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.
appendlocal-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.
cdremote-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 -->.
deleteremote-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.
formformat
Set the file transfer form to format.
The default and only supported format is file.
getremote-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(C).
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 mlsremote-files-.
Note that mget and mput are not meant to transfer
entire directory subtrees of files.
That can be done by transferring a
tar(C)
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 "-rtdir",
will cause a time sorted listing of
directory dir to be displayed
if the remote operating system is UNIX.
macdefmacro-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.
mdirremote-fileslocal-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.
mgetremote-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 ! mkdirdirectory.
mkdirdirectory-name
Make a directory on the remote machine.
mlsremote-fileslocal-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.
modtimefile-name
Show the last modification time of the file on the remote machine.
mputlocal-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.
newerremote-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 "-rtdir" will cause a time sorted listing
of directory dir to be displayed.
nmap [ inpatternoutpattern ]
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
nmapinpattern 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.
openhost [ 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.
proxyftp-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).
putlocal-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.
quotearg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP
server.
recvremote-file [ local-file ]
A synonym for get.
regetremote-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.
restartoffset
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.
rmdirdirectory-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.
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.
sizefile-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.
useruser-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(C)
(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(ADMN))
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
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(M)).
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: