ftp.1

UNIX FTP client

commands and
.Ic get
commands issued without a specified local target filename.
This command is useful when connecting to a
.No non\- Ns Ux
remote computer
with different file naming conventions or practices.
Characters in a filename matching a character in
.Ar inchars
are replaced with the corresponding character in
.Ar outchars  .
If the character's position in
.Ar inchars
is longer than the length of
.Ar outchars  ,
the character is deleted from the file name.
.It Ic open Ar host Op Ar port
Establish a connection to the specified
.Ar host
.Tn FTP
server.
An optional port number may be supplied,
in which case,
.Nm ftp
will attempt to contact an
.Tn FTP
server at that port.
If the
.Ic auto-login
option is on (default),
.Nm ftp
will also attempt to automatically log the user in to
the
.Tn FTP
server (see below).
.It Ic 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
.Ic mget
or
.Ic mput
will transfer all files, and any
.Ic mdelete
will delete all files.
.It Ic proxy Ar 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
.Ic proxy
command should be an
.Ic 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
.Ic proxy  :
.Ic open
will not define new macros during the auto-login process,
.Ic close
will not erase existing macro definitions,
.Ic get
and
.Ic mget
transfer files from the host on the primary control connection
to the host on the secondary control connection, and
.Ic put  ,
.Ic mput ,
and
.Ic 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
.Dv PASV
command by the server on the secondary control connection.
.It Ic put Ar local-file Op Ar remote-file
Store a local file on the remote machine.
If
.Ar remote-file
is left unspecified, the local file name is used
after processing according to any
.Ic ntrans
or
.Ic nmap
settings
in naming the remote file.
File transfer uses the
current settings for
.Ic type  ,
.Ic format ,
.Ic mode  ,
and
.Ic structure  .
.It Ic pwd
Print the name of the current working directory on the remote
machine.
.It Ic quit
A synonym for
.Ic bye  .
.It Ic quote Ar arg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
.Tn FTP
server.
.It Ic recv Ar remote-file Op Ar local-file
A synonym for get.
.It Ic reget Ar remote-file Op Ar local-file
Reget acts like get, except that if
.Ar local-file
exists and is
smaller than
.Ar remote-file  ,
.Ar local-file
is presumed to be
a partially transferred copy of
.Ar 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.
.It Ic remotehelp Op Ar command-name
Request help from the remote
.Tn FTP
server.
If a
.Ar command-name
is specified it is supplied to the server as well.
.It Ic remotestatus Op Ar file-name
With no arguments, show status of remote machine.
If
.Ar file-name
is specified, show status of
.Ar file-name
on remote machine.
.It Xo
.Ic rename
.Op Ar from
.Op Ar to
.Xc
Rename the file
.Ar from
on the remote machine, to the file
.Ar to  .
.It Ic 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.
.It Ic restart Ar marker
Restart the immediately following
.Ic get
or
.Ic put
at the
indicated
.Ar marker  .
On
.Ux
systems, marker is usually a byte
offset into the file.
.It Ic rmdir Ar directory-name
Delete a directory on the remote machine.
.It Ic 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
.Ic get
or
.Ic 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
.Ic runique
will not affect local files generated from a shell command
(see below).
The default value is off.
.It Ic send Ar local-file Op Ar remote-file
A synonym for put.
.It Ic sendport
Toggle the use of
.Dv PORT
commands.
By default,
.Nm ftp
will attempt to use a
.Dv PORT
command when establishing
a connection for each data transfer.
The use of
.Dv PORT
commands can prevent delays
when performing multiple file transfers.
If the
.Dv PORT
command fails,
.Nm ftp
will use the default data port.
When the use of
.Dv PORT
commands is disabled, no attempt will be made to use
.Dv PORT
commands for each data transfer.
This is useful
for certain
.Tn FTP
implementations which do ignore
.Dv PORT
commands but, incorrectly, indicate they've been accepted.
.It Ic site Ar arg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
.Tn FTP
server as a
.Dv SITE
command.
.It Ic size Ar file-name
Return size of
.Ar file-name
on remote machine.
.It Ic status
Show the current status of
.Nm ftp  .
.It Ic struct Op Ar struct-name
Set the file transfer
.Ar structure
to
.Ar struct-name .
By default \*(Lqstream\*(Rq structure is used.
.It Ic sunique
Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file names.
Remote ftp server must support ftp protocol
.Dv STOU
command for
successful completion.
The remote server will report unique name.
Default value is off.
.It Ic system
Show the type of operating system running on the remote machine.
.It Ic tenex
Set the file transfer type to that needed to
talk to
.Tn TENEX
machines.
.It Ic trace
Toggle packet tracing.
.It Ic type Op Ar type-name
Set the file transfer
.Ic type
to
.Ar type-name  .
If no type is specified, the current type
is printed.
The default type is network
.Tn ASCII .
.It Ic umask Op Ar newmask
Set the default umask on the remote server to
.Ar newmask  .
If
.Ar newmask
is ommitted, the current umask is printed.
.It Xo
.Ic user Ar user-name
.Op Ar password
.Op Ar account
.Xc
Identify yourself to the remote
.Tn FTP
server.
If the
.Ar password
is not specified and the server requires it,
.Nm ftp
will prompt the user for it (after disabling local echo).
If an
.Ar account
field is not specified, and the
.Tn FTP
server
requires it, the user will be prompted for it.
If an
.Ar 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
.Nm ftp
is invoked with \*(Lqauto-login\*(Rq disabled, this
process is done automatically on initial connection to
the
.Tn FTP
server.
.It Ic verbose
Toggle verbose mode.
In verbose mode, all responses from
the
.Tn 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.
.It Ic ? Op Ar command
A synonym for help.
.El
.Pp
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with
quote `"' marks.
.Sh 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 a ftp protocol
.Dv 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
.Dv ABOR
processing.
If the remote server does not support the
.Dv ABOR
command, an
.Ql ftp>
prompt will not appear until the remote server has completed
sending the requested file.
.Pp
The terminal interrupt key sequence will be ignored when
.Nm 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
.Nm ftp
program must be killed by hand.
.Sh FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS
Files specified as arguments to
.Nm ftp
commands are processed according to the following rules.
.Bl -enum
.It
If the file name
.Sq Fl
is specified, the
.Ar stdin
(for reading) or
.Ar stdout
(for writing) is used.
.It
If the first character of the file name is
.Sq \&| ,
the
remainder of the argument is interpreted as a shell command.
.Nm Ftp
then forks a shell, using
.Xr popen 3
with the argument supplied, and reads (writes) from the stdout
(stdin).
If the shell command includes spaces, the argument
must be quoted; e.g.
\*(Lq" ls -lt"\*(Rq.
A particularly
useful example of this mechanism is: \*(Lqdir more\*(Rq.
.It
Failing the above checks, if ``globbing'' is enabled,
local file names are expanded
according to the rules used in the
.Xr csh  1  ;
c.f. the
.Ic glob
command.
If the
.Nm ftp
command expects a single local file (.e.g.
.Ic put  ) ,
only the first filename generated by the "globbing" operation is used.
.It
For
.Ic mget
commands and
.Ic get
commands with unspecified local file names, the local filename is
the remote filename, which may be altered by a
.Ic case  ,
.Ic ntrans ,
or
.Ic nmap
setting.
The resulting filename may then be altered if
.Ic runique
is on.
.It
For
.Ic mput
commands and
.Ic put
commands with unspecified remote file names, the remote filename is
the local filename, which may be altered by a
.Ic ntrans
or
.Ic nmap
setting.
The resulting filename may then be altered by the remote server if
.Ic sunique
is on.
.El
.Sh FILE TRANSFER PARAMETERS
The FTP specification specifies many parameters which may
affect a file transfer.
The
.Ic type
may be one of \*(Lqascii\*(Rq, \*(Lqimage\*(Rq (binary),
\*(Lqebcdic\*(Rq, and \*(Lqlocal byte size\*(Rq (for
.Tn PDP Ns -10's
and
.Tn PDP Ns -20's
mostly).
.Nm Ftp
supports the ascii and image types of file transfer,
plus local byte size 8 for
.Ic tenex
mode transfers.
.Pp
.Nm Ftp
supports only the default values for the remaining
file transfer parameters:
.Ic mode  ,
.Ic form ,
and
.Ic struct  .
.Sh THE .netrc FILE
The
.Pa .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:
.Bl -tag -width password
.It Ic machine Ar name
Identify a remote machine
.Ar name .
The auto-login process searches the
.Pa .netrc
file for a
.Ic machine
token that matches the remote machine specified on the
.Nm ftp
command line or as an
.Ic open
command argument.
Once a match is made, the subsequent
.Pa .netrc
tokens are processed,
stopping when the end of file is reached or another
.Ic machine
or a
.Ic default
token is encountered.
.It Ic default
This is the same as
.Ic machine
.Ar name
except that
.Ic default
matches any name.
There can be only one
.Ic default
token, and it must be after all
.Ic machine
tokens.
This is normally used as:
.Pp
.Dl default login anonymous password user@site
.Pp
thereby giving the user
.Ar automatic
anonymous ftp login to
machines not specified in
.Pa .netrc .
This can be overridden
by using the
.Fl n
flag to disable auto-login.
.It Ic login Ar name
Identify a user on the remote machine.
If this token is present, the auto-login process will initiate
a login using the specified
.Ar name .
.It Ic password Ar 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
.Pa .netrc
file for any user other
than
.Ar anonymous  ,
.Nm ftp
will abort the auto-login process if the
.Pa .netrc
is readable by
anyone besides the user.
.It Ic account Ar 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
.Dv ACCT
command if it does not.
.It Ic macdef Ar name
Define a macro.
This token functions like the
.Nm ftp
.Ic macdef
command functions.
A macro is defined with the specified name; its contents begin with the
next
.Pa .netrc
line and continue until a null line (consecutive new-line
characters) is encountered.
If a macro named
.Ic init
is defined, it is automatically executed as the last step in the
auto-login process.
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Nm Ftp
utilizes the following environment variables.
.Bl -tag -width Fl
.It Ev HOME
For default location of a
.Pa .netrc
file, if one exists.
.It Ev SHELL
For default shell.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ftpd 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm ftp
command appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .
.Sh BUGS
Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior
by the remote server.
.Pp
An error in the treatment of carriage returns
in the
.Bx 4.2
ascii-mode transfer code
has been corrected.
This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary files
to and from
.Bx 4.2
servers using the ascii type.
Avoid this problem by using the binary image type.