1ncftpput(1) General Commands Manual ncftpput(1)
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6 ncftpput - Internet file transfer program for scripts
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9 ncftpput [options] remote-host remote-directory local-files...
10 ncftpput -f login.cfg [options] remote-directory local-files...
12 ncftpput -c remote-host remote-path-name < stdin
14 ncftpput -C remote-host local-path-name remote-path-name
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18 Command line flags:
19 -u XX Use username XX instead of anonymous.
20 -p XX Use password XX with the username.
22 -P XX Use port number XX instead of the default FTP service port
24 (21).
25 -j XX Use account XX in supplement to the username and password (dep‐
27 recated).
28 -d XX Use the file XX for debug logging.
30 -a Use ASCII transfer type instead of binary.
32 -m Attempt to make the remote destination directory before copy‐
34 ing.
35 -t XX Timeout after XX seconds.
37 -U XX Use value XX for the umask.
39 -v/-V Do (do not) use progress meters. The default is to use
41 progress meters if the output stream is a TTY.
42 -f XX Read the file XX for host, user, and password information.
44 -c Read locally from standard input and write remotely to speci‐
46 fied pathname.
47 -C Similar to -c, except a local pathname is specified.
49 -A Append to remote files, instead of overwriting them.
51 -T XX Upload into temporary files prefixed by XX.
53 -S XX Upload into temporary files suffixed by XX.
55 -R Recursive mode; copy whole directory trees.
57 -r XX Redial a maximum of XX times until connected to the remote FTP
59 server.
60 -z/-Z Do (do not) try to resume transfers. The default is to not try
62 to resume (-Z).
63 -E Use regular (PORT) data connections.
65 -F Use passive (PASV) data connections. The default is to use
67 passive, but to fallback to regular if the passive connection
68 fails or times out.
69 -DD Delete local file after successfully uploading it.
71 -y Try using "SITE UTIME" to preserve timestamps on remote host.
73 Not many remote FTP servers support this, so it may not work.
74 -b Run in background (by submitting a batch job and then spawning
76 ncftpbatch).
77 -bb Similar to -b option, but only submits the batch job. You will
79 need to run ncftpbatch for the batch job to be processed. This
80 is useful if you already have a ncftpbatch process running, or
81 wish to have better control of when batch jobs are processed.
82 For example, if you wanted to do background processing of three
84 files all on the same remote server, it is more polite to use
85 just one ncftpbatch process to process the three jobs sequen‐
86 tially, rather than having three ncftpbatch processes open
87 three simultaneous FTP sessions to the same server.
88 -B XX Try setting the TCP/IP socket buffer size to XX bytes.
90 -W XX Send raw FTP command XX after logging in.
92 -X XX Send raw FTP command XX after each file transferred.
94 -Y XX Send raw FTP command XX before logging out.
96 The -W, -X, and -Y options are useful for advanced users who
98 need to tweak behavior on some servers. For example, users
99 accessing mainframes might need to send some special SITE com‐
100 mands to set blocksize and record format information.
101 For these options, you can use them multiple times each if you
103 need to send multiple commands. For the -X option, you can use
104 the cookie %s to expand into the name of the file that was
105 transferred.
106 -o XX Set advanced option XX.
108 This option is used primarily for debugging. It sets the value
110 of an internal variable to an integer value. An example usage
111 would be: -o useFEAT=0,useCLNT=1 which in this case, disables
112 use of the FEAT command and enables the CLNT command. The
113 available variables include: usePASV, useSIZE, useMDTM, useR‐
114 EST, useNLST_a, useNLST_d, useFEAT, useMLSD, useMLST, useCLNT,
115 useHELP_SITE, useSITE_UTIME, STATfileParamWorks, NLSTfileParam‐
116 Works, require20, allowProxyForPORT, doNotGetStartCWD.
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119 The purpose of ncftpput is to do file transfers from the command-line
120 without entering an interactive shell. This lets you write shell
121 scripts or other unattended processes that can do FTP. It is also use‐
122 ful for advanced users who want to send files from the shell command
123 line without entering an interactive FTP program such as ncftp.
124 By default the program tries to open the remote host and login anony‐
126 mously, but you can specify a username and password information. The
127 -u option is used to specify the username to login as, and the -p
128 option is used to specify the password. If you are running the program
129 from the shell, you may omit the -p option and the program will prompt
130 you for the password.
131 Using the -u and -p options are not recommended, because your account
133 information is exposed to anyone who can see your shell script or your
134 process information. For example, someone using the ps program could
135 see your password while the program runs.
136 You may use the -f option instead to specify a file with the account
138 information. However, this is still not secure because anyone who has
139 read access to the information file can see the account information.
140 Nevertheless, if you choose to use the -f option the file should look
141 something like this:
142 host sphygmomanometer.ncftp.com
144 user gleason
145 pass mypassword
146 Don't forget to change the permissions on this file so no one else can
148 read them.
149 The -d option is very useful when you are trying to diagnose why a file
151 transfer is failing. It prints out the entire FTP conversation to the
152 file you specify, so you can get an idea of what went wrong. If you
153 specify the special name stdout as the name of the debugging output
154 file, the output will instead print to the screen.
155 Using ASCII mode is helpful when the text format of your host differs
157 from that of the remote host. For example, if you are sending a text
158 file from a UNIX system to a Windows-based host, you could use the -a
159 flag which would use ASCII transfer mode so that the file created on
160 the Windows machine would be in its native text format instead of the
161 UNIX text format.
162 You can upload an entire directory tree of files by using the -R flag.
164 Example:
165 $ ncftpput -R pikachu.nintendo.co.jp /incoming /tmp/stuff
167 This would create a /incoming/stuff hierarchy on the remote host.
169 The -T and -S options are useful when you want to upload file to the
171 remote host, but you don't want to use the destination pathname until
172 the file is complete. Using these options, you will not destroy a
173 remote file by the same name until your file is finished. These
174 options are also useful when a remote process on the remote host polls
175 a specific filename, and you don't want that process to see that file
176 until you know the file is finished sending. Here is an example that
177 uploads to the file /pub/incoming/README, using the filename
178 /pub/incoming/README.tmp as a temporary filename:
179 $ ncftpput -S .tmp bowser.nintendo.co.jp /pub/incoming /a/README
181 A neat way to pipe the output from any local command into a remote file
183 is to use the -c option, which denotes that you're using stdin as
184 input. The following example shows how to make a backup and store it
185 on a remote machine:
186 $ tar cf - / | ncftpput -c sonic.sega.co.jp /usr/local/backup.tar
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190 ncftpput returns the following exit values:
191 0 Success.
193 1 Could not connect to remote host.
195 2 Could not connect to remote host - timed out.
197 3 Transfer failed.
199 4 Transfer failed - timed out.
201 5 Directory change failed.
203 6 Directory change failed - timed out.
205 7 Malformed URL.
207 8 Usage error.
209 9 Error in login configuration file.
211 10 Library initialization failed.
213 11 Session initialization failed.
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217 Mike Gleason, NcFTP Software (http://www.ncftp.com).
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220 ncftpget(1), ncftp(1), ftp(1), rcp(1), tftp(1).
221 LibNcFTP (http://www.ncftp.com/libncftp/).
223ncftpput NcFTP Software ncftpput(1)