ncftpget(1)ncftpget(1)NAMEncftpget - Internet file transfer program for scripts
SYNOPSISncftpget [options] remote-host local-directory remote-
files...
ncftpget-f login.cfg [options] local-directory remote-
files...
ncftpget [options] ftp://url.style.host/path/name
ncftpget-c [options] remote-host remote-file > stdout
ncftpget-c [options] ftp://url.style.host/path/name >
stdout
OPTIONS
Command line flags:
-u XX Use username XX instead of anonymous.
-p XX Use password XX with the username.
-P XX Use port number XX instead of the default FTP ser
vice port (21).
-j XX Use account XX in supplement to the username and
password (deprecated).
-d XX Use the file XX for debug logging.
-a Use ASCII transfer type instead of binary.
-t XX Timeout after XX seconds.
-v/-V Do (do not) use progress meters. The default is
to use progress meters if the output stream is a
TTY.
-f XX Read the file XX for host, user, and password
information.
-c Send output to standard out, rather than writing
to a local file.
-A Append to local files, instead of overwriting
them.
-z/-Z Do (do not) try to resume transfers. The default
is to try to resume (-z).
-E Use regular (PORT) data connections.
-F Use passive (PASV) data connections. The default
is to use passive, but to fallback to regular if
the passive connection fails or times out.
-DD Delete remote file after successfully downloading
it.
-R Recursive mode; copy whole directory trees.
-T Do not use automatic on-the-fly TAR mode for down
loading whole directory trees. ncftpget uses TAR
whenever possible since this usually preserves
symbolic links and file permissions. TAR mode can
also result in faster transfers for directories
containing many small files, since a single data
connection can be used rather than an FTP data
connection for each small file. The downside to
using TAR is that it forces downloading of the
whole directory, even if you had previously down
loaded a portion of it earlier, so you may want to
use this option if you want to resume downloading
of a directory.
-r XX Redial a maximum of XX times until connected to
the remote FTP server.
-b Run in background (by submitting a batch job and
then spawning ncftpbatch).
-bb Similar to -b option, but only submits the batch
job. You will need to run ncftpbatch for the
batch job to be processed. This is useful if you
already have a ncftpbatch process running, or wish
to have better control of when batch jobs are pro
cessed.
For example, if you wanted to do background pro
cessing of three files all on the same remote
server, it is more polite to use just one ncftp_
batch process to process the three jobs sequen
tially, rather than having three ncftpbatch pro
cesses open three simultaneous FTP sessions to the
same server.
-B XX Try setting the TCP/IP socket buffer size to XX
bytes.
-W XX Send raw FTP command XX after logging in.
-X XX Send raw FTP command XX after each file trans
ferred.
-Y XX Send raw FTP command XX before logging out.
The -W, -X, and -Y options are useful for advanced
users who need to tweak behavior on some servers.
For example, users accessing mainframes might need
to send some special SITE commands to set block
size and record format information.
For these options, you can use them multiple times
each if you need to send multiple commands. For
the -X option, you can use the cookie %s to expand
into the name of the file that was transferred.
DESCRIPTION
The purpose of ncftpget is to do file transfers from the
command-line without entering an interactive shell. This
lets you write shell scripts or other unattended processes
that can do FTP. It is also useful for advanced users who
want to retrieve files from the shell command line without
entering an interactive FTP program such as ncftp.
One particularly useful feature of this program is that
you can give it a uniform resource locator as the only
argument and the program will download that file. You can
then copy and paste from your web browser or newsreader
and use that URL. Example:
$ cd /tmp
$ ncftpget ftp://ftp.ncftp.com/pub/ncftp/ncftp.tar.Z
$ zcat ncftp.tar.Z | tar xf -
By default the program tries to open the remote host and
login anonymously, but you can specify a username and
password information. The -u option is used to specify
the username to login as, and the -p option is used to
specify the password. If you are running the program from
the shell, you may omit the -p option and the program will
prompt you for the password.
Using the -u and -p options are not recommended, because
your account information is exposed to anyone who can see
your shell script or your process information. For exam
ple, someone using the ps program could see your password
while the program runs.
You may use the -f option instead to specify a file with
the account information. However, this is still not
secure because anyone who has read access to the informa
tion file can see the account information. Nevertheless,
if you choose to use the -f option the file should look
something like this:
host sphygmomanometer.ncftp.com
user gleason
pass mypasswd
Don't forget to change the permissions on this file so no
one else can read them.
The -d option is very useful when you are trying to diag
nose why a file transfer is failing. It prints out the
entire FTP conversation to the file you specify, so you
can get an idea of what went wrong. If you specify the
special name stdout as the name of the debugging output
file, the output will instead print to the screen. Exam
ple:
$ ncftpget-d stdout bowser.nintendo.co.jp .
/pub/README
220: FTP server ready.
Connected to bowser.nintendo.co.jp.
Cmd: USER anonymous
331: Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address
as password.
Cmd: PASS xxxxxxxx
230: Welcome!
Logged in to bowser.nintendo.co.jp as anonymous.
Cmd: TYPE I
200: Type set to I.
Cmd: PORT 192,168,9,37,6,76
200: PORT command successful.
Cmd: RETR /pub/README
550: /pub/README: File in use.
Cmd: QUIT
221: Goodbye.
Using ASCII mode is helpful when the text format of your
host differs from that of the remote host. For example,
if you are retrieving a .TXT file from a Windows-based
host to a UNIX system, you could use the -a flag which
would use ASCII transfer mode so that the file created on
the UNIX system would be in the UNIX text format instead
of the MS-DOS text format.
You can retrieve an entire directory tree of files by
using the -R flag. However, this will work only if the
remote FTP server is a UNIX server, or emulates UNIX's
list output. Example:
$ ncftpget-R ftp.ncftp.com /tmp /pub/ncftp
This would create a /tmp/ncftp hierarchy.
DIAGNOSTICSncftpget returns the following exit values:
0 Success.
1 Could not connect to remote host.
2 Could not connect to remote host - timed out.
3 Transfer failed.
4 Transfer failed - timed out.
5 Directory change failed.
6 Directory change failed - timed out.
7 Malformed URL.
8 Usage error.
9 Error in login configuration file.
10 Library initialization failed.
11 Session initialization failed.
AUTHOR
Mike Gleason, NcFTP Software (mgleason@ncftp.com).
SEE ALSOncftpput(1), ncftp(1), ftp(1), rcp(1), tftp(1).
LibNcFTP (http://www.ncftp.com/libncftp/).
Software NcFTP ncftpget(1)
