UNIT-V APPLICATION LAYER

E-Mail (SMTP, MIME, POP3, IMAP), HTTP – DNS - FTP - Telnet – web
services - SNMP – MIB– RMON.

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

 The TCP/IP protocol suite supports electronic mail on the Internet

through Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
 It is a protocol for sending messages to other computer users based
on e-mail addresses.
 SMTP provides mail exchange between users on the same or
different computers.

 SMTP originated in 1982 (RFC821, Jon Postel)

 Follows Standard message format (RFC822,2822, D. Crocker)
 Goal: To transfer mail reliably and efficiently.
 SMTP clients and servers have two main components
 User Agents – Prepares the message, encloses it in an envelope.
(Some examples of command-driven user agents are mail, pine, and
elm
Some examples of GUI-based user agents are Eudora, Outlook, and
Netscape.
 Mail Transfer Agent – Transfers the mail across the internet (ex.
Sendmail, Exim)
 Analogous to the postal system in many ways.

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  SMTP also allows the use of Relays allowing other MTAs to relay the
mail.
 Mail Gateways are used to relay mail prepared by a protocol other
than SMTP and convert it to SMTP.

Format of an email
 Mail is a text file
 Envelope –
 sender address
 receiver address
 Message –
 Mail Header – defines the sender, the receiver, the subject of
the message, and other information
 Mail Body – Contains the actual information in the message

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E-mail address

Commands and responses

The Mail Transfer agents at the client side and server side communicate
in the form of commands and responses.

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Commands

Responses

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How SMTP works (A-PDU’s)

Keyword Arguments
HELO Sender’s Host Domain Name
MAIL FROM: Email Address of sender
RCPT TO: Email of Intended recipient
DATA Body of the message

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QUIT
RSET
VRFY Name to be verified
NOOP
TURN
EXPN Mailing list to expand
HELP Command Name

Status Codes
The Server responds with a 3 digit code that may be followed by text info
 2## - Success
 3## - Command can be accepted with more
information
 4## - Command was rejected, but error
condition is temporary
 5## - Command rejected, Bad User!

Connection Establishment

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Message Progress

Connection Termination

Limitations in SMTP
 Only uses NVT 7 bit ASCII format
 How to represent other data types?
 No authentication mechanisms
 Messages are sent un-encrypted
 Susceptible to misuse (Spamming,faking sender address)

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 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)

• Electronic mail has a simple structure. It can send messages only in

NVT 7-bit ASCII format.
It has some limitations. For example, it cannot be used for languages
that are not supported by 7-bit ASCII characters (such as French,
German, Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese). Also, it cannot
be used to send binary files or video or audio data.
• Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is a supplementary
protocol that allows non-ASCII data to be sent through e-mail.
• MIME transforms non-ASCII data at the sender site to NVT ASCII
data and delivers them to the client MTA to be sent through the
Internet.
• In other words, MIME has a mechanism for sending multimedia
data over e-mail.
• Transforms non-ASCII data to NVT (Network Virtual Terminal)
ASCII data
 Text
 Application
 Image
 Audio
 Video

• The message at the receiving side is transformed back to the original

data. We can think of MIME as a set of software functions that
transforms non-ASCII data (stream of bits) to ASCII data and vice
versa, as shown

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MIME Headers

 Located between the Email Header and Body

 Content-Type – Type of data used in the Body

 Text: plain, unformatted text; HTML
 Multipart: Body contains different data types
 Message: Body contains a whole, part, or pointer to a message
 Image: Message contains a static image (JPEG, GIF)
 Video: Message contains an animated image (MPEG)
 Audio: Message contains a basic sound sample (8kHz)
 Application: Message is of data type not previously defined
 Content-Transfer-Encoding – How to encode the message
 7 bit – no encoding needed
 8 bit – Non-ASCII, short lines
 Binary – Non-ASCII, unlimited length lines
 Base64 – 6 bit blocks encoded into 8-bit ASCII
 Quoted-printable – send non-ASCII characters as 3 ASCII
characters, =##, ## is the hex representation of the byte

Data types and subtypes in MIME

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Content-transfer-encoding

MIME Messages
• MIME information is contained in the mail header using standard
RFC 2822 format.
• MIME header specifies version, data type, encoding used to convert
the data to ASCII.
• Example:
• From: [email protected]
• To: [email protected]
• MIME-Version: 1.0
• Content-Type: image/jpeg
• Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
• ..data for the image..

MIME Multipart Messages

MIME multipart messages within the Content-Type adds
considerable flexibility.
• There are four subtypes for a multipart message. The four
subtypes are:

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 – mixed: allows a single message to contain multiple,
independent sub-messages each having its independent type
and encoding.
– alternative: allows a single message include multiple
representations of the same data.
– parallel: allows a single message to include subparts that
should be viewed together. (such as video and audio subparts)
– digest: allows a single message to contain a set of other
messages.
• To summarize, a multipart message can contain both a short text
explaining the purpose of the message and some non-textual
information

Example:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: Multipart/Mixed; Boundary=StartOfNextPart
--StartOfNextPart
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
John,
Here is the photo of the carrier pigeons I saw last
week.
Sincerely,
Carrie Erpigeons
--StartOfNextPart
Content-Type: image/gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
..data for the image..

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 POP 3 (Post Office Protocol)

• Short for Post Office Protocol, a protocol used to retrieve e-mail from
a mail server. Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail
client) use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP
(Internet Message Access Protocol).
• There are two versions of POP.
• The first, called POP2, became a standard in the mid-80's and
requires SMTP to send messages. The newer version, POP3, can be
used with or without SMTP. POP3 uses TCP/IP port 110.

• Workstations interact with the SMTP host, which receives the mail
on behalf of every host in the organization, to retrieve messages by
using a client-server protocol such as Post Office Protocol, version
3(POP3). Although POP3 is used to download messages from the
server, the SMTP client still needed on the desktop to forward
messages from the workstation user to its SMTP mail server.

Post Office Protocol v3

• Simple
• Allows the user to obtain a list of their Emails
• Users can retrieve their emails
• Users can either delete or keep the email on their system
• Minimizes server resources
• Post Office Protocol, version 3 (POP3) is simple and limited in
functionality.
• The client POP3 software is installed on the recipient computer; the
server POP3 software is installed on the mail server.
• Mail access starts with the client when the user needs to download
e-mail from the mailbox on the mail server.
• The client opens a connection to the server on TCP port 110. It then
sends its user name and password to access the mailbox.
• The user can then list and retrieve the mail messages, one by one.
• Figure shows an example of downloading using POP3. POP3 has two
modes: the delete mode and the keep mode.
• In the delete mode, the mail is deleted from the mailbox after each
retrieval. In the keep mode, the mail remains in the mailbox after
retrieval.

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 • The delete mode is normally used when the user is working at her
permanent computer and can save and organize the received mail
after reading or replying.
• The keep mode is normally used when the user accesses her mail
away from her primary computer (e.g., a laptop). The mail is read
but kept in the system for later retrieval and organizing

POP3 and IMAP4

POP3 Commands

• USER name: User name for authentication

• PASS password: Password used for authentication
• STAT: Get number and total size of message
• LIST: [msg] get size of message
• RETR: msg Send message to client
• DELE: msg Delete message from mailbox
• RSET: Cancel previous delete requests.
• QUIT: Updates mailbox (deletes messages) and quits.

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POP vs. IMAP

POP3 is deficient in several ways.

• It does not allow the user to organize her mail on the server; the
user cannot have different folders on the server. (Of course, the user
can create folders on her own computer.)
• POP3 does not allow the user to partially check the contents of the
mail before downloading.

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Pop vs IMAP
• Similarities
– Mail delivered to a shared, constanly connected server
– New mail accessible anywhere in network on a variety of
platforms
– For access only, Need SMTP to send mail
• Differences
– POP simpler and more established (more clients and servers
that support it)
– IMAP is stateful protocol with more features

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)

 IMAP is an Internet Message Access Protocol. It is a method of

accessing electronic mail messages that are kept on a possibly
shared mail server.
 For example, email stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated
from a desktop computer at home, a workstation at the office, and a
notebook computer while travelling, without the need to transfer
messages or files back and forth between these computers. IMAP
uses TCP/IP port 143.

Internet Mail Access Protocol v4

• Similar to POP3 but as more features than it.

• User can check the email header before downloading
• Emails can be accessed from any location
• Can search the email for a specific string of characters before
downloading
• User can download parts of an email
• User can create, delete, or rename mailboxes on a server
• It defines an abstraction known as a MAILBOX. Mailboxes are
located on the same computer as a server.
• IMAP4 is a method for accessing electronic mail messages that are
kept on a mail server. It permits a client e-mail program to view and
manipulate those messages.
• Electronic mail stored on an IMAP server can be viewed or
manipulated from a desktop computer at home,a notebook computer,
or at a workstation. We can also say that mail messages can be
accessed from multiple locations.

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Functions of IMAP4

• IMAP provides extended functionality for message retrieval and

processing.
• Users can obtain information about a message or examine header
fields without retrieving the entire message.
• Users can search for a specified string and retrieve portions of a
message. This is useful for slow-speed dialup connections since they
wont need to download useless information.

POP vs. IMAP

Pop vs IMAP
Similarities
 Mail delivered to a shared, constanly connected server
 New mail accessible anywhere in network on a variety of
platforms
 For access only, Need SMTP to send mail
Differences
 POP simpler and more established (more clients and servers
that support it)
 IMAP is stateful protocol with more features

• With IMAP, all your mail stays on the server in multiple folders,
some of which you have created. This enables you to connect to any
computer and see all your mail and mail folders. In general, IMAP is
great if you have a dedicated connection to the Internet or you like to
check your mail from various locations.
• With POP3 you only have one folder, the Inbox folder. When you
open your mailbox, new mail is moved from the host server and
saved on your computer. If you want to be able to see your old mail

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 messages, you have to go back to the computer where you last
opened your mail.
• With POP3 "leave mail on server" only your email messages are on
the server, but with IMAP your email folders are also on the server.

HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol

• HTTP is an application layer network protocol built on top of TCP.

• HTTP - the Hypertext Transfer Protocol - provides a standard for
Web browsers and Web servers to communicate. A “Web Server” is a
HTTP server.
• HTTP clients (such as Web browsers) and servers communicate via
HTTP messages.
• Most clients/servers today speak version 1.1, but 1.0 is also in use.
– RFC 1945 (HTTP 1.0)
– RFC 2616 (HTTP 1.1)
• Transport Independence
– The HTTP protocol generally takes place over a TCP
connection,
– but the protocol itself is not dependent on a specific transport
layer.
• HTTP allows transfer of various data formats between server and
client
– Plaintext
– Hypertext
– Images
– Video
– Sound
• Meta-information can also be transferred
• HTTP uses the services of TCP on well-known port 80.

HTTP transaction

Two types of messages are

1. Request message
2. Response message

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 • HTTP has a simple structure:
– client sends a request
– server returns a reply.
– HTTP can support multiple request-reply exchanges over a
single TCP connection.

Request Messages

The first line of an HTTP request message specifies three things:

– the operation to be performed,
– the Web page the operation should be performed on
– and the version of HTTP being used.
Although HTTP defines a wide assortment of possible request operations—
including “write” operations that allow a Web page to be posted on a
server—the two most common operations are GET (fetch the specified Web
page) and HEAD (fetch status information about the specified Web page).
– Lines of text (ASCII).
– Lines end with CRLF “\r\n”
– First line is called “Request-Line”

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Request line

URL

HTTP request operations

Response Messages

Like request messages, response messages begin with a single START

LINE.
• In this case, the line specifies the version of HTTP being used, a
three-digit code indicating whether or not the request was
successful, and a text string giving the reason for the response.
• ASCII Status Line
• Headers Section
• Content can be anything (not just text)
• typically an HTML document or some kind of image.

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Status line

Five types of HTTP result codes

Uniform Resources
• URL
– Uniform Resource Locator
– Refers to an existing protocol
• http:, wais:, ftp:, mailto:, gopher:, news:
– Points to a document on a specific server
• URN
– Uniform Resource Name
– Globally unique, persistent identifier
• Independent of location
• URI
– Uniform Resource Identifier
– Collection of URL’s and URN’s

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TCP Connections

 The original version of HTTP (1.0) established a separate TCP

connection for each data item retrieved from the server.
 It’s not too hard to see how this was a very inefficient mechanism:
connection setup and teardown messages had to be exchanged
between the client and server even if all the client wanted to do was
verify that it had the most recent copy of a page.
 Thus, retrieving a page that included some text and a dozen icons or
other small graphics would result in 13 separate TCP connections
being established and closed.
 To overcome this situation, HTTP version 1.1 introduced persistent
connections— the client and server can exchange multiple
request/response messages over the same TCP connection.

Persistent connections have many advantages.

 First, they obviously eliminate the connection setup overhead,

thereby reducing the load on the server, the load on the network
caused by the additional TCP packets, and the delay perceived by
the user.
 Second, because a client can send multiple request messages down a
single TCP connection, TCP’s congestion window mechanism is able
to operate more efficiently.
 This is because it’s not necessary to go through the slow start phase
for each page.

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HTTP 1.0 behavior

HTTP 1.1 behavior with persistent connections

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 DNS – Domain Name System

• To identify an entity (device), TCP/IP protocols use the IP address,

which uniquely identifies the connection of a host to the Internet.
However, people prefer to use names instead of numeric addresses.
Therefore, we need a system that can map a name to an address or
an address to a name.
• Domain Name System can map a name to an address and conversely
an address to name.
• DNS is a distributed database implemented in a hierarchy of name
servers

Purpose of DNS

How does it work?

• DNS works by exchanging messages between client and server
machines.
• A client application will pass the destination host name to the DNS
process to get the IP address.
• Then the DNS client sends a query to the DNS Server to get the IP
address of the corresponding host name.
• The DNS server replies the IP address through a response to the
DNS client.
• The DNS client gives the IP address to the client application.

Why not centralize DNS?

• single point of failure
• traffic volume
• distant centralized database
• maintenance
• doesn’t scale!
So use Distributed, Hierarchical Database

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Distributed, Hierarchical Database

DNS Components

There are 3 components:

• Name Space: Specifications for a structured name space and data
associated with the names
• Name Servers: Server programs which hold information about the
structure and the names.
• Resolvers: Client programs that extract information from Name
Servers.

Name space
• To be unambiguous, the names assigned to machines must be
carefully selected from a name space with complete control over the
binding between the names and IP addresses. In other words, the
names must be unique because the addresses are unique.
• A name space that maps each address to a unique name can be
organized in two ways:
flat or hierarchical.
• A name space can be either
• flat (names are not divisible into components)
• hierarchical (Unix file names are an obvious
example).

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  The naming system (Name servers) maintains a collection of
bindings of names(URL) to values(IP address). The value can be
anything we want the naming system to return when presented with
a name; in many cases it is an address.
 Resolution mechanism (Resolver) is a procedure that, when
invoked with a name, returns the corresponding value. A name
server implements a specific resolution mechanism that is available
on a network and that can be queried by sending it a message.
Resolvers
A Resolver maps a name to an address and vice versa.
Resolvers ask the questions to the DNS system on behalf of the
application.

DNS in The Internet

DNS is a protocol that can be used in different platforms. In the Internet,

the domain name space (tree) is divided into three different sections:
generic domains, country domains, and the inverse domain
Three domains are,
1. Generic Domains
2. Country Domains
3. Inverse Domain

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DNS used in the Internet

Generic domains

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 Country domains

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 Inverse domain

RESOLUTION
Mapping a name to an address or an address to a name is
called name-address resolution.

DNS MESSAGES

DNS has two types of messages:

1. Query messages
2. Response messages

Query messages can be of two formats

a. Recursive:
A recursive query is a kind of query, in which the DNS server,
who received your query will do all the job of fetching the answer,
and giving it back to you. During this process, the DNS server
might also query other DNS server's in the internet on your
behalf, for the answer.

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 b. Iterative:
In an iterative query, the name server, will not go and fetch the
complete answer for your query, but will give back a referral to other
DNS server's, which might have the answer.
If the DNS server is not a recursive name server(which means its
iterative), it will give us the answer if it has in its records. Otherwise will
give us the referral to the root servers(it will not query the root server's
and other servers by itself.).Now its the job of our resolver to query the
root server, .COM TLD servers, and authoritative name server's, for the
answer.

Query and response messages format

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 WEB SERVICES

– Much of the motivation for enabling direct application-to-application

communication comes from the business world.
– Historically, interactions between enterprises—businesses or other
organizations—have involved some manual steps such as filling out an
order form or making a phone call to determine whether some product
is in stock.
– Even within a single enterprise it is common to have manual steps
between software systems that cannot interact directly because they
were developed independently.
– Increasingly such manual interactions are being replaced with direct
application-to application interaction.
– An ordering application at enterprise A would send a message to an
order fulfillment application at enterprise B, which would respond
immediately indicating whether the order can be filled.
– Perhaps, if the order cannot be filled by B, the application at A would
immediately order from another supplier, or solicit bids from a
collection of suppliers.
– Two architectures have been advocated as solutions to this problem.
– Both architectures are called Web Services, taking their name from the
term for the individualapplications that offer a remotely-accessible
service to client applications to form network applications.
– The terms used as informal shorthand to distinguish the two Web
Services architectures are SOAP and REST (as in, “the SOAP vs.
REST debate”).
– The SOAP architecture’s approach to the problem is to make it
feasible, at least in theory, to generate protocols that are customized to
each network application.
– The key elements of the approach are a framework for protocol
specification, software toolkits for automatically generating protocol
implementations from the specifications, and modular partial
specifications that can be reused across protocols.

Custom Application Protocols (WSDL, SOAP)

– The architecture informally referred to as SOAP is based on Web

Services Description Language (WSDL) and SOAP.4
– Both of these standards are issued by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C).
– This is the architecture that people usually mean when they use the
term Web Services without any preceding qualifier.
– Just like the traditional applications described earlier in this
chapter, multimedia applications such as telephony and
videoconferencing need their own protocols.
– We have already seen a number of protocols that multimedia
applications use.

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 – The Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) provides many of the
functions that are common to multimedia applications such as
conveying timing information and identifying the coding schemes
and media types of an application.

Defining Application Protocols

WSDL has chosen a procedural operation model of application

protocols. An abstract Web Service interface consists of a set of named
operations, each representing a simple interaction between a client and
theWeb Service An operation is analogous to a remotely callable
procedure in an RPC system. An example from W3C’s WSDL Primer is
a hotel reservation Web Service with two operations,
CheckAvailability and MakeReservation.
– Each operation specifies a Message Exchange Pattern (MEP) that
gives the sequence in which the messages are to be transmitted,
including the fault messages to be sent when an error disrupts the
message flow.
– MEPs are templates that have placeholders instead of specific
message types or formats, so part of the definition of an operation
involves specifying which message formats to map into the
placeholders in the pattern.
– WSDL nicely separates the parts of a protocol that can be specified
abstractly—operations, MEPs, abstract message formats—from
the parts that must be concrete. WSDL’s concrete part specifies an
underlying protocol, how MEPs are mapped onto it, and what bit-
level representation is used for messages on the wire.
Defining Transport Protocols

Although SOAP is sometimes called a protocol, it is better thought of

as a framework for defining protocols. As the SOAP 1.2 specification
explains, “SOAP provides a simple messaging framework whose core
functionality is concerned with providing extensibility.” SOAP uses many
of the same strategies as WSDL, including message formats defined using
XML Schema, bindings to underlying protocols, Message Exchange
Patterns, and reusable specification elements identified using XML
namespaces.
– SOAP is used to define transport protocols with exactly the features
needed to support a particular application protocol. SOAP aims to
make it feasible to define many such protocols by using reusable
components. Each component captures the header information and
logic that go into implementing a particular feature. To define a
protocol with a certain set of features, just compose the

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 corresponding components. Let’s look more closely at this aspect of
SOAP.
– The second and more flexible way to implement features involves
header blocks. A SOAP message consists of an Envelope, which
contains a Header that contains header blocks, and a Body, which
contains the payload destined for the ultimate receiver. This
message structure is illustrated in Figure

Figure : SOAP message structure

Standardizing Web Services Protocols:
– As we’ve said, WSDL and SOAP aren’t protocols; they are standards
for specifying protocols. For different enterprises to implementWeb
Services that interoperate with each other, it is not enough to agree
to use WSDL and SOAP to define their protocols; they must agree
on—standardize— specific protocols.
– The broadest and most widely adopted profile is known as the WS-I
Basic Profile. It was proposed by the Web Services Interoperability
Organization
(WS-I), an industry consortium, while WSDL and SOAP are specified by
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Basic Profile resolves
some of the most basic choices faced in defining a Web Service
Most notably it requires that WSDL be bound exclusively to SOAP
and SOAP be bound exclusively to HTTP and use the HTTP POST
method. It also specifies which versions of WSDL and SOAP must
be used.

– The payload is a representation of the abstract state of a resource.

For example, a GET could return a representation of the current
state of the resource, and a POST could send a representation of a
desired state of the resource.
A Generic Application Protocol (REST):
– The WSDL/SOAP Web Services architecture is based on the
assumption that the best way to integrate applications across
networks is via protocols that are customized to each application.

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 – This model, articulated byWeb architect Roy Fielding, is known as
Representational State Transfer (REST). There is no need for a new
REST architecture for Web Services—the existing Web architecture
is sufficient, although a few extensions are probably necessary.
– An area where WSDL/SOAP may have an advantage is in adapting
or wrapping previously written, “legacy” applications to conform to
Web Services. This is an important point since most Web Services
will be based on legacy applications for the near future at least.
These applications usually have a procedural interface that maps
more easily into WSDL’s operations than REST states.
– The online retailer Amazon.com, as it happens, was an earlyadopter
(2002) of Web Services. Interestingly, Amazon made its systems
publicly accessible via both of the Web Services chitectures, and
according to some reports a substantial majority of developers use
the REST interface. Of course, this is just one data point and may
well reflect factors specific to Amazon.

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL (FTP)

Transferring files from one computer to another is one of the most common
tasks expected from a networking or internetworking environment. As a
matter of fact, the greatest volume of data exchange in the Internet today is
due to file transfer.

 File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the standard mechanism provided by

TCP/IP for copying a file from one host to another.

 Although transferring files from one system to another seems simple

and straightforward, some problems must be dealt with first. For
example, two systems may use different file name conventions.

 Two systems may have different ways to represent text and data.
Two systems may have different directory structures. All these
problems have been solved by FTP in a very simple and elegant
approach

 FTP differs from other client/server applications in that it

establishes two connec tions between the hosts. One connection is
used for data transfer, the other for control information (commands
and responses). Separation of commands and data transfer makes
FTP more efficient.

 The control connection uses very simple rules of communi cation.

Wc need to transfer only a line of command or a line of response at a

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 time. The data connection, on the other hand, needs more complex
rules due to the variety of data types transferred. However, the
difference in complexity is at the FTP level, not TCP. For TCP, both
connections are treated the same.

 FTP uses the services of TCP. It needs two TCP connections.

 The well-known port 21 is used for the control connection

and the well-known port 20 for the data connection.

Fig: FTP

Communication over Control Connection

 FTP uses the same approach as SMTP to communicate across the

control connection. It uses the 7-bit ASCII character set.
Communication is achieved through commands and responses.

 This simple method is adequate for the control connection because

we send one command (or response) at a time.

 Each command or response is only one short line, so we need not

worry about file format or file structure. Each line is terminated
with a two-character (carriage return and line feed) end-of-line
token.

CS19541 – CN Unit V RAJALAKSHMI ENGINEERING COLLEGE PAGE 34

 Fig: Using the control connection

Communication over Data Connection

 The purpose of the data connection is different from that of

the control connection. We want to transfer files through the
data connection.

 File transfer occurs over the data connection under the

control of the commands sent over the control connection.
However, we should remember that file transfer in FTP
means one of three things.

Fig: Using the data connection

 A file is to be copied from the server to the client. This is called

retrieving a file. It is done under the supervision of the RETR
command,

 A file is to be copied from the client to the server. This is called

storing a file. It is done under the supervision of the STOR
command.

CS19541 – CN Unit V RAJALAKSHMI ENGINEERING COLLEGE PAGE 35

  A list of directory or file names is to be sent from the server to the
client. This is done under the supervision of the LIST command.
Note that FTP treats a list of directory or file names as a file. It is
sent over the data connection.

Example

The following shows an actual FTP session for retrieving a list of

items in a directory. The colored lines show the responses from the
server control connection; the black lines show the commands sent
by the client. The lines in white with a black background show
data transfer.

1. After the control connection is created, the FTP server

sends the 220 response.

2. The client sends its name.

3. The server responds with 331.

4. The client sends the password (not shown).

5. The server responds with 230 (user log-in is OK).

6. The client sends the list command (ls reports) to find

the list of files on the directory named report.

7. Now the server responds with 150 and opens the data
connection.

8. The server then sends the list of the files or directories

on the data connection.

9. The client sends a QUIT command.

10. The server responds with 221.

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