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file transfer program
is the user interface to the 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.
Use passive mode for data transfers. Allows use of ftp in environments
where a firewall prevents connections from the outside world back to the
client machine. Requires that the ftp server support the PASV command. This
is the default if invoked as Turns off interactive prompting during multiple
file transfers. Restrains from attempting qauto-loginRq upon initial connection.
If auto-login is enabled, will check the (see file in the user’s home
directory for an entry describing an account on the remote machine. If no
entry exists, 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. Disables command editing
and history support, if it was compiled into the executable. Otherwise,
does nothing. Disables file name globbing. Verbose option forces to show
all responses from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer
statistics. Enables debugging. The client host with which is to communicate
may be specified on the command line. If this is done, will immediately
attempt to establish a connection to an server on that host; otherwise,
will enter its command interpreter and await instructions from the user.
When is awaiting commands from the user the prompt is provided to the
user. The following commands are recognized by 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. Execute the macro that was defined with the command. Arguments
are passed to the macro unglobbed. 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 a local file to a file
on the remote machine. If is left unspecified, the local file name is used
in naming the remote file after being altered by any or setting. File
transfer uses the current settings for and Set the file transfer
to network This is the default type. Arrange that a bell be sounded after
each file transfer command is completed. Set the file transfer to support
binary image transfer. Terminate the session with the remote server and
exit An end of file will also terminate the session and exit. Toggle remote
computer file name case mapping during commands. When 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. Change the
working directory on the remote machine to Change the remote machine
working directory to the parent of the current remote machine working directory.
Change the permission modes of the file on the remote sytem to Terminate
the session with the remote server, and return to the command interpreter.
Any defined macros are erased. Toggle carriage return stripping during
ascii type file retrieval. Records are denoted by a carriage return/linefeed
sequence during ascii type file transfer. When is on (the default), carriage
returns are stripped from this sequence to conform with the single linefeed
record delimiter. Records on remote systems may contain single linefeeds;
when an ascii type transfer is made, these linefeeds may be distinguished
from a record delimiter only when is off. Delete the file on the remote
machine. Toggle debugging mode. If an optional is specified it is used
to set the debugging level. When debugging is on, prints each command sent
to the remote machine, preceded by the string Print a listing of
the directory contents in the directory, and, optionally, placing the
output in If interactive prompting is on, will prompt the user to verify
that the last argument is indeed the target local file for receiving output.
If no directory is specified, the current working directory on the remote
machine is used. If no local file is specified, or is output comes to
the terminal. A synonym for Set the file transfer to The default format
is qfileRq. Retrieve the 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 and settings. The current
settings for and are used while transferring the file. Toggle filename
expansion for and If globbing is turned off with the file name arguments
are taken literally and not expanded. Globbing for is done as in For
and 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 Note: and are not meant to transfer entire directory
subtrees of files. That can be done by transferring a archive of the subtree
(in binary mode). Toggle hash-sign (‘‘#’’) printing for each data block transferred.
The size of a data block is 1024 bytes. Print an informative message about
the meaning of If no argument is given, prints a list of the known commands.
Set the inactivity timer on the remote server to seconds. If is ommitted,
the current inactivity timer is printed. Change the working directory on
the local machine. If no is specified, the user’s home directory is used.
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 systems will produce output from the command
(See also If is left unspecified, the current working directory is used.
If interactive prompting is on, will prompt the user to verify that the
last argument is indeed the target local file for receiving output. If
no local file is specified, or if is the output is sent to the terminal.
Define a macro. Subsequent lines are stored as the macro 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 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 ‘$’. Delete the on the remote machine. Like except multiple remote
files may be specified. If interactive prompting is on, will prompt the
user to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local file for
receiving output. Expand the on the remote machine and do a for each
file name thus produced. See for details on the filename expansion. Resulting
file names will then be processed according to and settings. Files are
transferred into the local working directory, which can be changed with
new local directories can be created with Make a directory on the remote
machine. Like except multiple remote files may be specified, and the
must be specified. If interactive prompting is on, will prompt the user
to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local file for receiving
output. Set the file transfer to The default mode is qstreamRq mode.
Show the last modification time of the file on the remote machine. Expand
wild cards in the list of local files given as arguments and do a for
each file in the resulting list. See for details of filename expansion.
Resulting file names will then be processed according to and settings.
Get the file only if the modification time of the remote file is more
recent that the file on the current system. If the file does not exist on
the current system, the remote file is considered Otherwise, this command
is identical to Print a list of the files in a directory on the
remote machine. If is left unspecified, the current working directory is
used. If interactive prompting is on, will prompt the user to verify that
the last argument is indeed the target local file for receiving output.
If no local file is specified, or if is the output is sent to the terminal.
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 commands and commands issued without a specified
remote target filename. If arguments are specified, local filenames are
mapped during commands and commands issued without a specified local
target filename. This command is useful when connecting to a remote computer
with different file naming conventions or practices. The mapping follows
the pattern set by and is a template for incoming filenames (which may
have already been processed according to the and settings). Variable templating
is accomplished by including the sequences ‘$1’, ‘$2’, ..., ‘$9’ in Use ‘\’ to prevent
this special treatment of the ‘$’ character. All other characters are treated
literally, and are used to determine the variable values. For example,
given $1.$2 and the remote file name "mydata.data", $1 would have the value
"mydata", and $2 would have the value "data". The determines the resulting
mapped filename. The sequences ‘$1’, ‘$2’, ...., ‘$9’ are replaced by any value resulting
from the template. The sequence ‘$0’ is replace by the original filename.
Additionally, the sequence is replaced by if is not a null string; otherwise
it is replaced by 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
as in the example: ‘nmap $1 sed "s/ *$//" > $1’ . Use the ‘\’ character to prevent
special treatment of the ‘$’,’[’,’[’, and ‘,’ characters. 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 commands and commands issued
without a specified remote target filename. If arguments are specified,
characters in local filenames are translated during commands and commands
issued without a specified local target filename. This command is useful
when connecting to a remote computer with different file naming conventions
or practices. Characters in a filename matching a character in are replaced
with the corresponding character in If the character’s position in is
longer than the length of the character is deleted from the file name.
Establish a connection to the specified server. An optional port number
may be supplied, in which case, will attempt to contact an server at
that port. If the option is on (default), will also attempt to automatically
log the user in to the server (see below). 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 or will transfer all files, and any will delete
all files. 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 command should be an 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 will not define new macros during
the auto-login process, will not erase existing macro definitions, and
transfer files from the host on the primary control connection to the
host on the secondary control connection, and and 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 command by the server on the secondary control connection.
Store a local file on the remote machine. If is left unspecified, the
local file name is used after processing according to any or settings
in naming the remote file. File transfer uses the current settings for
and Print the name of the current working directory on the remote machine.
A synonym for The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
server. A synonym for get. Reget acts like get, except that if exists
and is smaller than is presumed to be a partially transferred copy of
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. Request help from the remote server.
If a is specified it is supplied to the server as well. With no arguments,
show status of remote machine. If is specified, show status of on remote
machine. Rename the file on the remote machine, to the file 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 the immediately following
or at the indicated On systems, marker is usually a byte offset into
the file. Delete a directory on the remote machine. 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 or 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 will not affect
local files generated from a shell command (see below). The default value
is off. A synonym for put. Toggle the use of commands. By default, will
attempt to use a command when establishing a connection for each data
transfer. The use of commands can prevent delays when performing multiple
file transfers. If the command fails, will use the default data port. When
the use of commands is disabled, no attempt will be made to use commands
for each data transfer. This is useful for certain implementations which
do ignore commands but, incorrectly, indicate they’ve been accepted. The
arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote server as a command.
Return size of on remote machine. Show the current status of Set the
file transfer to By default qstreamRq structure is used. Toggle storing
of files on remote machine under unique file names. Remote ftp server must
support ftp protocol command for successful completion. The remote server
will report unique name. Default value is off. Show the type of operating
system running on the remote machine. Set the file transfer type to that
needed to talk to machines. Toggle packet tracing. Set the file transfer
to If no type is specified, the current type is printed. The default type
is network Set the default umask on the remote server to If is ommitted,
the current umask is printed. Identify yourself to the remote server.
If the is not specified and the server requires it, will prompt the user
for it (after disabling local echo). If an field is not specified, and
the server requires it, the user will be prompted for it. If an 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 is invoked with qauto-loginRq disabled, this process
is done automatically on initial connection to the server. Toggle verbose
mode. In verbose mode, all responses from the 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. A synonym for help. Command arguments which have embedded spaces
may be quoted with quote ‘"’ marks.
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 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 processing. If the remote server does not support
the command, an prompt will not appear until the remote server has completed
sending the requested file. The terminal interrupt key sequence will be
ignored when 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 program must be killed by hand.
Files specified as arguments to commands are processed
according to the following rules. If the file name is specified, the
(for reading) or (for writing) is used. If the first character of the
file name is the remainder of the argument is interpreted as a shell command.
then forks a shell, using with the argument supplied, and reads (writes)
from the stdout (stdin). If the shell command includes spaces, the argument
must be quoted; e.g. q" ls -lt"Rq. A particularly useful example of this mechanism
is: qdir moreRq. Failing the above checks, if ‘‘globbing’’ is enabled, local
file names are expanded according to the rules used in the c.f. the command.
If the command expects a single local file (.e.g. only the first filename
generated by the "globbing" operation is used. For commands and commands
with unspecified local file names, the local filename is the remote filename,
which may be altered by a or setting. The resulting filename may then
be altered if is on. For commands and commands with unspecified remote
file names, the remote filename is the local filename, which may be altered
by a or setting. The resulting filename may then be altered by the remote
server if is on.
FILE TRANSFER PARAMETERS
The FTP specification specifies
many parameters which may affect a file transfer. The may be one of qasciiRq,
qimageRq (binary), qebcdicRq, and qlocal byte sizeRq (for and mostly).
supports the ascii and image types of file transfer, plus local byte size
8 for mode transfers. supports only the default values for the remaining
file transfer parameters: and
ENVIRONMENT
utilizes the following environment
variables. For default location of a file, if one exists. For default
shell.
RFC 959
The command appeared in
Correct execution
of many commands depends upon proper behavior by the remote server. An
error in the treatment of carriage returns in the ascii-mode transfer code
has been corrected. This correction may result in incorrect transfers of
binary files to and from servers using the ascii type. Avoid this problem
by using the binary image type.
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