Ftp
is the user interface to the
Internet
standard File Transfer Protocol.
The program allows a user to transfer files to and from a
remote network site.
Options may be specified at the command line, or to the
command interpreter.
-p
Use passive mode for data transfers. Allows use of ftp in environments
where a firewall prevents connections from the outside world back to
the client machine. Requires that the ftp server support the PASV
command. This is the default now for
all
clients (ftp and pftp) due to security concerns using the PORT transfer mode.
The flag is kept for compatibility only and has no effect anymore.
-i
Turns off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers.
-n
Restrains
ftp
from attempting auto-login upon initial connection.
If auto-login is enabled,
ftp
will check the
.netrc
(see
netrc(5))
file in the user's home directory for an entry describing
an account on the remote machine.
If no entry exists,
ftp
will prompt for the remote machine login name (default is the user
identity on the local machine), and, if necessary, prompt for a password
and an account with which to login.
-e
Disables command editing and history support, if it was compiled into
the
ftp
executable. Otherwise, does nothing.
-g
Disables file name globbing.
-m
The default requires that ftp explicitly binds to the same interface for the data
channel as the control channel in passive mode. Useful on multi-homed
clients. This option disables this behavior.
-v
Verbose option forces
ftp
to show all responses from the remote server, as well
as report on data transfer statistics.
-d
Enables debugging.
The client host with which
ftp
is to communicate may be specified on the command line.
If this is done,
ftp
will immediately attempt to establish a connection to an
FTP
server on that host; otherwise,
ftp
will enter its command interpreter and await instructions
from the user.
When
ftp
is awaiting commands from the user the prompt
`ftp>'
is provided to the user.
The following commands are recognized
by
ftp
! [command [args
]
]
Invoke an interactive shell on the local machine.
If there are arguments, the first is taken to be a command to execute
directly, with the rest of the arguments as its arguments.
$ macro-name [args
]
Execute the macro
macro-name
that was defined with the
macdef
command.
Arguments are passed to the macro unglobbed.
account [passwd
]
Supply a supplemental password required by a remote system for access
to resources once a login has been successfully completed.
If no argument is included, the user will be prompted for an account
password in a non-echoing input mode.
append local-file [remote-file
]
Append a local file to a file on the remote machine.
If
remote-file
is left unspecified, the local file name is used in naming the
remote file after being altered by any
ntrans
or
nmap
setting.
File transfer uses the current settings for
type formatmode
and
structure
ascii
Set the file transfer
type
to network
ASCII
This is the default type.
bell
Arrange that a bell be sounded after each file transfer
command is completed.
binary
Set the file transfer
type
to support binary image transfer.
bye
Terminate the
FTP
session with the remote server
and exit
ftp
An end of file will also terminate the session and exit.
case
Toggle remote computer file name case mapping during
mget
commands.
When
case
is on (default is off), remote computer file names with all letters in
upper case are written in the local directory with the letters mapped
to lower case.
cd remote-directory
Change the working directory on the remote machine
to
remote-directory
cdup
Change the remote machine working directory to the parent of the
current remote machine working directory.
chmod mode file-name
Change the permission modes of the file
file-name
on the remote
sytem to
mode
close
Terminate the
FTP
session with the remote server, and
return to the command interpreter.
Any defined macros are erased.
cr
Toggle carriage return stripping during
ascii type file retrieval.
Records are denoted by a carriage return/linefeed sequence
during ascii type file transfer.
When
cr
is on (the default), carriage returns are stripped from this
sequence to conform with the
UNIX
single linefeed record
delimiter.
Records on
non- UNIX
remote systems may contain single linefeeds;
when an ascii type transfer is made, these linefeeds may be
distinguished from a record delimiter only when
cr
is off.
delete remote-file
Delete the file
remote-file
on the remote machine.
debug [debug-value
]
Toggle debugging mode.
If an optional
debug-value
is specified it is used to set the debugging level.
When debugging is on,
ftp
prints each command sent to the remote machine, preceded
by the string
`-->'
dir
[remote-directory
]
[local-file
]
Print a listing of the directory contents in the
directory,
remote-directory
and, optionally, placing the output in
local-file
If interactive prompting is on,
ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the
target local file for receiving
dir
output.
If no directory is specified, the current working
directory on the remote machine is used.
If no local
file is specified, or
local-file
is
-,
output comes to the terminal.
disconnect
A synonym for
close
form format
Set the file transfer
form
to
format
The default format is file.
get remote-file [local-file
]
Retrieve the
remote-file
and store it on the local machine.
If the local
file name is not specified, it is given the same
name it has on the remote machine, subject to
alteration by the current
case ntrans
and
nmap
settings.
The current settings for
type formmode
and
structure
are used while transferring the file.
glob
Toggle filename expansion for
mdelete mget
and
mput
If globbing is turned off with
glob
the file name arguments
are taken literally and not expanded.
Globbing for
mput
is done as in
csh(1).
For
mdelete
and
mget
each remote file name is expanded
separately on the remote machine and the lists are not merged.
Expansion of a directory name is likely to be
different from expansion of the name of an ordinary file:
the exact result depends on the foreign operating system and ftp server,
and can be previewed by doing
`mls'
remote-files -
Note:
mget
and
mput
are not meant to transfer
entire directory subtrees of files.
That can be done by
transferring a
tar(1)
archive of the subtree (in binary mode).
hash
Toggle hash-sign (``#'') printing for each data block
transferred.
The size of a data block is 1024 bytes.
help [command
]
Print an informative message about the meaning of
command
If no argument is given,
ftp
prints a list of the known commands.
idle [seconds
]
Set the inactivity timer on the remote server to
seconds
seconds.
If
seconds
is ommitted, the current inactivity timer is printed.
lcd [directory
]
Change the working directory on the local machine.
If
no
directory
is specified, the user's home directory is used.
ls
[remote-directory
]
[local-file
]
Print a listing of the contents of a
directory on the remote machine.
The listing includes any system-dependent information that the server
chooses to include; for example, most
UNIX
systems will produce
output from the command
`ls'
-l .
(See also
nlist .
If
remote-directory
is left unspecified, the current working directory is used.
If interactive prompting is on,
ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the
target local file for receiving
ls
output.
If no local file is specified, or if
local-file
is
`-
'
the output is sent to the terminal.
macdef macro-name
Define a macro.
Subsequent lines are stored as the macro
macro-name
a null line (consecutive newline characters
in a file or
carriage returns from the terminal) terminates macro input mode.
There is a limit of 16 macros and 4096 total characters in all
defined macros.
Macros remain defined until a
close
command is executed.
The macro processor interprets `$' and `\' as special characters.
A `$' followed by a number (or numbers) is replaced by the
corresponding argument on the macro invocation command line.
A `$' followed by an `i' signals that macro processor that the
executing macro is to be looped.
On the first pass `$i' is
replaced by the first argument on the macro invocation command line,
on the second pass it is replaced by the second argument, and so on.
A `\' followed by any character is replaced by that character.
Use the `\' to prevent special treatment of the `$'.
mdelete [remote-files
]
Delete the
remote-files
on the remote machine.
mdir remote-files local-file
Like
dir
except multiple remote files may be specified.
If interactive prompting is on,
ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the
target local file for receiving
mdir
output.
mget remote-files
Expand the
remote-files
on the remote machine
and do a
get
for each file name thus produced.
See
glob
for details on the filename expansion.
Resulting file names will then be processed according to
case ntrans
and
nmap
settings.
Files are transferred into the local working directory,
which can be changed with
`lcd'
directory ;
new local directories can be created with
`!'
mkdir directory .
mkdir directory-name
Make a directory on the remote machine.
mls remote-files local-file
Like
nlist
except multiple remote files may be specified,
and the
local-file
must be specified.
If interactive prompting is on,
ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the
target local file for receiving
mls
output.
mode [mode-name
]
Set the file transfer
mode
to
mode-name
The default mode is stream mode.
modtime file-name
Show the last modification time of the file on the remote machine.
mput local-files
Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as arguments
and do a
put
for each file in the resulting list.
See
glob
for details of filename expansion.
Resulting file names will then be processed according to
ntrans
and
nmap
settings.
newer file-name [local-file
]
Get the file only if the modification time of the remote file is more
recent that the file on the current system.
If the file does not
exist on the current system, the remote file is considered
newer
Otherwise, this command is identical to
get
nlist
[remote-directory
]
[local-file
]
Print a list of the files in a
directory on the remote machine.
If
remote-directory
is left unspecified, the current working directory is used.
If interactive prompting is on,
ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the
target local file for receiving
nlist
output.
If no local file is specified, or if
local-file
is
-,
the output is sent to the terminal.
nmap [inpattern outpattern
]
Set or unset the filename mapping mechanism.
If no arguments are specified, the filename mapping mechanism is unset.
If arguments are specified, remote filenames are mapped during
mput
commands and
put
commands issued without a specified remote target filename.
If arguments are specified, local filenames are mapped during
mget
commands and
get
commands issued without a specified local target filename.
This command is useful when connecting to a
non- UNIX
remote computer
with different file naming conventions or practices.
The mapping follows the pattern set by
inpattern
and
outpattern
[Inpattern
]
is a template for incoming filenames (which may have already been
processed according to the
ntrans
and
case
settings).
Variable templating is accomplished by including the
sequences `$1', `$2', ..., `$9' in
inpattern
Use `\' to prevent this special treatment of the `$' character.
All other characters are treated literally, and are used to determine the
nmap
[inpattern
]
variable values.
For example, given
inpattern
$1.$2 and the remote file name "mydata.data", $1 would have the value
"mydata", and $2 would have the value "data".
The
outpattern
determines the resulting mapped filename.
The sequences `$1', `$2', ...., `$9' are replaced by any value resulting
from the
inpattern
template.
The sequence `$0' is replace by the original filename.
Additionally, the sequence
`[seq1
]
'
, Ar seq2
is replaced by
[seq1
]
if
seq1
is not a null string; otherwise it is replaced by
seq2
For example, the command
nmap $1.$2.$3 [$1,$2].[$2,file]
would yield
the output filename "myfile.data" for input filenames "myfile.data" and
"myfile.data.old", "myfile.file" for the input filename "myfile", and
"myfile.myfile" for the input filename ".myfile".
Spaces may be included in
outpattern
as in the example: `nmap $1 sed "s/ *$//" > $1' .
Use the `\' character to prevent special treatment
of the `$','[','[', and `,' characters.
ntrans [inchars [outchars
]
]
Set or unset the filename character translation mechanism.
If no arguments are specified, the filename character
translation mechanism is unset.
If arguments are specified, characters in
remote filenames are translated during
mput
commands and
put
commands issued without a specified remote target filename.
If arguments are specified, characters in
local filenames are translated during
mget
commands and
get
commands issued without a specified local target filename.
This command is useful when connecting to a
non- UNIX
remote computer
with different file naming conventions or practices.
Characters in a filename matching a character in
inchars
are replaced with the corresponding character in
outchars
If the character's position in
inchars
is longer than the length of
outchars
the character is deleted from the file name.
open host [port
]
Establish a connection to the specified
hostFTP
server.
An optional port number may be supplied,
in which case,
ftp
will attempt to contact an
FTP
server at that port.
If the
auto-login
option is on (default),
ftp
will also attempt to automatically log the user in to
the
FTP
server (see below).
prompt
Toggle interactive prompting.
Interactive prompting
occurs during multiple file transfers to allow the
user to selectively retrieve or store files.
If prompting is turned off (default is on), any
mget
or
mput
will transfer all files, and any
mdelete
will delete all files.
proxy ftp-command
Execute an ftp command on a secondary control connection.
This command allows simultaneous connection to two remote ftp
servers for transferring files between the two servers.
The first
proxy
command should be an
open
to establish the secondary control connection.
Enter the command "proxy ?" to see other ftp commands executable on the
secondary connection.
The following commands behave differently when prefaced by
proxy open
will not define new macros during the auto-login process,
close
will not erase existing macro definitions,
get
and
mget
transfer files from the host on the primary control connection
to the host on the secondary control connection, and
put mput
and
append
transfer files from the host on the secondary control connection
to the host on the primary control connection.
Third party file transfers depend upon support of the ftp protocol
PASV
command by the server on the secondary control connection.
put local-file [remote-file
]
Store a local file on the remote machine.
If
remote-file
is left unspecified, the local file name is used
after processing according to any
ntrans
or
nmap
settings
in naming the remote file.
File transfer uses the
current settings for
type formatmode
and
structure
pwd
Print the name of the current working directory on the remote
machine.
quit
A synonym for
bye
quote arg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
FTP
server.
recv remote-file [local-file
]
A synonym for get.
reget remote-file [local-file
]
Reget acts like get, except that if
local-file
exists and is
smaller than
remote-file local-file
is presumed to be
a partially transferred copy of
remote-file
and the transfer
is continued from the apparent point of failure.
This command
is useful when transferring very large files over networks that
are prone to dropping connections.
remotehelp [command-name
]
Request help from the remote
FTP
server.
If a
command-name
is specified it is supplied to the server as well.
remotestatus [file-name
]
With no arguments, show status of remote machine.
If
file-name
is specified, show status of
file-name
on remote machine.
rename
[from
]
[to
]
Rename the file
from
on the remote machine, to the file
to
reset
Clear reply queue.
This command re-synchronizes command/reply sequencing with the remote
ftp server.
Resynchronization may be necessary following a violation of the ftp protocol
by the remote server.
restart marker
Restart the immediately following
get
or
put
at the
indicated
marker
On
UNIX
systems, marker is usually a byte
offset into the file.
rmdir directory-name
Delete a directory on the remote machine.
runique
Toggle storing of files on the local system with unique filenames.
If a file already exists with a name equal to the target
local filename for a
get
or
mget
command, a ".1" is appended to the name.
If the resulting name matches another existing file,
a ".2" is appended to the original name.
If this process continues up to ".99", an error
message is printed, and the transfer does not take place.
The generated unique filename will be reported.
Note that
runique
will not affect local files generated from a shell command
(see below).
The default value is off.
send local-file [remote-file
]
A synonym for put.
sendport
Toggle the use of
PORT
commands.
By default,
ftp
will attempt to use a
PORT
command when establishing
a connection for each data transfer.
The use of
PORT
commands can prevent delays
when performing multiple file transfers.
If the
PORT
command fails,
ftp
will use the default data port.
When the use of
PORT
commands is disabled, no attempt will be made to use
PORT
commands for each data transfer.
This is useful
for certain
FTP
implementations which do ignore
PORT
commands but, incorrectly, indicate they've been accepted.
site arg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
FTP
server as a
SITE
command.
size file-name
Return size of
file-name
on remote machine.
status
Show the current status of
ftp
struct [struct-name
]
Set the file transfer
structure
to
struct-name
By default stream structure is used.
sunique
Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file names.
Remote ftp server must support ftp protocol
STOU
command for
successful completion.
The remote server will report unique name.
Default value is off.
system
Show the type of operating system running on the remote machine.
tenex
Set the file transfer type to that needed to
talk to
TENEX
machines.
trace
Toggle packet tracing.
type [type-name
]
Set the file transfer
type
to
type-name
If no type is specified, the current type
is printed.
The default type is network
ASCII
umask [newmask
]
Set the default umask on the remote server to
newmask
If
newmask
is ommitted, the current umask is printed.
user user-name
[password
]
[account
]
Identify yourself to the remote
FTP
server.
If the
password
is not specified and the server requires it,
ftp
will prompt the user for it (after disabling local echo).
If an
account
field is not specified, and the
FTP
server
requires it, the user will be prompted for it.
If an
account
field is specified, an account command will
be relayed to the remote server after the login sequence
is completed if the remote server did not require it
for logging in.
Unless
ftp
is invoked with auto-login disabled, this
process is done automatically on initial connection to
the
FTP
server.
verbose
Toggle verbose mode.
In verbose mode, all responses from
the
FTP
server are displayed to the user.
In addition,
if verbose is on, when a file transfer completes, statistics
regarding the efficiency of the transfer are reported.
By default,
verbose is on.
? [command
]
A synonym for help.
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with
quote `"' marks.
ABORTING A FILE TRANSFER
To abort a file transfer, use the terminal interrupt key
(usually Ctrl-C).
Sending transfers will be immediately halted.
Receiving transfers will be halted by sending a ftp protocol
ABOR
command to the remote server, and discarding any further data received.
The speed at which this is accomplished depends upon the remote
server's support for
ABOR
processing.
If the remote server does not support the
ABOR
command, an
`ftp>'
prompt will not appear until the remote server has completed
sending the requested file.
The terminal interrupt key sequence will be ignored when
ftp
has completed any local processing and is awaiting a reply
from the remote server.
A long delay in this mode may result from the ABOR processing described
above, or from unexpected behavior by the remote server, including
violations of the ftp protocol.
If the delay results from unexpected remote server behavior, the local
ftp
program must be killed by hand.
FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS
Files specified as arguments to
ftp
commands are processed according to the following rules.
If the file name
`-
'
is specified, the
stdin
(for reading) or
stdout
(for writing) is used.
If the first character of the file name is
`|'
the
remainder of the argument is interpreted as a shell command.
Ftp
then forks a shell, using
popen(3)
with the argument supplied, and reads (writes) from the stdout
(stdin).
If the shell command includes spaces, the argument
must be quoted; e.g.
" ls -lt".
A particularly
useful example of this mechanism is: dir more.
Failing the above checks, if ``globbing'' is enabled,
local file names are expanded
according to the rules used in the
csh(1);
c.f. the
glob
command.
If the
ftp
command expects a single local file (.e.g.
put )
only the first filename generated by the "globbing" operation is used.
For
mget
commands and
get
commands with unspecified local file names, the local filename is
the remote filename, which may be altered by a
case ntrans
or
nmap
setting.
The resulting filename may then be altered if
runique
is on.
For
mput
commands and
put
commands with unspecified remote file names, the remote filename is
the local filename, which may be altered by a
ntrans
or
nmap
setting.
The resulting filename may then be altered by the remote server if
sunique
is on.
FILE TRANSFER PARAMETERS
The FTP specification specifies many parameters which may
affect a file transfer.
The
type
may be one of ascii, image (binary),
ebcdic, and local byte size (for
PDP -10's
and
PDP -20's
mostly).
Ftp
supports the ascii and image types of file transfer,
plus local byte size 8 for
tenex
mode transfers.
Ftp
supports only the default values for the remaining
file transfer parameters:
mode form
and
struct
ENVIRONMENT
Ftp
utilizes the following environment variables.
HOME
For default location of a
.netrc
file, if one exists.
Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior
by the remote server.
An error in the treatment of carriage returns
in the
BSD 4.2
ascii-mode transfer code
has been corrected.
This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary files
to and from
BSD 4.2
servers using the ascii type.
Avoid this problem by using the binary image type.