an ftp server, connected via “ftp” from the client and “GET” to copy one file from the remote machine to the local machine.

Is it possible to do the same but with the server only running a http server?

Server: GoAhead Web Server.
Both client and http server on Windows.
The copy can be either initiated from the browser or if need a separate program can be written on the client. (i.e. – any windows api calls to copy a file from http server?)

(Also, the files may not be in the http root web directory but somewhere else on the server….can that happen?)

Answer 1

HTTP servers will only serve up files that are located within the site’s document root. If you want to get at files that are outside the document root, you’ll have to have a script serve up that file from the server (php, perl, cgi, etc…), or find some way of getting that file “inside” the document root.

To download files within the site’s document root, you just hit a url pointing at that file – that’s the core point of HTTP – you’re just downloading content from the site.

HTTP servers will also not accept uploads without an intermediate script to handle it. If they did, you could upload any file you wanted to any server, anywhere.