TNFTP(1) General Commands Manual TNFTP(1)
NAME
tnftp — Internet file transfer program
SYNOPSIS
tnftp [-46AadefginpRtVv?] [-N netrc] [-o output] [-P port]
[-q quittime] [-r retry] [-s srcaddr] [-T dir,max[,inc]]
[-x xfersize] [[user@]host [port]] [[user@]host:[path][/]]
[file:///path]
[ftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path[/][;type=type]]
[http://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path]
[https://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path] ...
tnftp -u url file ...
DESCRIPTION
tnftp is the user interface to the Internet standard File Transfer Pro-
tocol. The program allows a user to transfer files to and from a re-
mote network site.
The last five arguments will fetch a file using the FTP or HTTP proto-
cols, or by direct copying, into the current directory. This is ideal
for scripts. Refer to “AUTO-FETCHING FILES” below for more informa-
tion.
Options may be specified at the command line, or to the command inter-
preter.
-4 Forces tnftp to only use IPv4 addresses.
-6 Forces tnftp to only use IPv6 addresses.
-A Force active mode FTP. By default, tnftp will try to use
passive mode FTP and fall back to active mode if passive is
not supported by the server. This option causes tnftp to
always use an active connection. It is only useful for
connecting to very old servers that do not implement pas-
sive mode properly.
-a Causes tnftp to bypass normal login procedure, and use an
anonymous login instead.
-d Enables debugging.
-e Disables command line editing. This is useful for Emacs
ange-ftp mode.
-f Forces a cache reload for transfers that go through the FTP
or HTTP proxies.
-g Disables file name globbing.
-i Turns off interactive prompting during multiple file trans-
fers.
-N netrc Use netrc instead of ~/.netrc. Refer to “THE .netrc FILE”
for more information.
-n Restrains tnftp from attempting “auto-login” upon initial
connection for non auto-fetch transfers. If auto-login is
enabled, tnftp will check the .netrc (see below) file in
the user's home directory for an entry describing an ac-
count on the remote machine. If no entry exists, tnftp
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.
To override the auto-login for auto-fetch transfers, spec-
ify the username (and optionally, password) as appropriate.
-o output When auto-fetching files, save the contents in output.
output is parsed according to the “FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS”
below. If output is not ‘-’ or doesn't start with ‘|’,
then only the first file specified will be retrieved into
output; all other files will be retrieved into the basename
of their remote name.
-P port Sets the port number to port.
-p Enable passive mode operation for use behind connection
filtering firewalls. This option has been deprecated as
tnftp now tries to use passive mode by default, falling
back to active mode if the server does not support passive
connections.
-q quittime
Quit if the connection has stalled for quittime seconds.
-R Restart all non-proxied auto-fetches.
-r wait Retry the connection attempt if it failed, pausing for wait
seconds.
-s srcaddr Uses srcaddr as the local IP address for all connections.
-t Enables packet tracing.
-T direction,maximum[,increment]
Set the maximum transfer rate for direction to maximum
bytes/second, and if specified, the increment to increment
bytes/second. Refer to rate for more information.
-u url file ...
Upload files on the command line to url where url is one of
the ‘ftp://’ URL types as supported by auto-fetch (with an
optional target filename for single file uploads), and file
is one or more local files to be uploaded.
-V Disable verbose and progress, overriding the default of en-
abled when output is to a terminal.
-v Enable verbose and progress. This is the default if output
is to a terminal (and in the case of progress, tnftp is the
foreground process). Forces tnftp to show all responses
from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer
statistics.
-x xfersize
Set the size of the socket send and receive buffers to
xfersize. Refer to xferbuf for more information.
-? Display help to stdout, and exit.
The client host with which tnftp is to communicate may be specified on
the command line. If this is done, tnftp will immediately attempt to
establish a connection to an FTP server on that host; otherwise, tnftp
will enter its command interpreter and await instructions from the
user. When tnftp is awaiting commands from the user the prompt ‘ftp>’
is provided to the user. The following commands are recognized by
tnftp:
! [command [args]]
Invoke an interactive shell on the local machine. If there
are arguments, the first is taken to be a command to exe-
cute directly, with the rest of the arguments as its argu-
ments.
$ macro-name [args]
Execute the macro macro-name that was defined with the
macdef command. Arguments are passed to the macro un-
globbed.
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 trans-
fer.
bye Terminate the FTP session with the remote server and exit
tnftp. An end of file will also terminate the session and
exit.
case Toggle remote computer file name case mapping during get,
mget and mput 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 remote-file
Change the permission modes of the file remote-file on the
remote system to mode.
close Terminate the FTP session with the remote server, and re-
turn to the command interpreter. Any defined macros are
erased.
cr Toggle carriage return stripping during ascii type file re-
trieval. 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 se-
quence to conform with the Unix single linefeed record de-
limiter. 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 delim-
iter only when cr is off.
debug [debug-value]
Toggle debugging mode. If an optional debug-value is spec-
ified it is used to set the debugging level. When debug-
ging is on, tnftp prints each command sent to the remote
machine, preceded by the string ‘-->’.
delete remote-file
Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.
dir [remote-path [local-file]]
Print a listing of the contents of a directory on the re-
mote machine. The listing includes any system-dependent
information that the server chooses to include; for exam-
ple, most Unix systems will produce output from the command
‘ls -l’. If remote-path is left unspecified, the current
working directory is used. If interactive prompting is on,
tnftp will prompt the user to verify that the last argument
is indeed the target local file for receiving dir output.
If no local file is specified, or if local-file is ‘-’, the
output is sent to the terminal.
disconnect A synonym for close.
edit Toggle command line editing, and context sensitive command
and file completion. This is automatically enabled if in-
put is from a terminal, and disabled otherwise.
epsv, epsv4, epsv6
Toggle the use of the extended EPSV and EPRT commands on
all IP, IPv4, and IPv6 connections respectively. First try
EPSV/EPRT, and then PASV/PORT. This is enabled by default.
If an extended command fails then this option will be tem-
porarily disabled for the duration of the current connec-
tion, or until epsv, epsv4, or epsv6 is executed again.
exit A synonym for bye.
features Display what features the remote server supports (using the
FEAT command).
fget localfile
Retrieve the files listed in localfile, which has one line
per filename.
form format
Set the file transfer form to format. The default (and
only supported) format is ‘non-print’.
ftp host [port]
A synonym for open.
gate [host [port]]
Toggle gate-ftp mode, which used to connect through the TIS
FWTK and Gauntlet FTP proxies. This will not be permitted
if the gate-ftp server hasn't been set (either explicitly
by the user, or from the FTPSERVER environment variable).
If host is given, then gate-ftp mode will be enabled, and
the gate-ftp server will be set to host. If port is also
given, that will be used as the port to connect to on the
gate-ftp server.
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 alter-
ation 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, mput, and
mreget. 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, mget, and
mreget, 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, mput
and mreget are not meant to transfer entire directory sub-
trees of files. That can be done by transferring a tar(1)
archive of the subtree (in binary mode).
hash [size]
Toggle hash-sign (‘#’) printing for each data block trans-
ferred. The size of a data block defaults to 1024 bytes.
This can be changed by specifying size in bytes. Enabling
hash disables progress.
help [command]
Print an informative message about the meaning of command.
If no argument is given, tnftp prints a list of the known
commands.
idle [seconds]
Set the inactivity timer on the remote server to seconds
seconds. If seconds is omitted, the current inactivity
timer is printed.
image A synonym for binary.
lcd [directory]
Change the working directory on the local machine. If no
directory is specified, the user's home directory is used.
less file A synonym for page.
lpage local-file
Display local-file with the program specified by the set
pager option.
lpwd Print the working directory on the local machine.
ls [remote-path [local-file]]
A synonym for dir.
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. Macro names can be
a maximum of 8 characters. Macros are only applicable to
the current session they are defined within (or if defined
outside a session, to the session invoked with the next
open command), and remain defined until a close command is
executed. To invoke a macro, use the $ command (see
above).
The macro processor interprets ‘$’ and ‘\’ as special char-
acters. A ‘$’ followed by a number (or numbers) is re-
placed by the corresponding argument on the macro invoca-
tion command line. A ‘$’ followed by an ‘i’ signals the
macro processor that the executing macro is to be looped.
On the first pass ‘$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, tnftp 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 directo-
ries can be created with ! mkdir directory.
mkdir directory-name
Make a directory on the remote machine.
mls remote-files local-file
Like ls, except multiple remote files may be specified, and
the local-file must be specified. If interactive prompting
is on, tnftp will prompt the user to verify that the last
argument is indeed the target local file for receiving mls
output.
mlsd [remote-path]
Display the contents of remote-path (which should default
to the current directory if not given) in a machine-
parsable form, using MLSD. The format of display can be
changed with ‘remopts mlst ...’.
mlst [remote-path]
Display the details about remote-path (which should default
to the current directory if not given) in a machine-
parsable form, using MLST. The format of display can be
changed with ‘remopts mlst ...’.
mode mode-name
Set the file transfer mode to mode-name. The default (and
only supported) mode is ‘stream’.
modtime remote-file
Show the last modification time of the file on the remote
machine, in RFC 2822 format.
more file A synonym for page.
mput local-files
Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as argu-
ments 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.
mreget remote-files
As per mget, but performs a reget instead of get.
msend local-files
A synonym for mput.
newer remote-file [local-file]
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 re-
mote file is considered newer. Otherwise, this command is
identical to get.
nlist [remote-path [local-file]]
A synonym for ls.
nmap [inpattern outpattern]
Set or unset the filename mapping mechanism. If no argu-
ments are specified, the filename mapping mechanism is un-
set. If arguments are specified, remote filenames are
mapped during mput commands and put commands issued without
a specified remote target filename. If arguments are spec-
ified, local filenames are mapped during mget commands and
get commands issued without a specified local target file-
name. 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 in-
cluding the sequences ‘$1’, ‘$2’, ..., ‘$9’ in inpattern.
Use ‘\’ to prevent this special treatment of the ‘$’ char-
acter. 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 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 exam-
ple, 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 speci-
fied, characters in remote filenames are translated during
mput commands and put commands issued without a specified
remote target filename. If arguments are specified, char-
acters in local filenames are translated during mget com-
mands 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 con-
ventions 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 charac-
ter 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,
tnftp will attempt to contact an FTP server at that port.
If the set auto-login option is on (default), tnftp will
also attempt to automatically log the user in to the FTP
server (see below).
page file Retrieve file and display with the program specified by the
set pager option.
passive [auto]
Toggle passive mode (if no arguments are given). If auto
is given, act as if FTPMODE is set to ‘auto’. If passive
mode is turned on (default), tnftp will send a PASV command
for all data connections instead of a PORT command. The
PASV command requests that the remote server open a port
for the data connection and return the address of that
port. The remote server listens on that port and the
client connects to it. When using the more traditional
PORT command, the client listens on a port and sends that
address to the remote server, who connects back to it.
Passive mode is useful when using tnftp through a gateway
router or host that controls the directionality of traffic.
(Note that though FTP servers are required to support the
PASV command by RFC 1123, some do not.)
pdir [remote-path]
Perform dir [remote-path], and display the result with the
program specified by the set pager option.
pls [remote-path]
Perform ls [remote-path], and display the result with the
program specified by the set pager option.
pmlsd [remote-path]
Perform mlsd [remote-path], and display the result with the
program specified by the set pager option.
preserve Toggle preservation of modification times on retrieved
files.
progress Toggle display of transfer progress bar. The progress bar
will be disabled for a transfer that has local-file as ‘-’
or a command that starts with ‘|’. Refer to “FILE NAMING
CONVENTIONS” for more information. Enabling progress dis-
ables hash.
prompt Toggle interactive prompting. Interactive prompting occurs
during multiple file transfers to allow the user to selec-
tively 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.
When prompting is on, the following commands are available
at a prompt:
a Answer ‘yes’ to the current file, and automati-
cally answer ‘yes’ to any remaining files for the
current command.
n Answer ‘no’, and do not transfer the file.
p Answer ‘yes’ to the current file, and turn off
prompt mode (as if prompt off had been given).
q Terminate the current operation.
y Answer ‘yes’, and transfer the file.
? Display a help message.
Any other response will answer ‘yes’ to the current file.
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 con-
nection. 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 pro-
cessing 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 re-
mote machine.
quit A synonym for bye.
quote [arg ...]
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
FTP server.
rate direction [maximum [increment]]
Throttle the maximum transfer rate to maximum bytes/second.
If maximum is 0, disable the throttle.
direction may be one of:
all Both directions.
get Incoming transfers.
put Outgoing transfers.
maximum can be modified on the fly by increment bytes (de-
fault: 1024) each time a given signal is received:
SIGUSR1 Increment maximum by increment bytes.
SIGUSR2 Decrement maximum by increment bytes. The
result must be a positive number.
If maximum is not supplied, the current throttle rates are
displayed.
Note: rate is not yet implemented for ascii mode transfers.
rcvbuf size
Set the size of the socket receive buffer to size.
recv remote-file [local-file]
A synonym for get.
reget remote-file [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 com-
mand is useful when transferring very large files over net-
works that are prone to dropping connections.
remopts command [command-options]
Set options on the remote FTP server for command to
command-options (whose absence is handled on a
command-specific basis). Remote FTP commands known to sup-
port options include: MLST (used for MLSD and MLST).
rename [from [to]]
Rename the file from on the remote machine, to the file to.
reset Clear reply queue. This command re-synchronizes com-
mand/reply sequencing with the remote FTP server. Resyn-
chronization 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 indi-
cated marker. On Unix systems, marker is usually a byte
offset into the file.
rhelp [command-name]
Request help from the remote FTP server. If a command-name
is specified it is supplied to the server as well.
rmdir directory-name
Delete a directory on the remote machine.
rstatus [remote-file]
With no arguments, show status of remote machine. If
remote-file is specified, show status of remote-file on re-
mote 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 an-
other existing file, a ‘.2’ is appended to the original
name. If this process continues up to ‘.99’, an error mes-
sage 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, tnftp will
attempt to use a PORT command when establishing a connec-
tion for each data transfer. The use of PORT commands can
prevent delays when performing multiple file transfers. If
the PORT command fails, tnftp will use the default data
port. When the use of PORT commands is disabled, no at-
tempt 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.
set [option value]
Set option to value. If option and value are not given,
display all of the options and their values. The currently
supported options are:
anonpass Defaults to $FTPANONPASS
ftp_proxy Defaults to $ftp_proxy.
http_proxy Defaults to $http_proxy.
https_proxy Defaults to $https_proxy.
no_proxy Defaults to $no_proxy.
pager Defaults to $PAGER.
prompt Defaults to $FTPPROMPT.
rprompt Defaults to $FTPRPROMPT.
sslnoverify Defaults to $FTPSSLNOVERIFY.
site [arg ...]
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote
FTP server as a SITE command.
size remote-file
Return size of remote-file on remote machine.
sndbuf size
Set the size of the socket send buffer to size.
status Show the current status of tnftp.
struct struct-name
Set the file transfer structure to struct-name. The de-
fault (and only supported) structure is ‘file’.
sunique Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file
names. The remote FTP server must support FTP protocol
STOU command for successful completion. The remote server
will report unique name. Default value is off.
system Show the type of operating system running on the remote ma-
chine.
tenex Set the file transfer type to that needed to talk to TENEX
machines.
throttle A synonym for rate.
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.
umask [newmask]
Set the default umask on the remote server to newmask. If
newmask is omitted, the current umask is printed.
unset option
Unset option. Refer to set for more information.
usage command
Print the usage message for command.
user user-name [password [account]]
Identify yourself to the remote FTP server. If the
password is not specified and the server requires it, tnftp
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 re-
layed to the remote server after the login sequence is com-
pleted if the remote server did not require it for logging
in. Unless tnftp 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.
xferbuf size
Set the size of the socket send and receive buffers to
size.
? [command]
A synonym for help.
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with quote
‘"’ marks.
Commands which toggle settings can take an explicit on or off argument
to force the setting appropriately.
Commands which take a byte count as an argument (e.g., hash, rate, and
xferbuf) support an optional suffix on the argument which changes the
interpretation of the argument. Supported suffixes are:
b Causes no modification. (Optional)
k Kilo; multiply the argument by 1024
m Mega; multiply the argument by 1048576
g Giga; multiply the argument by 1073741824
If tnftp receives a SIGINFO (see the status argument of stty(1)) or
SIGQUIT signal whilst a transfer is in progress, the current transfer
rate statistics will be written to the standard error output, in the
same format as the standard completion message.
AUTO-FETCHING FILES
In addition to standard commands, this version of tnftp supports an
auto-fetch feature. To enable auto-fetch, simply pass the list of
hostnames/files on the command line.
The following formats are valid syntax for an auto-fetch element:
[user@]host:[path][/]
“Classic” FTP format.
If path contains a glob character and globbing is enabled, (see
glob), then the equivalent of mget path is performed.
If the directory component of path contains no globbing charac-
ters, it is stored locally with the name basename (see
basename(1)) of path, in the current directory. Otherwise, the
full remote name is used as the local name, relative to the local
root directory.
ftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path[/][;type=type]
An FTP URL, retrieved using the FTP protocol if set ftp_proxy
isn't defined. Otherwise, transfer the URL using HTTP via the
proxy defined in set ftp_proxy. If set ftp_proxy isn't defined
and user is given, login as user. In this case, use password if
supplied, otherwise prompt the user for one.
If a suffix of ‘;type=A’ or ‘;type=I’ is supplied, then the
transfer type will take place as ascii or binary (respectively).
The default transfer type is binary.
In order to be compliant with RFC 3986, tnftp interprets the path
part of an ‘ftp://’ auto-fetch URL as follows:
• The ‘/’ immediately after the host[:port] is interpreted as a
separator before the path, and not as part of the path it-
self.
• The path is interpreted as a ‘/’-separated list of name com-
ponents. For all but the last such component, tnftp performs
the equivalent of a cd command. For the last path component,
tnftp performs the equivalent of a get command.
• Empty name components, which result from ‘//’ within the
path, or from an extra ‘/’ at the beginning of the path, will
cause the equivalent of a cd command without a directory
name. This is unlikely to be useful.
• Any ‘%XX’ codes (per RFC 3986) within the path components are
decoded, with XX representing a character code in hexadeci-
mal. This decoding takes place after the path has been split
into components, but before each component is used in the
equivalent of a cd or get command. Some often-used codes are
‘%2F’ (which represents ‘/’) and ‘%7E’ (which represents
‘~’).
The above interpretation has the following consequences:
• The path is interpreted relative to the default login direc-
tory of the specified user or of the ‘anonymous’ user. If
the / directory is required, use a leading path of ‘%2F’. If
a user's home directory is required (and the remote server
supports the syntax), use a leading path of ‘%7Euser/’. For
example, to retrieve /etc/motd from ‘localhost’ as the user
‘myname’ with the password ‘mypass’, use
‘ftp://myname:mypass@localhost/%2fetc/motd’
• The exact cd and get commands can be controlled by careful
choice of where to use ‘/’ and where to use ‘%2F’ (or ‘%2f’).
For example, the following URLs correspond to the equivalents
of the indicated commands:
ftp://host/dir1/dir2/file cd dir1, cd dir2, get file.
ftp://host/%2Fdir1/dir2/file cd /dir1, cd dir2, get
file.
ftp://host/dir1%2Fdir2/file cd dir1/dir2, get file.
• You must have appropriate access permission for each of the
intermediate directories that is used in the equivalent of a
cd command.
http://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path
An HTTP URL, retrieved using the HTTP protocol. If set
http_proxy is defined, it is used as a URL to an HTTP proxy
server. If HTTP authorization is required to retrieve path, and
user (and optionally password) is in the URL, use them for the
first attempt to authenticate.
https://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path
An HTTPS URL, retrieved using the HTTPS protocol. If set
https_proxy is defined, it is used as a URL to an HTTPS proxy
server. If HTTPS authorization is required to retrieve path, and
user (and optionally password) is in the URL, use them for the
first attempt to authenticate. There is currently no certificate
validation and verification.
file:///path
A local URL, copied from /path on the local host.
about:topic
Display information regarding topic; no file is retrieved for
this auto-fetched element. Supported values include:
about:ftp Information about tnftp.
about:version The version of tnftp. Useful to provide when re-
porting problems.
Unless noted otherwise above, and -o output is not given, the file is
stored in the current directory as the basename(1) of path. Note that
if a HTTP redirect is received, the fetch is retried using the new tar-
get URL supplied by the server, with a corresponding new path. Using
an explicit -o output is recommended, to avoid writing to unexpected
file names.
If a classic format or an FTP URL format has a trailing ‘/’ or an empty
path component, then tnftp will connect to the site and cd to the di-
rectory given as the path, and leave the user in interactive mode ready
for further input. This will not work if set ftp_proxy is being used.
Direct HTTP transfers use HTTP 1.1. Proxied FTP and HTTP transfers use
HTTP 1.0.
If -R is given, all auto-fetches that don't go via the FTP or HTTP
proxies will be restarted. For FTP, this is implemented by using reget
instead of get. For HTTP, this is implemented by using the ‘Range:
bytes=’ HTTP/1.1 directive.
If WWW or proxy WWW authentication is required, you will be prompted to
enter a username and password to authenticate with.
When specifying IPv6 numeric addresses in a URL, you need to surround
the address in square brackets. E.g.: ‘ftp://[::1]:21/’. This is be-
cause colons are used in IPv6 numeric address as well as being the sep-
arator for the port number.
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 upon the remote server's support for ABOR
processing. If the remote server does not support the ABOR command,
the prompt will not appear until the remote server has completed send-
ing the requested file.
If the terminal interrupt key sequence is used whilst tnftp is awaiting
a reply from the remote server for the ABOR processing, then the con-
nection will be closed. This is different from the traditional behav-
iour (which ignores the terminal interrupt during this phase), but is
considered more useful.
FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS
Files specified as arguments to tnftp 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. tnftp 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 par-
ticularly 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); see the
glob command. If the tnftp command expects a single local file
(e.g. put), only the first filename generated by the globbing op-
eration is used.
4. For mget commands and get commands with unspecified local file
names, the local filename is the remote filename, which may be al-
tered 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 al-
tered 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). tnftp sup-
ports the ascii and image types of file transfer, plus local byte size
8 for tenex mode transfers.
tnftp supports only the default values for the remaining file transfer
parameters: mode, form, and struct.
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, un-
less overridden with the -N netrc option, or specified in the NETRC en-
vironment variable. 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 tnftp 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 an 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, tnftp 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 tnftp macdef
command functions. A macro is defined with the specified
name; its contents begin with the next .netrc line and con-
tinue until a blank line (consecutive new-line characters) is
encountered. Like the other tokens in the .netrc file, a
macdef is applicable only to the machine definition preceding
it. A macdef entry cannot be used by multiple machine defin-
itions; rather, it must be defined following each machine it
is intended to be used with. If a macro named init is de-
fined, it is automatically executed as the last step in the
auto-login process. For example,
default
macdef init
epsv4 off
followed by a blank line.
COMMAND LINE EDITING
tnftp supports interactive command line editing, via the editline(3)
library. It is enabled with the edit command, and is enabled by de-
fault if input is from a tty. Previous lines can be recalled and
edited with the arrow keys, and other GNU Emacs-style editing keys may
be used as well.
The editline(3) library is configured with a .editrc file — refer to
editrc(5) for more information.
An extra key binding is available to tnftp to provide context sensitive
command and filename completion (including remote file completion). To
use this, bind a key to the editline(3) command ftp-complete. By de-
fault, this is bound to the TAB key.
COMMAND LINE PROMPT
By default, tnftp displays a command line prompt of ‘ftp> ’ to the
user. This can be changed with the set prompt command.
A prompt can be displayed on the right side of the screen (after the
command input) with the set rprompt command.
The following formatting sequences are replaced by the given informa-
tion:
%/ The current remote working directory.
%c[[0]n], %.[[0]n]
The trailing component of the current remote working direc-
tory, or n trailing components if a digit n is given. If n
begins with ‘0’, the number of skipped components precede
the trailing component(s) in the format “/<number>trailing”
(for ‘%c’) or “...trailing” (for ‘%.’).
%M The remote host name.
%m The remote host name, up to the first dot ‘.’.
%n The remote user name.
%% A single percent character ‘%’.
ENVIRONMENT
tnftp uses the following environment variables.
FTPANONPASS Password to send in an anonymous FTP transfer. Defaults
to “`whoami`@”.
FTPMODE Overrides the default operation mode. Support values
are:
active active mode FTP only
auto automatic determination of passive or active
(this is the default)
gate gate-ftp mode
passive passive mode FTP only
FTPPROMPT Command-line prompt to use. Defaults to ‘ftp> ’. Refer
to “COMMAND LINE PROMPT” for more information.
FTPRPROMPT Command-line right side prompt to use. Defaults to
empty string. Refer to “COMMAND LINE PROMPT” for more
information.
FTPSERVER Host to use as gate-ftp server when gate is enabled.
FTPSERVERPORT Port to use when connecting to gate-ftp server when gate
is enabled. Default is port returned by a
getservbyname(3) lookup of “ftpgate/tcp”.
FTPUSERAGENT The value to send for the HTTP User-Agent header.
FTPSSLNOVERIFY
Set to 1 to not verify SSL certificates.
HOME For default location of a .netrc file, if one exists.
NETRC An alternate location of the .netrc file.
PAGER Used by various commands to display files. Defaults to
more(1) if empty or not set.
SHELL For default shell.
ftp_proxy URL of FTP proxy to use when making FTP URL requests (if
not defined, use the standard FTP protocol).
See http_proxy for further notes about proxy use.
http_proxy URL of HTTP proxy to use when making HTTP URL requests.
If proxy authentication is required and there is a user-
name and password in this URL, they will automatically
be used in the first attempt to authenticate to the
proxy.
If “unsafe” URL characters are required in the username
or password (for example ‘@’ or ‘/’), encode them with
RFC 3986 ‘%XX’ encoding.
Note that the use of a username and password in
ftp_proxy and http_proxy may be incompatible with other
programs that use it (such as lynx(1)).
NOTE: this is not used for interactive sessions, only
for command-line fetches.
https_proxy URL of HTTPS proxy to use when making HTTPS URL re-
quests.
See http_proxy for further notes about proxy use.
no_proxy A space or comma separated list of hosts (or domains)
for which proxying is not to be used. Each entry may
have an optional trailing ‘:port’, which restricts the
matching to connections to that port.
EXTENDED PASSIVE MODE AND FIREWALLS
Some firewall configurations do not allow tnftp to use extended passive
mode. If you find that even a simple ls appears to hang after printing
a message such as this:
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||58551|)
then you will need to disable extended passive mode with epsv4 off.
See the above section “The .netrc File” for an example of how to make
this automatic.
SEE ALSO
getservbyname(3), editrc(5), services(5), ftpd(8)
STANDARDS
tnftp attempts to be compliant with:
RFC 959 File Transfer Protocol
RFC 1123 Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and
Support
RFC 1635 How to Use Anonymous FTP
RFC 2389 Feature negotiation mechanism for the File Transfer
Protocol
RFC 2428 FTP Extensions for IPv6 and NATs
RFC 2616 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
RFC 2822 Internet Message Format
RFC 3659 Extensions to FTP
RFC 3986 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
HISTORY
The tnftp command appeared in 4.2BSD.
Various features such as command line editing, context sensitive com-
mand and file completion, dynamic progress bar, automatic fetching of
files and URLs, modification time preservation, transfer rate throt-
tling, configurable command line prompt, and other enhancements over
the standard BSD tnftp were implemented in NetBSD 1.3 and later re-
leases by Luke Mewburn ⟨lukem@NetBSD.org⟩.
IPv6 support was added by the WIDE/KAME project (but may not be present
in all non-NetBSD versions of this program, depending if the operating
system supports IPv6 in a similar manner to KAME).
BUGS
Correct execution of many commands depends upon 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 incor-
rect transfers of binary files to and from 4.2BSD servers using the
ascii type. Avoid this problem by using the binary image type.
tnftp assumes that all IPv4 mapped addresses (IPv6 addresses with a
form like ::ffff:10.1.1.1) indicate IPv4 destinations which can be han-
dled by AF_INET sockets. However, in certain IPv6 network configura-
tions, this assumption is not true. In such an environment, IPv4
mapped addresses must be passed to AF_INET6 sockets directly. For ex-
ample, if your site uses a SIIT translator for IPv6-to-IPv4 transla-
tion, tnftp is unable to support your configuration.
Debian February 25, 2023 TNFTP(1)
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