ftp(1) UNIX System V(Internet Utilities) ftp(1)
NAME
ftp - file transfer program
SYNOPSIS
ftp [ -dgintv ] [ hostname ]
DESCRIPTION
The ftp command is the user interface to the ARPANET standard File
Transfer Protocol (FTP). ftp transfers 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 immediately attempts to establish a
connection to an FTP server on that host; otherwise, ftp enters its
command interpreter and awaits instructions from the user. When ftp is
awaiting commands from the user, it displays the prompt ftp>.
The following options may be specified at the command line, or to the
command interpreter:
-d Enable debugging.
-g Disable filename globbing.
-i Turn off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers.
-n Do not attempt auto-login upon initial connection. If auto-login
is not disabled, ftp checks 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 login name of the
account on the remote machine (the default is the login name on the
local machine), and, if necessary, for a password and an account
with which to log in.
-t Enable packet tracing (unimplemented).
-v Show all responses from the remote server, as well as report on
data transfer statistics. This is turned on by default if ftp is
running interactively with its input coming from the user's
terminal.
The following commands can be specified to the command interpreter:
! [ command ]
Run command as a shell command on the local machine. If no command
is given, invoke an interactive shell.
$ macro-name [ args ]
Execute the macro macro-name that was defined with the macdef
command. Arguments are passed to the macro unglobbed.
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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 not specified, the local file name is used, subject to
alteration by any ntrans or nmap settings. File transfer uses the
current settings for representation type, file structure, and
transfer mode.
ascii Set the representation type to network ASCII. This is the default
type.
bell Sound a bell after each file transfer command is completed.
binary
Set the representation type to image.
bye Terminate the FTP session with the remote server and exit ftp. An
EOF 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.
close Terminate the FTP session with the remote server, and return to the
command interpreter. Any defined macros are erased.
cr Toggle RETURN stripping during network ASCII type file retrieval.
Records are denoted by a RETURN/LINEFEED sequence during network
ASCII type file transfer. When cr is on (the default), RETURN
characters are stripped from this sequence to conform with the UNIX
system single LINEFEED record delimiter. Records on non-UNIX-
system remote hosts may contain single LINEFEED characters; when an
network ASCII type transfer is made, these LINEFEED characters may
be distinguished from a record delimiter only when cr is off.
delete remote-file
Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.
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debug
Toggle debugging mode. 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 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 is sent to the terminal.
disconnect
A synonym for close.
form [ format-name ]
Set the carriage control format subtype of the representation type
to format-name. The only valid format-name is non-print, which
corresponds to the default non-print subtype.
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 representation
type, file structure, and transfer mode are used while transferring
the file.
glob Toggle filename expansion, or globbing, for mdelete, mget and mput.
If globbing is turned off, filenames are taken literally.
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 radically different
from expansion of the name of an ordinary file: the exact result
depends on the remote operating system and FTP server, and can be
previewed by doing mls remote-files -.
mget and mput are not meant to transfer entire directory subtrees
of files. You can do this by transferring a tar(1) archive of the
subtree (using a representation type of image as set by the binary
command).
hash Toggle hash-sign (#) printing for each data block transferred. The
size of a data block is 8192 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.
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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 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
RETURN characters 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 ls(1), 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
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receiving mls output.
mode [ mode-name ]
Set the transfer mode to mode-name. The only valid mode-name is
stream, which corresponds to the default stream mode. This
implementation only supports stream, and requires that it be
specified.
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.
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-system remote
host 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 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. SPACE
characters 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.
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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, and
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-system remote
host 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 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 auto-login
option is on (default setting), ftp will also attempt to
automatically log the user in to the FTP server.
prompt
Toggle interactive prompting. Interactive prompting occurs during
multiple file transfers to allow the user to selectively retrieve
or store files. By default, prompting is turned on. If prompting
is turned off, 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, mputd, 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 PASV command
by the server on the secondary control connection.
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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 representation type, file
structure, and transfer mode.
pwd Print the name of the current working directory on the remote
machine.
quit A synonym for bye.
quote arg1 arg2 ...
Send the arguments specified, verbatim, to the remote FTP server.
A single FTP reply code is expected in return. (The remotehelp
command displays a list of valid arguments.)
quote should be used only by experienced users who are familiar
with the FTP protocol.
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 have the name 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.
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. runique will not affect local files generated from a
shell command. The default value is off.
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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 when connected to certain FTP
implementations that ignore PORT commands but incorrectly indicate
they have been accepted.
status
Show the current status of ftp.
struct [ struct-name ]
Set the file structure to struct-name. The only valid struct-name
is file, which corresponds to the default file structure. The
implementation only supports file, and requires that it be
specified.
sunique
Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file names.
The remote FTP server must support the STOU command for successful
completion. The remote server will report the unique name.
Default value is off.
tenex Set the representation type to that needed to talk to TENEX
machines.
trace Toggle packet tracing (unimplemented).
type [ type-name ]
Set the representation type to type-name. The valid type-names are
ascii for network ASCII, binary or image for image, and tenex for
local byte size with a byte size of 8 (used to talk to TENEX
machines). 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, 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.
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verbose
Toggle verbose mode. In verbose mode, all responses from the FTP
server are displayed to the user. In addition, if verbose mode is
on, when a file transfer completes, statistics regarding the
efficiency of the transfer are
reported. By default, verbose mode is on if ftp's commands are
coming from a terminal, and off otherwise.
? [ command ]
A synonym for help.
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with quote (")
marks.
If any command argument which is not indicated as being optional is not
specified, ftp will prompt for that argument.
ABORTING A FILE TRANSFER
To abort a file transfer, use the terminal interrupt key. Sending
transfers will be immediately halted. Receiving transfers will be halted
by sending an 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
Local files specified as arguments to ftp commands are processed
according to the following rules.
1) If the file name - is specified, the standard input (for reading)
or standard output (for writing) is used.
2) 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(3S) with the argument supplied, and reads
(writes) from the standard output (standard input) of that shell.
If the shell command includes SPACE characters, the argument must
be quoted; for example "| ls -lt". A particularly useful example
of this mechanism is: "dir | more".
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3) Failing the above checks, if globbing is enabled, local file names
are expanded according to the rules used in the sh(1); see the glob
command. If the ftp command expects a single local file (for
example, put), only the first filename generated by the globbing
operation is used.
4) 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.
5) 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 representation type may be one of network ASCII, EBCDIC, image, or
local byte size with a specified byte size (for PDP-10's and PDP-20's
mostly). The network ASCII and EBCDIC types have a further subtype which
specifies whether vertical format control (NEWLINE characters, form
feeds, etc.) are to be passed through (non-print), provided in TELNET
format (TELNET format controls), or provided in ASA (FORTRAN) (carriage
control (ASA)) format. ftp supports the network ASCII (subtype non-print
only) and image types, plus local byte size with a byte size of 8 for
communicating with TENEX machines.
The file structure may be one of file (no record structure), record, or
page. ftp supports only the default value, which is file.
The transfer mode may be one of stream, block, or compressed. ftp
supports only the default value, which is stream.
SEE ALSO
ls(1), rcp(1), tar(1), sh(1), ftpd(1M), popen(3S), netrc(4)
NOTES
Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior by the
remote server.
An error in the treatment of carriage returns in the 4.2 BSD code
handling transfers with a representation type of network ASCII has been
corrected. This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary
files to and from 4.2 BSD servers using a representation type of network
ASCII. Avoid this problem by using the image type.
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