ftp(1tcp)

ftp -- file transfer program

Synopsis

ftp [-c | -C] [-dginptv] [host [port]]

Description

The ftp command is the user interface to the ARPANET standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP). ftp allows you to transfer files to and from sites on remote networks.

Options

Options may be specified at the command line, or to the command interpreter.

-c: Suppress the SYST message. This option is used to avoid crashing a remote server which does not process this message and cannot deal with unknown messages. If the first command after FTP login results in the message remote server has closed connection, you should add the -c option to the ftp command line and retry the request.
-C: Force ftp to send the SYST message. This is the default action of ftp.
-d: Enable debugging. See the description of the debug command.
-g: Disable file name globbing. See the description of the glob command.
-i: Turn off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers. See the description of the prompt command.
-n: Restrain ftp from attempting ``auto-login'' upon initial connection. If auto-login is enabled, ftp will check the .netrc 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 (see netrc(4tcp)).
-p: Enable passive mode. Forces the ftp server to send a port number, so that the ftp client can use this port number to establish a connection to the server. This option is used on ftp clients with firewalls configured to disallow incoming calls to random port numbers. See the description of the passive command.
-t: Enable packet tracing. See the description of the trace command.
-v: Verbose on. Forces ftp to show all responses from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer statistics. Normally, this is on by default, unless the standard input is not a terminal. See the description of the trace command.

The client host with which ftp is to communicate may be specified on the command line. If this is done, ftp immediately attempts to establish a connection to an FTP server on that host; otherwise, ftp will enter its command interpreter and await instructions from the user. If a port number is specified in addition to host, ftp will attempt to contact an FTP server at that port.

While awaiting commands from the user, ftp displays the prompt ftp>.

Commands

The following commands are recognized by ftp. Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with quote (") marks.

! [ 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.

? [ command ]

A synonym for help.

$ 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, format, mode, and structure.

ascii

Set the file transfer type to network ASCII. This is the default type if the remote system does not identify itself as a UNIX system.

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. This is the default type if the remote system identifies itself as a UNIX system.

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 current directory on the remote machine to remote-directory.

cdup

Change the remote machine current directory to the parent of the current remote machine current directory.

chmod [ mode ] [ remote-file ]

Change file permissions of remote file.

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.

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 -->.

delete remote-file

Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.

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 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.

exit

A synonym for bye.

form format

Set the file transfer form to format. The default and only supported 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, form, mode, and struct 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 sh(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 that 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 BUFSIZ bytes. BUFSIZ is defined in stdio.h.

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]

Get the inactivity timeout period defined on the server, or try to set the value of the timeout period on the server to seconds. You will not be able to set the timeout period to a value that is larger than the maximum timeout period defined on the server.

image

Same as binary.

lcd [ directory ]

Change the current directory on the local machine. If no directory is specified, the user's home directory is used.

ls [ remote-directory [ local-file ] ]

Print an abbreviated 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 nlist). If remote-directory is left unspecified, the current 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. Additional options may be specified by quoting the arguments. For example, ls "-rt dir", will cause a time sorted listing of directory dir to be displayed if the remote operating system is UNIX.

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 of the filename expansion. Resulting file names will then be processed according to case, ntrans, and nmap settings. Files are transferred into the local current 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 and only supported mode-name is stream.

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. The mput command does not allow specifying remote file names.

newer remote-file [ local-file ]

Get file if remote-file is newer than local-file.

nlist [ remote-directory [ local-file ] ]

Print a list of the files of a directory on the remote machine. If remote-directory is left unspecified, the current 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.

Additional options may be specified by quoting the arguments. For example, nlist "-rt dir" will cause a time sorted listing of directory dir to be displayed.

nmap [ inpattern outpattern ]

Set or unset the filename mapping mechanism. This command is useful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices.

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
local filenames are mapped during mget commands and get commands issued without a specified local target filename

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 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 replaced by the original filename. Additionally, the sequence ``[seq1,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. This command is useful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices.

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
characters in local filenames are translated during mget commands and get commands issued without a specified local target filename

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 host FTP server. An optional port number may be supplied, in which case, ftp will attempt to contact an FTP server at that port. If auto-login is enabled (default), ftp will also attempt to automatically log the user in to the FTP server (see netrc(4tcp)).

passive

Toggle passive mode. By default, passive mode is turned off.

With passive mode turned on, the ftp client host sends an EPSV (extended passive) or a PASV (passive) request to the ftp server on attempting to establish a connection for data transfer.

If the ftp server accepts an extended passive request or a passive request, it performs a passive open on some random port and sends the port number back to the ftp client. Using this port number, the ftp client then establishes a connection by performing an active open to the ftp server.

Passive mode is typically used on clients behind firewalls that are configured to disallow incoming calls to random port numbers. See RFC 1579 and RFC 2428 for more information.

When passive mode is off, the ftp client host sends an EPRT or PORT request to the ftp server when it attempts to establish a connection for data transfer (see sendport).

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.

The command proxy ? displays the 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
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 require that the server on the secondary control connection support EPSV or PASV requests (see passive).

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, format, mode, and structure.

pwd

Print the name of the current 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 ]

Retrieve a file restarting at the end of the local-file.

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 offset

Restart the transfer of a file from an offset specified as a number of bytes.

rhelp [ command-name ]

Request help from the remote FTP server. If a command-name is specified it is supplied to the server as well.

rmdir directory-name

Delete a directory on the remote machine.

rstatus [ file-name ]

With no arguments, show status of remote-machine. If file-name is specified, show status of file-name on 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 the description of ``!'' below). The default value is off.

send local-file [ remote-file ]

A synonym for put.

sendport

Toggle the use of EPRT (extended port) and PORT requests. By default, ftp attempts to use an EPRT or a PORT request when establishing a connection for each data transfer. This allows the server to perform an active open to establish the connection to the client. These requests help prevent delays when performing multiple file transfers.

An EPRT request tells the server the network protocol to be used, the network address of the client, and the port number on which the client will be listening. (For more information, see RFC 2428).

A PORT request only tells the server the port number on which the client will be listening.

If an EPRT or PORT request fails, ftp uses the default data port.

When sendport is turned off, ftp does not attempt to use either EPRT or PORT requests for data transfer. This is useful for FTP implementations which incorrectly indicate that they accept such requests.

site [ command ]

Get/set site specific information from/on remote machine.

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. The default and only supported struct-name is stream

sunique

Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file names. The remote FTP server must support the FTP protocol command STOU 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 requested file transfer type to type-name. The type-name argument may be one of ascii, binary (or equivalently, image), ebcdic, and tenex (for local byte size 8). NOTE: The remote FTP server may not support transfer types such as ebcdic.

If no type-name is specified, ftp displays the current type.

The default type is binary if a remote system identifies itself as a UNIX system; otherwise, the default type is ascii.

umask [ mask ]

Set user file-creation mode mask on the remote site. If mask is omitted, the current value of the mask 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.

Aborting a file transfer

To abort a file transfer, use the terminal interrupt key (usually <Delete> or <Ctrl-C>). Sending transfers will be immediately halted. Receiving transfers will be halted by sending a ftp protocol ABORT 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 ABORT processing. If the remote server does not support the ABORT 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 ABORT 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, ftp uses the standard input for reading (stdin) or the standard output for writing (stdout).
If the first character of the file name is ``|'' the remainder of the argument is interpreted as a shell command. Note that there must not be any whitespace between the ``|'' and the argument. ftp forks a shell, using popen(3S) with the argument supplied, and reads (writes) from stdin (stdout). If the shell command includes spaces, the argument must be quoted.
Failing the above checks, if ``globbing'' is enabled, local file names are expanded according to the rules used in sh(1) (see glob). If the ftp command expects a single local file (for example, with put), only the first filename generated by the ``globbing'' operation is used.
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.
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.

When executing the get command, a remote FTP server may perform certain archival (such as tar), compression (such as compress), and decompression (such as uncompress) actions on a remote file depending on the filename that is specified. Archival allows you to retrieve entire directory hierarchies using a single get command. Compression allows you to reduce the number of bytes that are needed to send the files being retrieved. Note that the configuration of the remote FTP server controls whether these actions (see ftpd(1Mtcp)) are supported or not. The request will fail if a directory to be tar'ed contains a file named .notar.

Actual
filename Specified
filename Action
performed

filename.Z filename Decompress filename before transmitting

filename filename.Z Compress filename before transmitting

filename filename.tar Tar filename before transmitting

filename filename.tar.Z Tar and compress filename before transmitting

Actual filename	Specified filename	Action performed
*filename*.Z	*filename*	Decompress *filename* before transmitting
*filename*	*filename*.Z	Compress *filename* before transmitting
*filename*	*filename*.tar	Tar *filename* before transmitting
*filename*	*filename*.tar.Z	Tar and compress *filename* before transmitting

The .netrc file

The .netrc file contains login and initialization information used by the auto-login process. It resides in the user's home directory. See netrc(4tcp) for a description of the format of this file.

Files

$HOME/.netrc: auto-login tokens file
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxftp: language-specific message file (See the description of LANG on environ(5)).

References

ftpaccess(4tcp), ftpconversions(4tcp), ftpd(1Mtcp), ftpusers(4tcp), netrc(4tcp), tftp(1tcp), tftpd(1Mtcp), xferlog(4tcp)

RFC 1579, RFC 2428

Notices

Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior by the remote server.

An error in the treatment of carriage returns in the 4.2BSD ascii-mode transfer code has been corrected. This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary files to and from 4.2BSD servers using the ascii type. Avoid this problem by using the binary file transfer type.

ftp has been updated to handle files larger than 2GB.

ftp currently only uses EPRT and EPSV with IPv6 connections. ftp continues to use PORT and PASV with IPv4 connections.

Examples

The following examples show how various ftp commands may be used and combined.

Set the file-transfer type to binary:

bin

If the remote FTP server's default file-transfer type is ascii, enter this command if you need to transfer any file that contains data other than printable 7-bit ASCII text. Examples are program executable files, graphics files with formats such as GIF and TIFF, and files containing 8-bit ASCII characters.

Turn on passive-mode data transfers:

passive

This allows you to transfer data from a remote server if you access it via a firewall that blocks incoming connections to non-privileged ports. See RFC 1579 and RFC 2428 for more information.

Turn off prompting, and retrieve all files whose names end in ``.gif'', printing a ``#'' for every 1KB of data transferred:

prompt off
hash on
mget .gif

Retrieve a README file and display it on the standard output.

get README -

List the contents of the current directory using the pg pager:

ls . |pg

NOTE: No whitespace is allowed between ``|'' and the argument ``pg''.

Retrieve the contents of a README file and display them using more to eliminate multiple consecutive blank lines:

get README |"more -s"

Have the remote server compress a file named hoopy before transmitting it to you:

get hoopy.Z

Have the remote server create a tar archive of the directory hierarchy under the directory babel and compress it before transmitting it to you:

get babel.tar.Z

Change the local current working directory to /usr/tmp:

lcd /usr/tmp

Copy the entire directory hierarchy under the directory fish to the local current working directory:

get fish.tar.Z |"zcat - | tar xvf -"