The first step is to install an FTP server on your local system. The Exceed package available from Central IT contains a FTP server and is available for download from general.asu.edu. For instructions on how to download Exceed, go to:

http://www.asu.edu/it/fyi/dst/unix/xwin/exceed.html

Once Exceed is installed, go to the Control Panel and click the red devil icon named "Hummingbird Inetd". In the window that pops up, click on "Ftpd" so that it is highlighted and then click the Enable button. 

To avoid security risks, the Ftpd service should only be enabled when you are using it and then immediately disabled when your are finished. Also, firewalls may block the service.

At this point, you are able to connect to your PC using SAS's FTP service. Below is a sample Unix SAS program demonstrating on how this is done:

filename transin ftp 'c:\mydat.pc' user='your_username' host='149.169.1.1' pass='you_password';
libname transout v8 '~/';
proc cimport data=transout.fullann infile=transin;
run;

The purpose of this SAS program is to retrieve a SAS transport file called "mydat.pc" from a remote system and extract it into a SAS dataset on the local Unix system. The key to accessing files remotely is in the filename statement. "Transin" is the name of the filehandle and can be set to any valid SAS name. The "ftp" option instructs SAS to access the file via FTP from a remote system. The path "c:\mydat.pc" is the path on the REMOTE system where the target file resides. You will need to change the italicized "your_username" and "your_password" to the username and password that was used to log into the remote system. The "host=" option gives the IP address of the remote system to be connected to.

If you do not know the IP address of your PC, you can find it under Windows 2000 but running Command Prompt from the Programs->Accessories folder and the typing in "ipconfig" followed by the return key.

This method can be used on transport files and plain text files. However, the SAS dataset format varies by platform (ie. a PC SAS dataset will not work with Unix SAS). Therefore, it is not possible to directly use a SAS dataset residing on a PC from within a Unix SAS program. Instead, the PC SAS dataset should first be converted to a transport file, then read into Unix SAS. For instructions on how to do this, go to:

http://wpcarey.asu.edu/it/research/software/xport.cfm