You can use the "connect to server" option in nautilus
, the file manager of Ubuntu (at least in the standard Unity and Gnome versions). It is called "Files": (the screenshot is from a Gnome version of Ubuntu):
Launch it and choose connect to server. You will have a dialog, enter the ftp direction in the form:
ftp://ftp.server.com/
Substitute the name or IP of your server, be careful of the syntax (you have to start with ftp://
with the two forward slashes). In the example I am using a public ftp server for the TeX repository:
Click connect and you will be asked for the credential (in my case I choose anonymous, you probably will need to give user and password):
You can choose to give the credential for just this session or forever, you choose here.
Et voilà, you can use your "share" as if it where a local folder.
You can disconnect to the server by using the small triangle on the side of the name.
To reach the volume with a shell, you normally search under /run/user/$UID/gvfs
($UID is your User Identification Number, you can see it in the shell with echo $UID
).
Note that read-only ftp shares can behave strangely when doing complex operations (for example, trying to create a file I had an Input/output error instead of a permission denied.