ftp(1N) ftp(1N)NAME ftp - ARPANET file transfer program SYNOPSIS ftp [-v] [-d] [-i] [-n] [-g] [host] DESCRIPTION ftp is the user interface to the ARPANET standard File Transfer Protocol. The program allows a user to transfer files to and from a remote network site. 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 pro- vided 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 completed successfully. If no argument is included, the user will be prompted for an account password in a nonechoing 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 filename is used in naming the remote file, after being altered by any ntrans or nmap setting. File transfer uses the current settings for type, form (format), mode, and struct (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. April, 1990 1
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)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 ses- sion and exit. case Toggle remote computer filename case mapping during mget commands. When case is on (default is off), re- mote computer filenames 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. 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 direc- tory, remote-directory, and, optionally, placing the output in local-file. 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 2 April, 1990
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)-, output comes to the terminal. disconnect A synonym for close. form format Set the file transfer form to format. The default for- mat is file. get remote-file [ local-file ] Retrieve the remote-file and store it on the local machine. If the local filename is not specified, it is given the same name it has on the remote machine, sub- ject to alteration by the current case, ntrans, and nmap settings. The current settings for type, form, mode, and struct (structure) are used while transfer- ring the file. glob Toggle filename expansion for mdelete, mget, and mput. If globbing is turned off with glob, the filename argu- ments are taken literally and not expanded. Globbing for mput is done as in csh(1). For mdelete and mget, each remote filename is expanded separately on the re- mote machine and the lists are not merged. Expansion of a directory name is likely to be different from ex- pansion of the name of an ordinary file: the exact result depends on the foreign operating system and ftp server, and can be previewed by issuing: 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 sub- tree (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 com- mand. If no argument is given, ftp prints a list of the known commands. 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 ] April, 1990 3
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)Print an abbreviated listing of the contents of a directory on the remote machine. If remote-directory is left unspecified, the current working directory is used. 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 ter- minal) 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 spe- cial 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 speci- fied. 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 filename thus produced. See glob for de- tails on the filename expansion. Resulting filenames will then be processed according to case, ntrans, and nmap settings. Files are transferred into the local working directory, which can be changed with the com- mand lcd directory and new local directories can be created with ! mkdir directory mkdir directory-name Make a directory on the remote machine. 4 April, 1990
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)mls remote-files local-file Like ls, 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 mls output. mode [ mode-name ] Set the file transfer mode to mode-name. The default mode is ``stream'' mode. 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 filenames will then be processed according to ntrans and nmap settings. nmap [ inpattern outpattern ] Set or unset the filename mapping mechanism. If no ar- guments 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 argu- ments are specified, local filenames are mapped during mget commands and get commands issued without a speci- fied local target filename. This command is useful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote computer with dif- ferent file naming conventions or practices. The map- ping follows the pattern set by inpattern and outpat- tern. inpattern is a template for incoming filenames (which may have already been processed according to the ntrans and case settings). Variable templating is ac- complished 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 filename 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 April, 1990 5
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)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 mechan- ism. If no arguments are specified, the filename char- acter translation mechanism is unset. If arguments are specified, characters in remote filenames are translat- ed 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 use- ful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices. Char- acters 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 filename. 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 the autologin option is on (default), ftp will also attempt automatically to 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 selectively to 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 connec- tion. 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 ex- ecutable on the secondary connection. The following commands behave differently when prefaced by proxy: open will not define new macros during the autologin 6 April, 1990
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)process, close will not erase existing macro defini- tions, 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 filename is used, after processing according to any ntrans or nmap set- tings in naming the remote file. File transfer uses the current settings for type, form (format), mode, and struct (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 re- mote FTP server. recv remote-file [ local-file ] A synonym for get. remotehelp [ command-name ] Request help from the remote FTP server. If a command-name is specified, it is supplied to the server as well. rename [ from ] [ to ] Rename the file from on the remote machine, to the file to. reset Clear reply queue. This command resynchronizes command/reply sequencing with the remote ftp server. Resynchronization may be neccesary following a viola- tion of the ftp protocol by the remote server. 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, April, 1990 7
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)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 re- ported. Note that runique will not affect local files generated from a shell command (see below). The de- fault 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 con- nection for each data transfer. The use of PORT com- mands 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, in- correctly, indicate they've been accepted. status Show the current status of ftp. struct [ struct-name ] Set the file transfer structure to struct-name. By de- fault, ``stream'' structure is used. sunique Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique filenames. Remote ftp server must support ftp protocol STOU command for successful completion. The remote server will report unique name. Default value is off. 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. user user-name [ password ] [ account ] Identify yourself to the remote FTP server. If the password is not specified, and the server requires it, 8 April, 1990
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)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 com- mand will be relayed to the remote server after the lo- gin sequence is completed if the remote server did not require it for logging in. Unless ftp is invoked with ``autologin'' disabled, this process is done automati- cally 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 ad- dition, if verbose is on, when a file transfer com- pletes, 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 CONTROL-C). Sending transfers will be halted im- mediately. Receiving transfers will be halted by sending an ftp protocol ABOR command to the remote server, and discard- ing 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 re- mote 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 viola- tions of the ftp protocol. If the delay results from unex- pected 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: 1) If the filename - is specified, the standard input (for reading) or standard output (for writing) is used. 2) If the first character of the filename is |, the remainder of the argument is interpreted as a shell April, 1990 9
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)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; for example, "| ls -lt" A particularly useful example of this mechanism is: dir . | more 3) Failing the above checks, if ``globbing'' is enabled, local filenames are expanded according to the rules used in the csh(1); compare the glob command. If the ftp command expects a single local file (for example, put), only the first filename generated by the ``glob- bing'' operation is used. 4) For mget commands and get commands with unspecified lo- cal filenames, the local filename is the remote filename, which may be altered by a case, ntrans, or nmap setting. The resulting filename may then be al- tered if runique is on. 5) For mput commands and put commands with unspecified re- mote filenames, the remote filename is the local filename, which may be altered by a ntrans or nmap set- ting. 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. FLAG OPTIONS Flag options may be specified at the command line, or to the command interpreter. The -v (verbose on) flag option forces ftp to show all responses from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer statistics. The -n flag option restrains ftp from attempting ``autolo- gin'' upon initial connection. If autologin is enabled, ftp 10 April, 1990
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)will check the .netrc (see below) 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 lo- cal machine), and, if necessary, prompt for a password and an account with which to login. The -i flag option turns off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers. The -d flag option enables debugging. The -g flag option disables filename globbing. THE .netrc FILE The .netrc file contains login and initialization informa- tion used by the autologin process. It resides in the user's home directory. The following tokens are recognized; they may be separated by spaces, tabs, or newlines: machine name Identify a remote machine name. The autologin process searches the .netrc file for a machine token that matches the remote machine specified on the ftp command line or as an open command argument. Once a match is made, the subsequent .netrc tokens are processed, stop- ping when the end-of-file is reached or another machine token is encountered. login name Identify a user on the remote machine. If this token is present, the autologin process will initiate a login using the specified name. password string Supply a password. If this token is present, the auto- login process will supply the specified string if the remote server requires a password as part of the login process. Note that if this token is present in the .netrc file, ftp will abort the autologin process if the .netrc is readable by anyone besides the user. account string Supply an additional account password. If this token is present, the autologin process will supply the specified string if the remote server requires an addi- tional account password, or the autologin process will initiate an acct command, if it does not. macdef name Define a macro. This token functions like the ftp mac- def command functions. A macro is defined with the April, 1990 11
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)specified name; its contents begin with the next .netrc line and continue until a null line (consecutive new- line characters) is encountered. If a macro named init is defined, it is automatically executed as the last step in the autologin process. EXAMPLES The first example illustrates a simple ftp connection and file transfer from a remote machine to the local machine. (Long output lines have been folded for the sake of reada- bility.) [2]% ftp printms Connected to printms. 220 printms FTP server (Version 4.109 Fri Nov 20 07:43:57 PST 1987) ready. Name (printms:tim): 331 Password required for tim. Password: 230 User tim logged in. ftp> get tmac.an 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening data connection for tmac.an (89.0.0.33,1205) (13366 bytes). 226 Transfer complete. local: tmac.an remote: tmac.an 13922 bytes received in 0.69 seconds (20 Kbytes/s) ftp> quit 221 Goodbye. [3]% The second example illustrates an ftp connection and a file transfer from the local machine to the remote. [4]% ftp printms Connected to printms. 220 printms FTP server (Version 4.109 Fri Nov 20 07:43:57 PST 1987) ready. Name (printms:tim): 331 Password required for tim. Password: 230 User tim logged in. ftp> put tmac.an 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening data connection for tmac.an (89.0.0.33,1209). 226 Transfer complete. local: tmac.an remote: tmac.an 13922 bytes sent in 0.83 seconds (16 Kbytes/s) ftp> quit 221 Goodbye. [5]% 12 April, 1990
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)The third example illustrates moving around in the remote file system and listing the contents of several directories. [8]% ftp printms Connected to printms. 220 printms FTP server (Version 4.109 Fri Nov 20 07:43:57 PST 1987) ready. Name (printms:tim): 331 Password required for tim. Password: 230 User tim logged in. ftp> ls 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening data connection for /bin/ls (89.0.0.33,1212) (0 bytes). OUT cutmks tmac.ap tmac.ptx tmac.syn tmac.toc 226 Transfer complete. 76 bytes received in 1.2 seconds (0.13 Kbytes/s) ftp> cd OUT 250 CWD command successful. ftp> ls 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening data connection for /bin/ls (89.0.0.33,1213) (0 bytes). junk 226 Transfer complete. 4 bytes received in 0.058 seconds (3.9 Kbytes/s) ftp> close 221 Goodbye. ftp> quit FILES /usr/spool/ftp SEE ALSO cu(1C), tip(1C). ``Using B-NET'' in A/UX Communications User's Guide. BUGS Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior by the remote server. An error in the treatment of returns in the 4.2 BSD UNIX ASCII-mode transfer code has been corrected. This correc- tion may result in incorrect transfers of binary files to and from 4.2 BSD servers using the ascii type. You may April, 1990 13
ftp(1N) ftp(1N)avoid this problem by using the image (binary) type. When the verbose mode (-v flag option) is turned off, ftp does not echo responses from the remote server. This in- cludes the response to the request pwd. Beware of this. 14 April, 1990