11 ftp: FTP client

ftp is the user interface to FTP, the File Transfer Protocol. The program allows a user to transfer files to and from a remote network site.

Synopsis:

ftp [option…] [host [port]]
pftp [option…] [host [port]]

ftp [option…] user@host [port]
pftp [option…] user@host [port]

The alternate name pftp is starting in passive mode, but is otherwise identical to ftp.

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 the FTP server running on that host. Optionally, a remote user name can be specified at will. Otherwise, the program will start a command interpreter and will await further instructions from the user. Commands can either be entered interactively, or piped as a batched job read from standard input. ftp is able to distinguish between these two modes of operation.

• Command line options
• Commands interpreted by ftp
• Environment variables in use
• Aborting a file transfer
• File naming conventions
• File transfer parameters
• The .netrc file