NAME
ftp - ARPANET file transfer program

SYNOPSIS
ftp [ -v ] [ -d ] [ -i ] [ -n ] [ -g ] [ host ]

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

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:

! [ 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.

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
"non-print".

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.

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.

macbinary
Set the file transfer type to binary image transfer.
Additionally, enable the transfer of Macintosh files according
to the MacBinary format specification. When communicating
with non-MachTen Macintosh FTP servers, MacBinary is the
default image transfer format for Macintosh files. For all
other FTP servers, AppleSingle is the default image transfer
format for Macintosh files.

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
Make a directory on the remote machine.

mls remote-files local-file
Like nlist, 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 mls output.

mode [ mode-name ]
Set the file transfer mode to mode-name. The default mode is
"stream" mode.

mput local-files
Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as
arguments and do a put for each file in the resulting list.
See glob for details of filename expansion. Resulting file
names will then be processed according to ntrans and nmap
settings.

nlist [ remote-directory ] [ local-file ]
Print a list of the files of 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 nlist output. If
no local file is specified, or if local-file is -, the output
is sent to the terminal.

nmap [ 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
mput commands and put commands issued without a specified
remote target filename. If arguments are specified, local
filenames are mapped during mget commands and get commands
issued without a specified local target filename. This
command is useful when connecting to a non-UNIX remote
computer with different file naming conventions or practices.
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 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 nmap inpattern 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 ’[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.

ntrans [ inchars [ 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 mput commands and put
commands issued without a specified remote target filename.
If arguments are specified, characters in local filenames are
translated during mget commands and get commands issued
without a specified local target filename. This command is
useful when connecting to a non-UNIX 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.

open host [ 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 auto-
login option is on (default), ftp will also attempt to
automatically log the user in to the FTP server (see below).

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 mget or mput will transfer all files,
and any mdelete will delete all files.

proxy 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 proxy command should be an 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
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,
and 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.

put local-file [ 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 ntrans or nmap settings in naming the remote
file. File transfer uses the current settings for type,
format, mode, and structure.

pwd Print the name of the current working directory on the remote
machine.

quit A synonym for bye.

quote arg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP
server.

recv remote-file [ local-file ]
A synonym for get.

remotehelp [ command-name ]
Request help from the remote FTP server. If a command-name is
specified it is supplied to the server as well.

remotestatus [ file-name ]
With no arguments, show status of remote machine. If file-name
is specified, show status of file-name on remote machine.

rename [ from ] [ to ]
Rename the file from on the remote machine, to the file to.

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.

restart marker
Restart the immediately following get or put at the indicated
marker. On UNIX systems, marker is usually a byte offset into
the file.

rmdir directory-name
Delete a directory on the remote machine.

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 get or 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 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.

sendport
Toggle the use of PORT commands. By default, ftp will attempt
to use a PORT command when establishing a connection for each
data transfer. The use of PORT commands can prevent delays
when performing multiple file transfers. If the PORT command
fails, ftp will use the default data port. When the use of
PORT commands is disabled, no attempt will be made to use PORT
commands for each data transfer. This is useful for certain
FTP implementations which do ignore PORT commands but,
incorrectly, indicate they’ve been accepted.

site arg1 arg2 ...
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP
server as a SITE command.

status
Show the current status of ftp.

struct [ struct-name ]
Set the file transfer structure to struct-name. By default
"file" structure is used.

sunique
Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file
names. Remote ftp server must support ftp protocol STOU
command for successful completion. The remote server will
report unique name. Default value is off.

tenex
Set the file transfer type to that needed to talk to TENEX
machines.

trace
Toggle packet tracing.

type [ type-name ]
Set the file transfer type to type-name. If no type is
specified, the current type is printed. The default type is
network ASCII.

user user-name [ password ] [ account ]
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 "auto-login" disabled, this process is done
automatically on initial connection to the FTP server.

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.

? [ command ]
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 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 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 the following rules.

1) If the file name "-" is specified, the stdin (for reading) or
stdout (for writing) is used.

2) If the first character of the file name is "|", the remainder
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 the 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) Failing the above checks, if "globbing" is enabled, local
file names are expanded according to the rules used in the
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 which may affect a
file transfer. The type may be one of "ascii", "image" (binary),
"ebcdic", and "local byte size" (for PDP-10’s and PDP-20’s mostly).
Ftp supports the ascii and image types of file transfer, plus local
byte size 8 for tenex mode transfers. Under MachTen, FTP supports
image transfers of Macintosh files according to the AppleSingle II
format specification. FTP also supports image transfers of
Macintosh files in MacBinary format using the macbinary command.

Ftp supports only the default values for the remaining file
transfer parameters: mode, form, and struct.

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

The -v (verbose on) option forces ftp to show all responses from
the remote server, as well as report on data transfer statistics.

The -n option restrains ftp from attempting "auto-login" upon
initial connection. If auto-login is enabled, ftp will check the
.netrc (see below) 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.

The -i option turns off interactive prompting during multiple file
transfers.

The -d option enables debugging.

The -g option disables file name globbing.

THE .netrc FILE
The .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:

machine name
Identify a remote machine name. The auto-login process
searches the .netrc file for a machine token that matches the
remote machine specified on the ftp command line or as an open
command argument. Once a match is made, the subsequent .netrc
tokens are processed, stopping when the end of file is reached
or another machine or a default token is encountered.

default
This is the same as machine name except that default matches
any name. There can be only one default token, and it must be
after all machine tokens. This is normally used as:
default login anonymous password user@site
thereby giving the user automatic anonymous ftp login to
machines not specified in .netrc. This can be overridden by
using the -n flag to disable auto-login.

login 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.

password 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.

account 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 ACCT
command if it does not.

macdef name
Define a macro. This token functions like the ftp macdef
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 init is defined, it is
automatically executed as the last step in the auto-login
process.