Remote downloading

Hello,

I'm currently starting a project consisting of a download center for a website. Normally I could do this with no problem, but this project is different. The server the files to be downloaded are on, is not the same server that the application will be on.

How it will have to work is like so:

The admins will upload files to the download server via ftp.
My script needs to be able to recognize what files are on the server, and display them via the website, and allow the user to download them.

Basically all I need to find out would be what direction to start in?

I could use the ftp extensions, but was wondering if there was another way to do this?

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks.