Options may be specified at the command line, or to the command interpreter.
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 is provided to the user. The following commands are recognized by ftp :
Ic ! Op Ar command Op Ar 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. Ic $ Ar macro-name Op Ar args Execute the macro macro-name that was defined with the command. Arguments are passed to the macro unglobbed. Ic account Op Ar 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. Ic append Ar local-file Op Ar 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 or setting. File transfer uses the current settings for and Ic ascii Set the file transfer to network ASCII . This is the default type. Ic bell Arrange that a bell be sounded after each file transfer command is completed. Ic binary Set the file transfer to support binary image transfer. Ic bye Terminate the FTP session with the remote server and exit ftp . An end of file will also terminate the session and exit. Ic case 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. Ic cd Ar remote-directory Change the working directory on the remote machine to remote-directory . Ic cdup Change the remote machine working directory to the parent of the current remote machine working directory. Ic chmod Ar mode file-name Change the permission modes of the file file-name on the remote sytem to mode . Ic close Terminate the FTP session with the remote server, and return to the command interpreter. Any defined macros are erased. Ic 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 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. Ic delete Ar remote-file Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine. Ic debug Op Ar 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 Xo 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 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. Ic disconnect A synonym for close . Ic form Ar format Set the file transfer to format . The default format is LqfileRq. Ic get Ar remote-file Op Ar 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 and settings. The current settings for and are used while transferring the file. Ic glob 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 csh (1). 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 tar (1) archive of the subtree (in binary mode). Ic hash Toggle hash-sign (``#'') printing for each data block transferred. The size of a data block is 1024 bytes. Ic help Op Ar command Print an informative message about the meaning of command . If no argument is given, ftp prints a list of the known commands. Ic idle Op Ar seconds Set the inactivity timer on the remote server to seconds seconds. If seconds is ommitted, the current inactivity timer is printed. Ic lcd Op Ar directory Change the working directory on the local machine. If no directory is specified, the user's home directory is used. Xo 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 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 output. If no local file is specified, or if local-file is the output is sent to the terminal. Ic macdef Ar 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 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 `$'. Ic mdelete Op Ar remote-files Delete the remote-files on the remote machine. Ic mdir Ar remote-files local-file Like 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 output. Ic mget Ar remote-files Expand the remote-files 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 Ic mkdir Ar directory-name Make a directory on the remote machine. Ic mls Ar remote-files local-file Like 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 receiving output. Ic mode Op Ar mode-name Set the file transfer to mode-name . The default mode is LqstreamRq mode. Ic modtime Ar file-name Show the last modification time of the file on the remote machine. Ic mput Ar local-files 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. Ic newer Ar file-name 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 get . Xo 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 receiving output. If no local file is specified, or if local-file is the output is sent to the terminal. Ic nmap Op Ar 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 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 inpattern and outpattern . 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', ..., `$9' in inpattern . Use `\' to prevent this special treatment of the `$' character. All other characters are treated literally, and are used to determine the variable values. For example, given 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 replace by the original filename. Additionally, the sequence is replaced by 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. Ic ntrans Op Ar inchars Op Ar 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 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 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. Ic open Ar host Op Ar 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 the option is on (default), ftp will also attempt to automatically log the user in to the FTP server (see below). 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 or will transfer all files, and any will delete all files. 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 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. Ic put Ar local-file Op Ar 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 or settings in naming the remote file. File transfer uses the current settings for and Ic pwd Print the name of the current working directory on the remote machine. Ic quit A synonym for Ic quote Ar arg1 arg2 ... The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server. Ic recv Ar remote-file Op Ar local-file A synonym for get. Ic reget Ar remote-file Op Ar 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. Ic remotehelp Op Ar command-name Request help from the remote FTP server. If a command-name is specified it is supplied to the server as well. Ic remotestatus Op Ar file-name With no arguments, show status of remote machine. If file-name is specified, show status of file-name on remote machine. Xo Rename the file from on the remote machine, to the file to . 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. Ic restart Ar marker Restart the immediately following or at the indicated marker . On systems, marker is usually a byte offset into the file. Ic rmdir Ar directory-name Delete a directory on the remote machine. 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 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. Ic send Ar local-file Op Ar remote-file A synonym for put. Ic sendport Toggle the use of commands. By default, ftp 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, ftp 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 FTP implementations which do ignore commands but, incorrectly, indicate they've been accepted. Ic site Ar arg1 arg2 ... The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server as a command. Ic size Ar file-name Return size of file-name on remote machine. Ic status Show the current status of ftp . Ic struct Op Ar struct-name Set the file transfer structure to struct-name . By default LqstreamRq structure is used. Ic sunique 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. Ic system Show the type of operating system running on the remote machine. Ic tenex Set the file transfer type to that needed to talk to TENEX machines. Ic trace Toggle packet tracing. Ic type Op Ar type-name Set the file transfer to type-name . If no type is specified, the current type is printed. The default type is network ASCII . Ic umask Op Ar newmask Set the default umask on the remote server to newmask . If newmask is ommitted, the current umask is printed. Xo 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. Unless ftp is invoked with Lqauto-loginRq disabled, this process is done automatically on initial connection to the FTP server. Ic verbose 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. Ic ? Op Ar command A synonym for help.
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with quote `"' marks.
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.
Ftp supports only the default values for the remaining file transfer parameters: and
thereby giving the user automatic anonymous ftp login to machines not specified in .netrc . This can be overridden by using the flag to disable auto-login. 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 name . 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 .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. 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 command if it does not. Ic macdef Ar name Define a macro. This token functions like the ftp 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. If a macro named is defined, it is automatically executed as the last step in the auto-login process.
An error in the treatment of carriage returns in the BSD 4.2 ascii-mode transfer code has been corrected. This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary files to and from BSD 4.2 servers using the ascii type. Avoid this problem by using the binary image type.