FTP

An old protocol for file transfers.

You shouldn't use this normally, except some companies may use it for anonymous uploads for vendor support cases, eg. Informatica.

• FTP Clients
  • GUI
  • Command Line
• FTP Servers
• FTP Client Commands
  • Example

FTP Clients

GUI

• Filezilla
• CyberDuck

Command Line

The ftp command is provided by several packages

• GNU inetutils
  • on Mac brew install inetutils
• lftp - more sophisticated - bookmarking, tab completion can transfer several files in parallel
  • on Mac brew install lftp
• ncftp - - more sophisticated - bookmarking, tab completion can transfer several files in parallel
  • on Mac brew install inetutils
• curl - curl -u user:password ftp://ftp.example.com/file.txt -O
  • built-in on Mac, usually the curl package on most Linux distributions
• tnftp

FTP Servers

• vsftpd
• proftpd

FTP Client Commands

Usually as simple as:

ftp <host.domain.com>

and then using a series of FTP commands to put or get files inside the FTP shell.

Many of these will be familiar to unix command line users.

Command	Description
open	connect to an ftp server eg. open <host.domain.com>. Usually you don't need to do this if starting ftp <host.domain.com>
login	login if not using anonymous FTP. Enter username and password when prompted
ls	list directory contents
dir	list directory contents with more details like file sizes
mkdir	Creates a directory on the remote server eg. mkdir my_new_directory
cd	change to a directory
lcd	change to a local directory on your machine
get	download a file from the remote server to the local machine eg. get filename.txt
mget	download multiple files from the remote server eg. get *.txt
put	upload a file from the local machine to the remote server eg. put filename.txt
mput	upload multiple files to the remote server eg. put *.txt
delete	deletes a file on the remote server eg. delete filename.txt
rmdir	delete a directory on the remote server eg. rmdir my_new_directory
pwd	display the current directory on the remote server
lpwd	display the current local directory on your machine
ascii	switch the transfer mode to ASCII (useful for text files)
binary	switch the transfer mode to binary (useful for non-text files like images, videos or .tar.gz tarballs)
quit / bye	logs out and end the FTP session
prompt	toggles interactive mode on/off, which asks for confirmation before performing multiple operations (like mget and mput)
rename	rename a file on the remote FTP server eg. rename oldname.txt newname.txt
chmod	change the permissions of a file on the remote server (if supported) eg. chmod 755 script.sh
status	shows the current status of your FTP session
hash	toggle hash-mark printing (#) for file transfers to show progress
!	execute a command on the local machine without leaving the FTP session eg. ! ls to list local directory files to see filenames to transfer
quote	send an arbitrary command to the remote FTP server eg. quote SITE CHMOD 755 filename.txt
passive	toggle passive mode on/off to work around network issues connecting

Example

Install lftp on Mac:

brew install lftp

lftp tsftp.informatica.com