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A very short manual command line FTP guide

In line with the original spirit of this notepad, this is more of a personal note backup than a proper guide.

To connect to an FTP server:
ftp [server name]

Then, within the FTP program, you can list folders and files using the usual commands, like:
ls or dir to list a folder’s contents (ls -al for a more complete and detailed list)
cd [folder] to browse to folders. Note that commands are, as usual, case-sensitive.

To download a file:
get [remote path relative to current folder] [local path to file relative to where you started ftp from]

To upload a file:
put [local path to file relative to where you started ftp from] [remote path relative to current folder]

Finally, once you’re done:
quit

With this you have all the basics for quickly uploading a few files from your server to another via FTP without using a GUI. This won’t be too convenient for a massive number of files, though, I suppose. When I find the time I guess I should read more carefully this much more detailed commands list.

Update (2013-05-19): also for unattended upload, see this How to use linux command line ftp with a @ sign in my username? on Stackoverflow.

Posted in FTP.


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