ftp MACHINE

See below for a list of commands you would typically use once you ftp to a machine.

Basic FTP Commands #

Automating FTP logins for specific IPs #

If you find yourself logging into a specific MACHINE too frequently, and if you want to save yourself from having to enter the username and password each time, you can save those credentials to your ~/.netrc file. See the example at the end of this post.

If that file does not exist, then create it, and remember to set its permission to 600.

touch ~/.netrc
chmod 600 ~/.netrc

If the permissions are not set so, you will get this ftp error:

Error - .netrc file not correct mode.
Remove password or correct mode.

Ignore the credentials in .netrc #

But at times, you might need to manually log into a machine with a different set of credentials than the one saved in the ~/.netrc. To do so, run ftp with the -n option. And then use the quote USER and quote PASS commands to pass in the username and password.

> ftp -n <machine>
ftp> quote USER <username>
ftp> quote PASS <password>

Commenting out stuff in .netrc #

Unfortunately, .netrc does not seem to have a comment syntax. But this hack works ..

Using the # character quickly followed by an FTP command foo (no space, ex: #foo) is one way to “comment out” lines with valid .netrc keywords.

You cannot have such ‘comments’ after valid .netrc keywords are used.

So if you need to comment out a set of logins and passwords, do that before the first valid set of uncommented login credentials. See below for an example of that.

An Example ~/.netrc #

#machine foo.bar.com
#login username1
#password pAsSw0rd1

machine foo.bar.com
login username2
password pAsSw0rd2

References #

• Basic FTP Commands - Colorado State Univerity
• Use configuration file for ftp with auto login enabled upon initial connection - unix.stackexchange
• man ftp, man netrc