NAME
ftp
—
Internet file transfer
program
SYNOPSIS
ftp |
[-46AadEegiMmnptVv ] [-D
title] [-k
seconds] [-P
port] [-r
seconds] [-s
sourceaddr] [host
[port]] |
ftp |
[-C ] [-N
name] [-o
output] [-s
sourceaddr]
ftp://[user:password@]host[:port]/file[/]
... |
ftp |
[-C ] [-c
cookie] [-N
name] [-o
output] [-S
ssl_options] [-s
sourceaddr] [-U
useragent] [-w
seconds]
http[s]://[user:password@]host[:port]/file
... |
ftp |
[-C ] [-N
name] [-o
output] [-s
sourceaddr] file:file ... |
ftp |
[-C ] [-N
name] [-o
output] [-s
sourceaddr]
host:/file[/]
... |
DESCRIPTION
ftp
is the user interface to the Internet
standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The program allows a user to transfer
files to and from a remote network site.
The latter four usage formats will fetch a file using either the FTP, HTTP, or HTTPS protocols into the current directory. This is ideal for scripts. Refer to AUTO-FETCHING FILES below for more information.
The options are as follows:
-4
- Forces
ftp
to use IPv4 addresses only. -6
- Forces
ftp
to use IPv6 addresses only. -A
- Force active mode FTP. By default,
ftp
will try to use passive mode FTP and fall back to active mode if passive is not supported by the server. This option causesftp
to always use an active connection. It is only useful for connecting to very old servers that do not implement passive mode properly. -a
- Causes
ftp
to bypass the normal login procedure and use an anonymous login instead. -C
- Continue a previously interrupted file transfer.
ftp
will continue transferring from an offset equal to the length of file.Resuming HTTP(S) transfers are only supported if the remote server supports the “Range” header.
-c
cookie- Load a Netscape-like cookiejar file for HTTP and HTTPS transfers. With
this option relevant cookies from the jar are sent with each HTTP(S)
request. Setting the
http_cookies
environment variable has the same effect. If both thehttp_cookies
environment variable is set and the-c
argument is given, the latter takes precedence. -D
title- Specify a short title for the start of the progress bar.
-d
- Enables debugging.
-E
- Disables EPSV/EPRT command on IPv4 connections.
-e
- Disables command line editing. Useful for Emacs ange-ftp.
-g
- Disables file name globbing.
-i
- Turns off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers.
-k
seconds- When greater than zero, sends a byte after each
seconds period over the control connection during
long transfers, so that incorrectly configured network equipment won't
aggressively drop it. The FTP protocol supports a
NOOP
command that can be used for that purpose. This assumes the FTP server can deal with extra commands coming over the control connection during a transfer. Well-behaved servers queue those commands, and process them after the transfer. By default,ftp
will send a byte every 60 seconds. -M
- Causes
ftp
to never display the progress meter in cases where it would do so by default. -m
- Causes
ftp
to always display the progress meter in cases where it would not do so by default. -N
name- Use this alternative name instead of
ftp
in some error reports. -n
- Restrains
ftp
from attempting “auto-login” upon initial connection. If auto-login is enabled,ftp
will check the .netrc file (see below) 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 log in. -o
output- When fetching a single file or URL, save the contents in output. To make the contents go to stdout, use ‘-’ for output.
-P
port- Sets the port number to port.
-p
- Enable passive mode operation for use behind connection filtering
firewalls. This option has been deprecated as
ftp
now tries to use passive mode by default, falling back to active mode if the server does not support passive connections. -r
seconds- Retry to connect if failed, pausing for number of seconds.
-S
ssl_options- SSL/TLS options to use with HTTPS transfers. The following settings are
available:
cafile
=/path/to/cert.pem- PEM encoded file containing CA certificates used for certificate validation.
capath
=/path/to/certs/- Directory containing PEM encoded CA certificates used for certificate validation. Such a directory can be prepared using the c_rehash script distributed with OpenSSL.
ciphers
=cipher_list- Specify the list of ciphers that will be used by
ftp
. See the openssl(1)ciphers
subcommand. depth
=max_depth- Maximum depth of the certificate chain allowed when performing validation.
do
- Perform server certificate validation.
dont
- Don't perform server certificate validation.
muststaple
- Require the server to present a valid OCSP stapling in the TLS handshake.
noverifytime
- Disable validation of certificate times and OCSP validation.
protocols
=protocol_list- Specify the TLS protocols that will be supported by
ftp
(see tls_config_parse_protocols(3) for details). session
=/path/to/session- Specify a file to use for TLS session data. If this file has a non-zero length, the session data will be read from this file and the client will attempt to resume the TLS session with the server. Upon completion of a successful TLS handshake this file will be updated with new session data, if available. This file will be created if it does not already exist.
By default, server certificate validation is performed, and if it fails
ftp
will abort. If nocafile
orcapath
setting is provided, /etc/ssl/cert.pem will be used. -s
sourceaddr- Set the source address for connections, which is useful on machines with multiple interfaces.
-t
- Enables packet tracing.
-U
useragent- Set useragent as the User-Agent for HTTP(S) URL requests. If not specified, the default User-Agent is “OpenBSD ftp”.
-V
- Disable verbose mode, overriding the default of enabled when input is from a terminal.
-v
- Enable verbose mode. This is the default if input is from a terminal.
Forces
ftp
to show all responses from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer statistics. -w
seconds- For URL format connections to HTTP/HTTPS servers, abort a slow connection after seconds.
The 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, the prompt “ftp>” is provided to the user. The
following commands are recognized by ftp
:
!
[command [arg ...]]- 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 [arg ...]- Execute the macro macro-name that was defined with
the
macdef
command. Arguments are passed to the macro unglobbed. ?
[command]- A synonym for
help
. account
[password]- 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
ornmap
setting. File transfer uses the current settings fortype
,format
,mode
, andstructure
. ascii
- Set the file transfer
type
to network ASCII. bell
[on
|off
]- 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. bye
- Terminate the FTP session with the remote server and exit
ftp
. An end-of-file will also terminate the session and exit. case
[on
|off
]- Toggle remote computer file name case mapping during
mget
commands. Whencase
is on (default is off), remote computer file names with all letters in upper case are written in the local directory with the letters mapped to lower case. cd
remote-directory- Change the working directory on the remote machine to remote-directory.
cdup
- Change the remote machine working directory to the parent of the current remote machine working directory.
chmod
mode file- Change the permission modes of file on the remote system to mode.
close
- Terminate the FTP session with the remote server and return to the command interpreter. Any defined macros are erased.
cr
[on
|off
]- 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 whencr
is off. debug
[on
|off
| debuglevel]- Toggle debugging mode. If an optional debuglevel 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 ‘-->
’. delete
remote-file- Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.
dir
[remote-directory [local-file]]- A synonym for
ls
. disconnect
- A synonym for
close
. edit
[on
|off
]- Toggle command line editing, and context sensitive command and file completion. This is automatically enabled if input is from a terminal, and disabled otherwise.
epsv4
[on
|off
]- Toggle use of EPSV/EPRT command on IPv4 connection.
exit
- A synonym for
bye
. form
format- Set the file transfer
form
to format. The default format is “file”. ftp
host [port]- A synonym for
open
. gate
[on
|off
| host [port]]- Toggle gate-ftp mode. This will not be permitted if the gate-ftp server
hasn't been set (either explicitly by the user, or from the
FTPSERVER
environment variable). If host is given, then gate-ftp mode will be enabled, and the gate-ftp server will be set to host. If port is also given, that will be used as the port to connect to on the gate-ftp server. 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
, andnmap
settings. The current settings fortype
,form
,mode
, andstructure
are used while transferring the file. glob
[on
|off
]- Toggle filename expansion for
mdelete
,mget
andmput
. If globbing is turned off withglob
, the file name arguments are taken literally and not expanded. Globbing formput
is done as in csh(1). Formdelete
andmget
, each remote file name is expanded separately on the remote machine and the lists are not merged. Expansion of a directory name is likely to be different from expansion of the name of an ordinary file: the exact result depends on the foreign operating system and FTP server, and can be previewed by doing “mls remote-files -”. Note:mget
andmput
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
[on
|off
| size]- Toggle hash mark (‘
#
’) printing for each data block transferred. The size of a data block defaults to 1024 bytes. This can be changed by specifying size in bytes. help
[command]- Print an informative message about the meaning of
command. If no argument is given,
ftp
prints a list of the known commands. idle
[seconds]- Set the inactivity timer on the remote server to seconds seconds. If seconds is omitted, the current inactivity timer is printed.
lcd
[local-directory]- Change the working directory on the local machine. If no local-directory is specified, the user's home directory is used.
less
file- A synonym for
page
. lpwd
- Print the working directory on the local machine.
ls
[remote-directory [local-file]]- Print a listing of the contents of a directory on the remote machine. The
listing includes any system-dependent information that the server chooses
to include; for example, most UNIX systems will
produce output from the command ‘
ls -l
’. If remote-directory is left unspecified, the current working directory is used. If interactive prompting is on,ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local file for receivingls
output. If no local file is specified, or if local-file is ‘-’, the output is sent to the terminal. macdef
macro-name- Define a macro. Subsequent lines are stored as the macro
macro-name; a null line (consecutive newline
characters in a file or carriage returns from the terminal) terminates
macro input mode. There is a limit of 16 macros and 4096 total characters
in all defined macros. Macro names can be a maximum of 8 characters.
Macros are only applicable to the current session they are defined in (or
if defined outside a session, to the session invoked with the next
open
command), and remain defined until aclose
command is executed. To invoke a macro, use the$
command (see above).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’ tells the 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- A synonym for
mls
. mget
[-cnr
] [-d
depth] remote-files- Expand the remote-files on the remote machine and do
a
get
for each file name thus produced. Seeglob
for details on the filename expansion. Resulting file names will then be processed according tocase
,ntrans
, andnmap
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
’.The options are as follows:
-c
- Use
reget
instead ofget
. -d
depth- Specify the maximum recursion level depth. The default is 0, which means unlimited.
-n
- Use
newer
instead ofget
. -r
- Recursively descend the directory tree, transferring all files and directories.
mkdir
directory-name- Make a directory on the remote machine.
mls
remote-files local-file- Like
ls
, 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 receivingmls
output. mode
[mode-name]- Set the file transfer
mode
to mode-name. The default mode is “stream” mode. modtime
file- Show the last modification time of file on the remote machine.
more
file- A synonym for
page
. mput
[-cr
] [-d
depth] 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. Seeglob
for details of filename expansion. Resulting file names will then be processed according tontrans
andnmap
settings.If the
-c
flag is specified then The options are as follows:-c
- Use
reput
instead ofput
. -d
depth- Specify the maximum recursion level depth. The default is 0, which means unlimited.
-r
- Recursively descend the directory tree, transferring all files and directories.
msend
[-c
] local-files- A synonym for
mput
. newer
remote-file [local-file]- Get the file only if the modification time of the remote file is more
recent than the file on the current system. If the file does not exist on
the current system, the remote file is considered
newer
. Otherwise, this command is identical to get. nlist
[remote-directory [local-file]]- Print a list of the files in a directory on the remote machine. If
remote-directory is left unspecified, the current
working directory is used. If interactive prompting is on,
ftp
will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local file for receivingnlist
output. If no local file is specified, or if local-file is ‘-’, the output is sent to the terminal. Note that on some servers, thenlist
command will only return information on normal files (not directories or special files). 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 andput
commands issued without a specified remote target filename. If arguments are specified, local filenames are mapped duringmget
commands andget
commands issued without a specified local target filename. This command is useful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices.The mapping follows the pattern set by inpattern and outpattern. inpattern is a template for incoming filenames (which may have already been processed according to the
ntrans
andcase
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 thenmap
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:nmap $1.$2.$3 [$1,$2].[$2,file]
This command 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 by quoting them, as in the following example:
nmap $1.$2 "$1 $2"
Use the ‘
\
’ character to prevent special treatment of the ‘$
’, ‘[
’, ‘]
’, and ‘,
’ characters. ntrans
[inchars [outchars]]- Set or unset the filename character translation mechanism. If no arguments
are specified, the filename character translation mechanism is unset. If
arguments are specified, characters in remote filenames are translated
during
mput
commands andput
commands issued without a specified remote target filename. If arguments are specified, characters in local filenames are translated duringmget
commands andget
commands issued without a specified local target filename. This command is useful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices. Characters in a filename matching a character in inchars are replaced with the corresponding character in outchars. If the character's position in inchars is longer than the length of outchars, the character is deleted from the file name. open
host [port]- Establish a connection to the specified 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 theauto-login
option is on (default),ftp
will also attempt to automatically log the user in to the FTP server (see below). page
file- Retrieve
file
and display with the program defined inPAGER
(defaulting to more(1) ifPAGER
is null or not defined). passive
[on
|off
]- Toggle passive mode. If passive mode is turned on (default is on),
ftp
will send aEPSV
command for all data connections instead of the usualPORT
command. ThePASV
command requests that the remote server open a port for the data connection and return the address of that port. The remote server listens on that port and the client connects to it. When using the more traditionalPORT
command, the client listens on a port and sends that address to the remote server, who connects back to it. Passive mode is useful when usingftp
through a gateway router or host that controls the directionality of traffic. (Note that though FTP servers are required to support thePASV
command by RFC 1123, some do not.) preserve
[on
|off
]- Toggle preservation of modification times on retrieved files.
progress
[on
|off
]- Toggle display of transfer progress bar. The progress bar will be disabled for a transfer that has local-file as ‘-’ or a command that starts with ‘|’. Refer to FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS for more information.
prompt
[on
|off
]- 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
ormput
will transfer all files, and anymdelete
will delete all files.When prompting is on, the following commands are available at a prompt:
?
- Print help message.
a
- Answer “yes” to the current file and automatically answer “yes” to any remaining files for the current command.
n
- Do not transfer the file.
p
- Answer “yes” to the current file and turn off prompt mode (as if “prompt off” had been given).
q
- Answer “no” to the current file and automatically answer “no” to any remaining files for the current command.
y
- Transfer the file.
proxy
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 anopen
, to establish the secondary control connection. Enter the commandproxy ?
to see other FTP commands executable on the secondary connection. The following commands behave differently when prefaced byproxy
:open
will not define new macros during the auto-login process;close
will not erase existing macro definitions;get
andmget
transfer files from the host on the primary control connection to the host on the secondary control connection; andput
,mput
, andappend
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 protocolPASV
command by the server on the secondary control connection. put
local-file [remote-file]- Store a local file on the remote machine. If
remote-file is left unspecified, the local file name
is used after processing according to any
ntrans
ornmap
settings in naming the remote file. File transfer uses the current settings fortype
,format
,mode
, andstructure
. pwd
- Print the name of the current working directory on the remote machine.
quit
- A synonym for
bye
. quote
arg ...- The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server.
recv
remote-file [local-file]- A synonym for
get
. reget
remote-file [local-file]- Reget acts like get, except that if local-file exists and is smaller than remote-file, local-file is presumed to be a partially transferred copy of remote-file and the transfer is continued from the apparent point of failure. This command is useful when transferring very large files over networks that are prone to dropping connections.
rename
from-name to-name- Rename the file from-name on the remote machine to the file to-name.
reput
local-file [remote-file]- Reput acts like put, except that if remote-file exists and is smaller than local-file, remote-file is presumed to be a partially transferred copy of local-file and the transfer is continued from the apparent point of failure. This command is useful when transferring very large files over networks that are prone to dropping connections.
reset
- Clear reply queue. This command re-synchronizes command/reply sequencing with the remote FTP server. Resynchronization may be necessary following a violation of the FTP protocol by the remote server.
restart
marker- Restart the immediately following
get
orput
at the indicated marker. On UNIX systems, marker is usually a byte offset into the file. 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]- With no arguments, show status of remote machine. If file is specified, show status of file on remote machine.
runique
[on
|off
]- 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
ormget
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 thatrunique
will not affect local files generated from a shell command (see below). The default value is off. send
local-file [remote-file]- A synonym for
put
. sendport
[on
|off
]- Toggle the use of
PORT
commands. By default,ftp
will attempt to use aPORT
command when establishing a connection for each data transfer. The use ofPORT
commands can prevent delays when performing multiple file transfers. If thePORT
command fails,ftp
will use the default data port. When the use ofPORT
commands is disabled, no attempt will be made to usePORT
commands for each data transfer. This is useful for certain FTP implementations which do ignorePORT
commands but, incorrectly, indicate they've been accepted. site
arg ...- The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server as a
SITE
command. size
file- Return size of file on remote machine.
status
- Show the current status of
ftp
. sunique
[on
|off
]- Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file names. The
remote FTP server must support the FTP protocol
STOU
command for successful completion. The remote server will report the unique name. Default value is off. system
- Show the type of operating system running on the remote machine.
trace
[on
|off
]- 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 “binary”. umask
[newmask]- Set the default umask on the remote server to newmask. If newmask is omitted, the current umask is printed.
user
username [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. Unlessftp
is invoked with “auto-login” disabled, this process is done automatically on initial connection to the FTP server. verbose
[on
|off
]- Toggle verbose mode. In verbose mode, all responses from the FTP server are displayed to the user. In addition, if verbose is on, when a file transfer completes, statistics regarding the efficiency of the transfer are reported. By default, verbose is on.
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with
quote (‘"
’) marks.
Commands which toggle settings can take an explicit
on
or off
argument to force
the setting appropriately.
If ftp
receives a
SIGINFO
(see the “status” argument of
stty(1)) signal whilst a transfer is in progress, the current
transfer rate statistics will be written to the standard error output, in
the same format as the standard completion message.
AUTO-FETCHING FILES
In addition to standard commands, this version of
ftp
supports an auto-fetch feature. To enable
auto-fetch, simply pass the list of hostnames/files on the command line.
The following formats are valid syntax for an auto-fetch element:
- host:/file[/]
- “Classic”
ftp
format. - ftp://[user:password@]host[:port]/file[/]
- An FTP URL, retrieved using the FTP protocol if
ftp_proxy
isn't defined. Otherwise, transfer using HTTP via the proxy defined inftp_proxy
. If a user and password are given andftp_proxy
isn't defined, log in as user with a password of password. - http://[user:password@]host[:port]/file
- An HTTP URL, retrieved using the HTTP protocol. If
http_proxy
is defined, it is used as a URL to an HTTP proxy server. If a user and password are given andhttp_proxy
isn't defined, log in as user with a password of password using Basic authentication. - https://[user:password@]host[:port]/file
- An HTTPS URL, retrieved using the HTTPS protocol. If
http_proxy
is defined, this HTTPS proxy server will be used to fetch the file using the CONNECT method. If a user and password are given andhttp_proxy
isn't defined, log in as user with a password of password using Basic authentication. - file:file
- file is retrieved from a mounted file system.
If a classic format or an FTP URL format has a trailing
‘/’, then ftp
will connect to the site
and cd
to the directory given as the path, and leave
the user in interactive mode ready for further input.
If file contains a glob character and
globbing is enabled (see glob
), then the equivalent
of mget
file is performed.
If no -o
option is specified, and the
directory component of file contains no globbing
characters, then it is stored in the current directory as the
basename(1) of file. If
-o
output is specified, then
file is stored as output.
Otherwise, the remote name is used as the local name.
ABORTING A FILE TRANSFER
To abort a file transfer, use the terminal interrupt key (usually
Ctrl-C). Sending transfers will be immediately halted. Receiving transfers
will be halted by sending 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
Files specified as arguments to ftp
commands are processed according to the following rules.
- If ‘-’ is specified as a local file name, the standard input (for reading) or standard output (for writing) is used.
- If the first character of a local file name is ‘|’, the
remainder of the argument is interpreted as a shell command.
ftp
then forks a shell, using popen(3) with the argument supplied, and reads (writes) from the standard output (standard input). If the shell command includes spaces, the argument must be quoted; e.g., "ls -lt". A particularly useful example of this mechanism is: "ls . |more". - Failing the above checks, if “globbing” is enabled, local
file names are expanded according to the rules used in the
csh(1)
glob
command. If theftp
command expects a single local file (e.g.,put
), only the first filename generated by the “globbing” operation is used. - For
mget
commands andget
commands with unspecified local file names, the local filename is the remote filename, which may be altered by acase
,ntrans
, ornmap
setting. The resulting filename may then be altered ifrunique
is on. - For
mput
commands andput
commands with unspecified remote file names, the remote filename is the local filename, which may be altered by antrans
ornmap
setting. The resulting filename may then be altered by the remote server ifsunique
is on.
FILE TRANSFER PARAMETERS
The FTP specification specifies many parameters which may affect a
file transfer. The type
may be one of
“ascii”, “binary”, or “image”.
ftp
supports the ASCII and image types of file
transfer.
ftp
supports only the default values for
the remaining file transfer parameters: mode
,
form
, and struct
.
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. The following tokens are recognized; they may be separated by spaces, tabs, or new-lines:
machine
name- Identify a remote machine name. The auto-login
process searches the .netrc file for a
machine
token that matches the remote machine specified on theftp
command line or as anopen
command argument. Once a match is made, the subsequent .netrc tokens are processed, stopping when the end of file is reached or anothermachine
or adefault
token is encountered. default
- This is the same as
machine
name except thatdefault
matches any name. There can be only onedefault
token, and it must be after allmachine
tokens. This is normally used as:default login anonymous password user@site
thereby giving the user automatic anonymous FTP login to machines not specified in .netrc. This can be overridden by using the
-n
flag to disable auto-login. login
name- Identify a user on the remote machine. If this token is present, the auto-login 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 for any user other than
anonymous,
ftp
will abort the auto-login process if the .netrc is readable by anyone besides the user. account
string- Supply an additional account password. If this token is present, the
auto-login process will supply the specified string if the remote server
requires an additional account password, or the auto-login process will
initiate an
ACCT
command if it does not. macdef
name- Define a macro. This token functions like the
ftp
macdef
command functions. A macro is defined with the specified name; its contents begin with the next .netrc line and continue until a null line (consecutive new-line characters) is encountered. Like the other tokens in the .netrc file, amacdef
is applicable only to themachine
definition preceding it. Amacdef
entry cannot be utilized by multiplemachine
definitions; rather, it must be defined following eachmachine
it is intended to be used with. If a macro namedinit
is defined, it is automatically executed as the last step in the auto-login process.
COMMAND LINE EDITING
ftp
supports interactive command line
editing, via the
editline(3) library. It is enabled with the
edit
command, and is enabled by default if input is
from a tty. Previous lines can be recalled and edited with the arrow keys,
and other GNU Emacs-style editing keys may be used as well.
The editline(3) library is configured with a .editrc file - refer to editrc(5) for more information.
An extra key binding is available to ftp
to provide context sensitive command and filename completion (including
remote file completion). To use this, bind a key to the
editline(3) command ftp-complete
. By default,
this is bound to the TAB key.
ENVIRONMENT
ftp
utilizes the following environment
variables:
FTPMODE
- Overrides the default operation mode. Recognized values are:
- passive
- passive mode FTP only
- active
- active mode FTP only
- auto
- automatic determination of passive or active (this is the default)
- gate
- gate-ftp mode
FTPSERVER
- Host to use as gate-ftp server when
gate
is enabled. FTPSERVERPORT
- Port to use when connecting to gate-ftp server when
gate
is enabled. Default is port returned by agetservbyname
() lookup of “ftpgate/tcp”. HOME
- For default location of a .netrc file, if one exists.
PAGER
- Used by
page
to display files. SHELL
- For default shell.
ftp_proxy
- URL of FTP proxy to use when making FTP URL requests (if not defined, use the standard FTP protocol).
http_proxy
- URL of HTTP proxy to use when making HTTP or HTTPS URL requests.
- Path of a Netscape-like cookiejar file to use when making HTTP or HTTPS URL requests.
PORT ALLOCATION
For active mode data connections, ftp
will
listen to a random high TCP port. The interval of ports used are
configurable using
sysctl(8) variables net.inet.ip.porthifirst and
net.inet.ip.porthilast.
SEE ALSO
basename(1), csh(1), more(1), stty(1), tar(1), tftp(1), editline(3), getservbyname(3), popen(3), editrc(5), services(5), ftp-proxy(8), ftpd(8)
STANDARDS
J. Postel and J. Reynolds, FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL (FTP), RFC 959, October 1985.
P. Hethmon, Extensions to FTP, RFC 3659, March 2007.
HISTORY
The ftp
command appeared in
4.2BSD.
BUGS
Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior by the remote server.
In the recursive mode of mget
, files and
directories starting with whitespace are ignored because the list cannot be
parsed any other way.