FTP Basics

A typical FTP (File Transfer Protocol) session goes like:
(1) open a remote host with an FTP server running.
(2) login
(3) create or copy to or copy from files, etc
(4) close the connection

An FTP session can also be automated by using script files.

Sample:
(1) connecting to a remote host:
- on the command prompt, simply type in: ftp ip_address
- or, type in ftp and then on the ftp prompt, type open ip_address

(2) login
- enter with your username and password
- this account is created by the Admin of the remote host you are connecting to

(3) perform FTP transactions
- display all commands by typing: help
- list the files on the remote server by typing: ls
- put a file to the remote server by typing: put filename
- get a file from the remote server by typing: get filename

(4) close the connection
- simply type: bye

Automating FTP:
(1) When using a Windows machine.
- create a script file that contains the FTP commands you wanted to perform, say we named it script.txt and has the following contents:
open ip_address
username
password
ftp commands
bye
- then simply type in: ftp -s:script.txt on the command prompt to execute

(2) When using a Linux machine.
- you can create a shell script file that looks like the following:
#!/bin/sh
ftp -n -i ip_address <<EOF
user username password
ftp commands
bye
EOF
exit 0