FTP(1)

🌈 ftp(1) — Internet file transfer program 🌈

okay so this is ftp(1), straight out of the General Commands Manual, and it's literally the user interface to the Internet standard File Transfer Protocol. Bestie, it lets you transfer files to and from a remote network site, no cap. 💖

🦋 NAME 🦋

ftp — Internet file transfer program

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ftp [-pinegvd] [host]
pftp [-inegvd] [host]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

Ftp is the user interface to the Internet standard File Transfer Protocol. The program allows a user to transfer files to and from a remote network site. 🫶

Options may be specified at the command line, or to the command interpreter.

🎚️ command-line options

• -p — Use passive mode for data transfers. This allows use of ftp in environments where a firewall prevents connections from the outside world back to the client machine. It requires that the ftp server support the PASV command. This is the default if invoked as pftp.
• -i — Turns off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers.
• -n — Restrains ftp from attempting “auto-login” upon initial connection. If auto-login is enabled, ftp will check the .netrc (see netrc(5)) 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 local machine), and, if necessary, prompt for a password and an account with which to login.
• -e — Disables command editing and history support, if it was compiled into the ftp executable. Otherwise, does nothing.
• -g — Disables file name globbing.
• -v — Verbose option forces ftp to show all responses from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer statistics.
• -d — Enables debugging.

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 provided to the user. The following commands are recognized by ftp: 🌸

🗣️ commands

• ! [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 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 or nmap setting. File transfer uses the current settings for type, format, mode, and 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.
• 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 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.
• chmod mode file-name — Change the permission modes of the file file-name on the remote sytem to mode.
• 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 directory remote-directory, and, optionally, placing the output in local-file. If interactive prompting is on, ftp will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local file for receiving dir output. 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 comes to the terminal.
• disconnect — A synonym for close.
• form format — Set the file transfer form to format. The default format is "file".
• 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 type, form, mode, and structure are used while transferring the file.
• glob — Toggle filename expansion for mdelete, mget and mput. If globbing is turned off with glob, the file name arguments are taken literally and not expanded. Globbing for mput is done as in csh(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 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 and mput 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 — 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 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 ommitted, the current inactivity timer is printed.
• 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 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. (See also nlist.) 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 receiving ls 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. 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

Makes a directory on the remote machine. That's it, that's the whole vibe ✨

mls remote-files local-file

Basically nlist's chaotic sibling — except you can name multiple remote files, and local-file is mandatory, no skipping it 🫶. If interactive prompting is on, ftp will prompt you to verify that the last argument really is the target local file for receiving mls output.

mode [mode-name]

Sets the file transfer mode to mode-name. The default is stream mode. Classic, iconic, does the job 💅

modtime file-name

Shows the last modification time of the file on the remote machine. Perfect for being nosy about when your friend last touched the file 👀

mput local-files

Expands wild cards in the list of local files you gave as arguments, then does a put for each file in the resulting list. Wanna know the details of filename expansion? See glob. The resulting file names then get processed according to your ntrans and nmap settings. Bulk uploads, we love to see it 🌈

newer file-name [local-file]

Grabs the file only if the modification time of the remote file is more recent than the file on the current system. And if the file doesn't exist on the current system at all? It's considered newer, so it comes on down. Otherwise, this command is literally identical to get. Lowkey the smartest way to avoid re-downloading stuff 💖

nlist [remote-directory] [local-file]

Prints a list of the files in a directory on the remote machine. Leave remote-directory unspecified and it uses the current working directory. If interactive prompting is on, ftp will prompt you to verify that the last argument indeed is the target local file for receiving nlist output. No local file specified, or local-file is -? The output goes straight to your terminal 🎀

nmap [inpattern outpattern]

Sets — or unsets — the filename mapping mechanism. No arguments = unset the whole thing, bye 👋

So here's the deal, bestie: with arguments, remote filenames get mapped during mput commands and put commands issued without a specified remote target filename. Local filenames get mapped during mget commands and get commands issued without a specified local target filename. This is genuinely useful when you're connecting to a non-Unix remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices. Different strokes for different hosts 💫

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 happens by including the sequences $1, $2, ..., $9 in inpattern. Use \ to prevent this special treatment of the $ character. Every other character is treated literally, and is used to determine the nmap inpattern variable values.

Example time, because this is giving "math class but make it fashion": 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". 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. (Yes, that apostrophe placement is cursed, but it's what the page says, so we keep it fr fr 💀)

ntrans [inchars [outchars]]

Sets — or unsets — the filename character translation mechanism. No arguments? Unset it, we're done here ✌️

With arguments, characters in remote filenames get translated during mput commands and put commands issued without a specified remote target filename. Characters in local filenames get translated during mget commands and get commands issued without a specified local target filename. Again: super handy when connecting to a non-Unix remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices. Look at us, being all cross-platform and cosmopolitan 🦋

Here's the mechanic: characters in a filename matching a character in inchars are replaced with the corresponding character in outchars. But if a character's position in inchars is longer than the length of outchars, that character is deleted from the filename. Poof. Gone. Not me deleting your letters 😭

open host [port]

Establishes a connection to the specified host FTP server. You can optionally hand it a port number, in which case ftp will attempt to contact an FTP server at that port. And if the auto-login option is on — which it is by default, bestie — ftp will also attempt to automatically log you in to the FTP server (see below). Main character energy: walks in, logs in, no questions 💅

prompt

Toggles interactive prompting. Interactive prompting happens during multiple file transfers so you can selectively retrieve or store files — like a bouncer for your file queue 🎟️. If prompting is turned off (default is on), any mget or mput will transfer all files, and any mdelete will delete all files. No take-backsies, no "wait not that one" 🙈

Careful with this one — turning prompting off means bulk operations commit to every single file. That's a lot of power in one little toggle.

proxy ftp-command

Executes an ftp command on a secondary control connection. Yes, we're doing side quests now 🌀 — this lets you hold simultaneous connections to two remote ftp servers so you can transfer files between the two of them. Very "I know a guy who knows a guy."

The first proxy command should be an open, to establish the secondary control connection. Wanna see what else you can run on that second connection? Type proxy ? and it'll show you the other ftp commands executable there.

Some 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
• 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. No PASV, no party 🎉

put local-file [remote-file]

Stores a local file on the remote machine. Leave remote-file unspecified and the local file name gets used — after processing according to any ntrans or nmap settings — when naming the remote file. File transfer uses the current settings for type, format, mode, and structure. Consistent queen 👑

pwd

Prints the name of the current working directory on the remote machine. Where even am I? Now you know 🌸

quit

A synonym for bye. Short, sweet, exit stage left 🚪

quote arg1 arg2 ...

The arguments you specify are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server. No filtering, no editing, no vibes check — just raw 🫡

recv remote-file [local-file]

A synonym for get. Same thing, different name, both iconic 💖

reget remote-file [local-file]

reget acts like get, except with a little trick up its sleeve: if local-file exists and is smaller than remote-file, then 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 is genuinely the save of the century when you're transferring very large files over networks that are prone to dropping connections. Wi-Fi said "not today" and reget said "bet" 🔥

remotehelp [command-name]

Requests help from the remote FTP server. Give it a command-name and that gets supplied to the server as well. Asking the remote politely, as one does 🎀

remotestatus [file-name]

No arguments? Shows the status of the remote machine. Give it a file-name and it shows the status of file-name on the remote machine. Receipts, but for files 👑

rename [from] [to]

Renames the file from on the remote machine, to the file to. Glow-up arc, but for a filename ✨

reset

Clears the 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 — i.e. when the server starts acting up and you need everybody back on the same page 🧘‍♀️

restart marker

Restarts the immediately following get or put at the indicated marker. On Unix systems, marker is usually a byte offset into the file. Pick up right where you left off, queen 💫

rmdir directory-name

Deletes a directory on the remote machine. Bye bestie, hope the directory had a good run 😭

runique

Toggles storing of files on the local system with unique filenames. Here's how it goes: if a file already exists with a name equal to the target local filename for a get or mget command, a ".1" gets appended to the name. If that resulting name matches another existing file too, a ".2" gets appended to the original name. And if this process keeps going all the way up to ".99"? An error message is printed, and the transfer does not take place. Brutal but fair 💀

The generated unique filename will be reported to you, so you're never left guessing. One caveat though: runique 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. Yes, another one. The Unix philosophy is "why have one name when three will do" 😌

sendport

Toggles the use of PORT commands. By default, ftp will attempt to use a PORT command when establishing a connection for each data transfer. Using PORT commands can prevent delays when you're doing multiple file transfers — efficiency, we stan 🚀

If the PORT command fails, ftp falls back to the default data port. And when the use of PORT commands is disabled entirely, no attempt will be made to use PORT commands for each data transfer. This matters for certain FTP implementations which do ignore PORT commands but, incorrectly, indicate they've been accepted. Rude and misleading, honestly 🙄

site arg1 arg2 ...

The arguments you specify are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server as a SITE command. Server-specific goodies, hand-delivered 🎁

• size file-name — returns the size of file-name on the remote machine. 📏
• status — shows the current status of ftp.
• struct [struct-name] — sets the file transfer structure to struct-name. By default the stream structure is used.
• sunique — toggles storing files on the remote machine under unique file names. The remote ftp server must support the ftp protocol STOU command for this to work. The remote server will report the unique name. Default value is off.
• system — shows the type of operating system running on the remote machine. 🖥️
• tenex — sets the file transfer type to the one needed to talk to TENEX machines.
• trace — toggles packet tracing.
• type [type-name] — sets the file transfer type to type-name. If no type is specified, the current type is printed. The default type is network ASCII.
• umask [newmask] — sets the default umask on the remote server to newmask. If newmask is omitted, the current umask is printed.
• user user-name [password] [account] — identifies you 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 is 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.
• verbose — toggles verbose mode. In verbose mode, all responses from the FTP server are displayed to the user. Also, if verbose is on, when a file transfer completes, statistics about the efficiency of the transfer are reported. By default, verbose is on.
• ? [command] — a synonym for help.

Command arguments with embedded spaces may be quoted with quote `"' marks.

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🛑 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 on 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 these rules:

1. If the file name - is specified, stdin (for reading) or stdout (for writing) is used.
2. If the first character of the file name is |, the rest 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 stdout (stdin). If the shell command includes spaces, the argument must be quoted; e.g. " ls -lt". A particularly useful example of this mechanism is: dir more.
3. If the above checks fail, and if globbing is enabled, local file names are expanded according to the rules used in csh(1); c.f. the glob command. If the ftp command expects a single local file (e.g. 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 that may affect a file transfer. The type may be one of ascii, image (binary), ebcdic, and “local byte size” (mostly for PDP-10's and PDP-20's). 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.

🌍 ENVIRONMENT 🌍

ftp utilizes these environment variables:

• HOME — for the default location of a .netrc file, if one exists.
• SHELL — for the default shell.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

ftpd(8), RFC 959

📜 HISTORY 📜

The ftp command appeared in 4.2BSD.

🐛 BUGS 🐛

Correct execution of many commands depends on proper behavior by the remote server.

An error in the treatment of carriage returns in the 4.2BSD ascii-mode transfer code has been corrected. This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary files to and from 4.2BSD servers using the ascii type. Avoid this problem by using the binary image type. 🫶

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Source/version vibes: Linux NetKit (0.17), page date: August 15, 1999. That’s the FTP(1) lore, bestie — bye and FTP responsibly 💅✨