Manual: tnftp
TNFTP(1) General Commands Manual TNFTP(1)
NAME
tnftp — Internet file transfer program
SYNOPSIS
tnftp [-46AadefginpRtVv] [-b bufsize] [-H header] [-N netrc] [-o output] [-P port] [-q quittime]
[-r retry] [-s srcaddr] [-T dir,max[,inc]] [-x xfersize] [[user@]host [port]]
[[user@]host:[path][/]] [file:///path]
[ftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path[/][;type=type]]
[http://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path] [https://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path] ...
tnftp -u url file ...
tnftp -?
DESCRIPTION
tnftp is the user interface to the Internet standard File Transfer Protocol. The program allows a
user to transfer files to and from a remote network site.
The last five arguments will fetch a file using the FTP or HTTP protocols, or by direct copying, into
the current directory. This is ideal for scripts. Refer to “AUTO-FETCHING FILES” below for more in‐
formation.
Options may be specified at the command line, or to the command interpreter.
-4 Forces tnftp to only use IPv4 addresses.
-6 Forces tnftp to only use IPv6 addresses.
-A Force active mode FTP. By default, tnftp will try to use passive mode FTP and fall back
to active mode if passive is not supported by the server. This option causes tnftp to
always use an active connection. It is only useful for connecting to very old servers
that do not implement passive mode properly.
-a Causes tnftp to bypass normal login procedure, and use an anonymous login instead.
-b bufsize Change the buffer size used for parsing HTTP response lines to bufsize bytes. The de‐
fault bufsize is 16384 (16 KiB).
-d Enables debugging.
-e Disables command line editing. This is useful for Emacs ange-ftp mode.
-f Forces a cache reload for transfers that go through the FTP or HTTP proxies.
-g Disables file name globbing.
-H header Include the provided header string as a custom HTTP header for an HTTP request. The -H
option can be repeated to add additional headers.
-i Turns off interactive prompting during multiple file transfers.
-N netrc Use netrc instead of ~/.netrc. Refer to “THE .netrc FILE” for more information.
-n Restrains tnftp from attempting “auto-login” upon initial connection for non auto-fetch
transfers. If auto-login is enabled, tnftp will check the .netrc (see below) file in the
user's home directory for an entry describing an account on the remote machine. If no
entry exists, tnftp will prompt for the remote machine login name (default is the user
identity on the local machine), and, if necessary, prompt for a password and an account
with which to login. To override the auto-login for auto-fetch transfers, specify the
username (and optionally, password) as appropriate.
-o output When auto-fetching files, save the contents in output. output is parsed according to the
“FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS” below. If output is not ‘-’ or doesn't start with ‘|’, then
only the first file specified will be retrieved into output; all other files will be re‐
trieved into the basename of their remote name.
-P port Sets the port number to port.
-p Enable passive mode operation for use behind connection filtering firewalls. This option
has been deprecated as tnftp now tries to use passive mode by default, falling back to
active mode if the server does not support passive connections.
-q quittime
Quit if the connection has stalled for quittime seconds.
-R Restart all non-proxied auto-fetches.
-r retry Retry the connection attempt if it failed, pausing for retry seconds.
-s srcaddr Uses srcaddr as the local IP address for all connections.
-t Enables packet tracing.
-T direction,maximum[,increment]
Set the maximum transfer rate for direction to maximum bytes/second, and if specified,
the increment to increment bytes/second. Refer to rate for more information.
-u url file ...
Upload files on the command line to url where url is one of the ‘ftp://’ URL types as
supported by auto-fetch (with an optional target filename for single file uploads), and
file is one or more local files to be uploaded.
-V Disable verbose and progress, overriding the default of enabled when output is to a ter‐
minal.
-v Enable verbose and progress. This is the default if output is to a terminal (and in the
case of progress, tnftp is the foreground process). Forces tnftp to show all responses
from the remote server, as well as report on data transfer statistics.
-x xfersize
Set the size of the socket send and receive buffers to xfersize bytes. Refer to xferbuf
for more information.
-? Display help to stdout, and exit.
The client host with which tnftp is to communicate may be specified on the command line. If this is
done, tnftp will immediately attempt to establish a connection to an FTP server on that host; other‐
wise, tnftp will enter its command interpreter and await instructions from the user. When tnftp is
awaiting commands from the user the prompt ‘ftp>’ is provided to the user. The following commands
are recognized by tnftp:
! [command [args]]
Invoke an interactive shell on the local machine. If there are arguments, the first is
taken to be a command to execute directly, with the rest of the arguments as its argu‐
ments.
$ macro-name [args]
Execute the macro macro-name that was defined with the macdef command. Arguments are
passed to the macro unglobbed.
account [passwd]
Supply a supplemental password required by a remote system for access to resources once a
login has been successfully completed. If no argument is included, the user will be
prompted for an account password in a non-echoing input mode.
append local-file [remote-file]
Append a local file to a file on the remote machine. If remote-file is left unspecified,
the local file name is used in naming the remote file after being altered by any ntrans
or nmap setting. File transfer uses the current settings for type, form, mode, and
struct.
ascii A synonym for type ascii.
bell Arrange that a bell be sounded after each file transfer command is completed.
binary A synonym for type binary.
bye Terminate the FTP session with the remote server and exit tnftp. An end of file will
also terminate the session and exit.
case Toggle remote computer file name case mapping during get, mget and mput commands. When
case is on (default is off), remote computer file names with all letters in upper case
are written in the local directory with the letters mapped to lower case.
cd remote-directory
Change the working directory on the remote machine to remote-directory.
cdup Change the remote machine working directory to the parent of the current remote machine
working directory.
chmod mode remote-file
Change the permission modes of the file remote-file on the remote system to mode.
close Terminate the FTP session with the remote server, and return to the command interpreter.
Any defined macros are erased.
connect host [port]
A synonym for open.
cr Toggle carriage return stripping during type ascii file retrieval. Records are denoted
by a carriage return/linefeed sequence during type ascii file transfer. When cr is on
(the default), carriage returns are stripped from this sequence to conform with the Unix
single linefeed record delimiter. Records on non-Unix remote systems may contain single
linefeeds; when a type ascii transfer is made, these linefeeds may be distinguished from
a record delimiter only when cr is off.
debug [debug-value]
Toggle debugging mode. If an optional debug-value is specified it is used to set the de‐
bugging level. When debugging is on, tnftp prints each command sent to the remote ma‐
chine, preceded by the string ‘-->’.
delete remote-file
Delete the file remote-file on the remote machine.
dir [remote-path [local-file]]
Print a listing of the contents of a directory on the remote machine. The listing in‐
cludes any system-dependent information that the server chooses to include; for example,
most Unix systems will produce output from the command ‘ls -l’. If remote-path is left
unspecified, the current working directory is used. If interactive prompting is on,
tnftp will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local
file for receiving dir output. If no local file is specified, or if local-file is ‘-’,
the output is sent to the terminal.
disconnect A synonym for close.
edit Toggle command line editing, and context sensitive command and file completion. This is
automatically enabled if input is from a terminal, and disabled otherwise.
epsv, epsv4, epsv6
Toggle the use of the extended EPSV and EPRT commands on all IP, IPv4, and IPv6 connec‐
tions respectively. First try EPSV/EPRT, and then PASV/PORT. This is enabled by de‐
fault. If an extended command fails then this option will be temporarily disabled for
the duration of the current connection, or until epsv, epsv4, or epsv6 is executed again.
exit A synonym for bye.
features Display what features the remote server supports (using the FEAT command).
fget localfile
Retrieve the files listed in localfile, which has one line per filename.
form format
Set the file transfer format control to format. The default (and only supported) format
is ‘non-print’.
ftp host [port]
A synonym for open.
gate [host [port]]
Toggle gate-ftp mode, which used to connect through the TIS FWTK and Gauntlet FTP prox‐
ies. This will not be permitted if the gate-ftp server hasn't been set (either
explicitly by the user, or from the FTPSERVER environment variable). If host is given,
then gate-ftp mode will be enabled, and the gate-ftp server will be set to host. If port
is also given, that will be used as the port to connect to on the gate-ftp server.
get remote-file [local-file]
Retrieve the remote-file and store it on the local machine. If the local file name is
not specified, it is given the same name it has on the remote machine, subject to alter‐
ation by the current case, ntrans, and nmap settings. The current settings for type,
form, mode, and struct are used while transferring the file.
glob Toggle filename expansion for mdelete, mget, mput, and mreget. If globbing is turned off
with glob, the file name arguments are taken literally and not expanded. Globbing for
mput is done as in csh(1). For mdelete, mget, and mreget, each remote file name is ex‐
panded separately on the remote machine and the lists are not merged. Expansion of a di‐
rectory name is likely to be different from expansion of the name of an ordinary file:
the exact result depends on the foreign operating system and FTP server, and can be pre‐
viewed by doing ‘mls remote-files -’. Note: mget, mput and mreget are not meant to
transfer entire directory subtrees of files. That can be done by transferring a tar(1)
archive of the subtree (in type binary mode).
hash [size]
Toggle hash-sign (‘#’) printing for each data block transferred. The size of a data
block defaults to 1024 bytes. This can be changed by specifying size in bytes. Enabling
hash disables progress.
help [command]
Print an informative message about the meaning of command. If no argument is given,
tnftp prints a list of the known commands.
idle [seconds]
Set the inactivity timer on the remote server to seconds seconds. If seconds is omitted,
the current inactivity timer is printed.
image A synonym for type binary.
lcd [directory]
Change the working directory on the local machine. If no directory is specified, the
user's home directory is used.
less file A synonym for page.
lpage local-file
Display local-file with the program specified by the set pager option.
lpwd Print the working directory on the local machine.
ls [remote-path [local-file]]
A synonym for dir.
macdef macro-name
Define a macro. Subsequent lines are stored as the macro macro-name; a null line
(consecutive newline characters in a file or carriage returns from the terminal) termi‐
nates macro input mode. There is a limit of 16 macros and 4096 total characters in all
defined macros. Macro names can be a maximum of 8 characters. Macros are only applica‐
ble to the current session they are defined within (or if defined outside a session, to
the session invoked with the next open command), and remain defined until a close command
is executed. To invoke a macro, use the $ command (see above).
The macro processor interprets ‘$’ and ‘\’ as special characters. A ‘$’ followed by a
number (or numbers) is replaced by the corresponding argument on the macro invocation
command line. A ‘$’ followed by an ‘i’ signals the macro processor that the executing
macro is to be looped. On the first pass ‘$i’ is replaced by the first argument on the
macro invocation command line, on the second pass it is replaced by the second argument,
and so on. A ‘\’ followed by any character is replaced by that character. Use the ‘\’
to prevent special treatment of the ‘$’.
mdelete [remote-files]
Delete the remote-files on the remote machine.
mdir remote-files local-file
Like dir, except multiple remote files may be specified. If interactive prompting is on,
tnftp will prompt the user to verify that the last argument is indeed the target local
file for receiving mdir output.
mget remote-files
Expand the remote-files on the remote machine and do a get for each file name thus pro‐
duced. See glob for details on the filename expansion. Resulting file names will then
be processed according to case, ntrans, and nmap settings. Files are transferred into
the local working directory, which can be changed with lcd directory; new local directo‐
ries can be created with ! mkdir directory.
mkdir directory-name
Make a directory on the remote machine.
mls remote-files local-file
Like ls, except multiple remote files may be specified, and the local-file must be speci‐
fied. If interactive prompting is on, tnftp will prompt the user to verify that the last
argument is indeed the target local file for receiving mls output.
mlsd [remote-path]
Display the contents of remote-path (which should default to the current directory if not
given) in a machine-parsable form, using MLSD. The format of display can be changed with
‘remopts mlst ...’.
mlst [remote-path]
Display the details about remote-path (which should default to the current directory if
not given) in a machine-parsable form, using MLST. The format of display can be changed
with ‘remopts mlst ...’.
mode mode-name
Set the file transfer transmission mode to mode-name. The default (and only supported)
mode-name is ‘stream’.
modtime remote-file
Show the last modification time of the file on the remote machine, in RFC 2822 format.
more file A synonym for page.
mput local-files
Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as arguments and do a put for each
file in the resulting list. See glob for details of filename expansion. Resulting file
names will then be processed according to ntrans and nmap settings.
mreget remote-files
As per mget, but performs a reget instead of get.
msend local-files
A synonym for mput.
newer remote-file [local-file]
Get the file only if the modification time of the remote file is more recent that the
file on the current system. If the file does not exist on the current system, the remote
file is considered newer. Otherwise, this command is identical to get.
nlist [remote-path [local-file]]
A synonym for ls.
nmap [inpattern outpattern]
Set or unset the filename mapping mechanism. If no arguments are specified, the filename
mapping mechanism is unset. If arguments are specified, remote filenames are mapped dur‐
ing mput commands and put commands issued without a specified remote target filename. If
arguments are specified, local filenames are mapped during mget commands and get commands
issued without a specified local target filename. This command is useful when connecting
to a non-Unix remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices. The
mapping follows the pattern set by inpattern and outpattern.
inpattern is a template for incoming filenames (which may have already been processed
according to the ntrans and case settings). Variable templating is accomplished by in‐
cluding the sequences ‘$1’, ‘$2’, ..., ‘$9’ in inpattern. Use ‘\’ to prevent this spe‐
cial treatment of the ‘$’ character. All other characters are treated literally, and are
used to determine the nmap [inpattern] variable values. For example, given inpattern
‘$1.$2’ and the remote file name ‘mydata.data’, ‘$1’ would have the value ‘mydata’, and
‘$2’ would have the value ‘data’.
The outpattern determines the resulting mapped filename. The sequences ‘$1’, ‘$2’, ...,
‘$9’ are replaced by any value resulting from the inpattern template. The sequence ‘$0’
is replaced by the original filename. Additionally, the sequence [seq1,seq2] is replaced
by seq1 if seq1 is not a null string; otherwise it is replaced by seq2. For example, the
command
nmap $1.$2.$3 [$1,$2].[$2,file]
would yield the output filename ‘myfile.data’ for input filenames ‘myfile.data’ and
‘myfile.data.old’, ‘myfile.file’ for the input filename ‘myfile’, and ‘myfile.myfile’ for
the input filename ‘.myfile’. Spaces may be included in outpattern, as in the example:
nmap $1 sed s/ *$// > $1
Use the ‘\’ character to prevent special treatment of the ‘$’, ‘[’, ‘]’, and ‘,’ charac‐
ters.
ntrans [inchars [outchars]]
Set or unset the filename character translation mechanism. If no arguments are speci‐
fied, the filename character translation mechanism is unset. If arguments are specified,
characters in remote filenames are translated during mput commands and put commands is‐
sued without a specified remote target filename. If arguments are specified, characters
in local filenames are translated during mget commands and get commands issued without a
specified local target filename. This command is useful when connecting to a non-Unix
remote computer with different file naming conventions or practices. Characters in a
filename matching a character in inchars are replaced with the corresponding character in
outchars. If the character's position in inchars is longer than the length of outchars,
the character is deleted from the file name.
open host [port]
Establish a connection to the specified host FTP server. An optional port number may be
supplied, in which case, tnftp will attempt to contact an FTP server at that port. If
the set auto-login option is on (default), tnftp will also attempt to automatically log
the user in to the FTP server (see below).
page file Retrieve file and display with the program specified by the set pager option.
passive [auto]
Toggle passive mode (if no arguments are given). If auto is given, act as if FTPMODE is
set to ‘auto’. If passive mode is turned on (default), tnftp will send a PASV command
for all data connections instead of a PORT command. The PASV command requests that the
remote server open a port for the data connection and return the address of that port.
The remote server listens on that port and the client connects to it. When using the
more traditional PORT command, the client listens on a port and sends that address to the
remote server, who connects back to it. Passive mode is useful when using tnftp through
a gateway router or host that controls the directionality of traffic. (Note that though
FTP servers are required to support the PASV command by RFC 1123, some do not.)
pdir [remote-path]
Perform dir [remote-path], and display the result with the program specified by the set
pager option.
pls [remote-path]
Perform ls [remote-path], and display the result with the program specified by the set
pager option.
pmlsd [remote-path]
Perform mlsd [remote-path], and display the result with the program specified by the set
pager option.
preserve Toggle preservation of modification times on retrieved files.
progress Toggle display of transfer progress bar. The progress bar will be disabled for a trans‐
fer that has local-file as ‘-’ or a command that starts with ‘|’. Refer to “FILE NAMING
CONVENTIONS” for more information. Enabling progress disables hash.
prompt Toggle interactive prompting. Interactive prompting occurs during multiple file trans‐
fers to allow the user to selectively retrieve or store files. If prompting is turned
off (default is on), any mget or mput will transfer all files, and any mdelete will
delete all files.
When prompting is on, the following commands are available at a prompt:
a Answer ‘yes’ to the current file, and automatically answer ‘yes’ to any remain‐
ing files for the current command.
n Answer ‘no’, and do not transfer the file.
p Answer ‘yes’ to the current file, and turn off prompt mode (as if prompt off
had been given).
q Terminate the current operation.
y Answer ‘yes’, and transfer the file.
? Display a help message.
Any other response will answer ‘yes’ to the current file.
proxy ftp-command
Execute an FTP command on a secondary control connection. This command allows simultane‐
ous connection to two remote FTP servers for transferring files between the two servers.
The first proxy command should be an open, to establish the secondary control connection.
Enter the command ‘proxy ?’ to see other FTP commands executable on the secondary connec‐
tion. The following commands behave differently when prefaced by proxy: open will not
define new macros during the auto-login process, close will not erase existing macro def‐
initions, get and mget transfer files from the host on the primary control connection to
the host on the secondary control connection, and put, mput, and append transfer files
from the host on the secondary control connection to the host on the primary control con‐
nection. Third party file transfers depend upon support of the FTP protocol PASV command
by the server on the secondary control connection.
put local-file [remote-file]
Store a local file on the remote machine. If remote-file is left unspecified, the local
file name is used after processing according to any ntrans or nmap settings in naming the
remote file. File transfer uses the current settings for type, form, mode, and struct.
pwd Print the name of the current working directory on the remote machine.
quit A synonym for bye.
quote [arg ...]
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server.
rate direction [maximum [increment]]
Throttle the maximum transfer rate to maximum bytes/second. If maximum is 0, disable the
throttle.
direction may be one of:
all Both directions.
get Incoming transfers.
put Outgoing transfers.
maximum can be modified on the fly by increment bytes (default: 1024) each time a given
signal is received:
SIGUSR1 Increment maximum by increment bytes.
SIGUSR2 Decrement maximum by increment bytes. The result must be a positive num‐
ber.
If maximum is not supplied, the current throttle rates are displayed.
Note: rate is not yet implemented for type ascii transfers.
rcvbuf size
Set the size of the socket receive buffer to size.
recv remote-file [local-file]
A synonym for get.
reget remote-file [local-file]
reget acts like get, except that if local-file exists and is smaller than remote-file,
local-file is presumed to be a partially transferred copy of remote-file and the transfer
is continued from the apparent point of failure. This command is useful when transfer‐
ring very large files over networks that are prone to dropping connections.
remopts command [command-options]
Set options on the remote FTP server for command to command-options (whose absence is
handled on a command-specific basis). Remote FTP commands known to support options in‐
clude: MLST (used for MLSD and MLST).
rename [from [to]]
Rename the file from on the remote machine, to the file to.
reset Clear reply queue. This command re-synchronizes command/reply sequencing with the remote
FTP server. Resynchronization may be necessary following a violation of the FTP protocol
by the remote server.
restart marker
Restart the immediately following get or put at the indicated marker. On Unix systems,
marker is usually a byte offset into the file.
rhelp [command-name]
Request help from the remote FTP server. If a command-name is specified it is supplied
to the server as well.
rmdir directory-name
Delete a directory on the remote machine.
rstatus [remote-file]
With no arguments, show status of remote machine. If remote-file is specified, show sta‐
tus of remote-file on remote machine.
runique Toggle storing of files on the local system with unique filenames. If a file already ex‐
ists with a name equal to the target local filename for a get or mget command, a ‘.1’ is
appended to the name. If the resulting name matches another existing file, a ‘.2’ is ap‐
pended to the original name. If this process continues up to ‘.99’, an error message is
printed, and the transfer does not take place. The generated unique filename will be re‐
ported. Note that runique will not affect local files generated from a shell command
(see below). The default value is off.
send local-file [remote-file]
A synonym for put.
sendport Toggle the use of PORT commands. By default, tnftp will attempt to use a PORT command
when establishing a connection for each data transfer. The use of PORT commands can pre‐
vent delays when performing multiple file transfers. If the PORT command fails, tnftp
will use the default data port. When the use of PORT commands is disabled, no attempt
will be made to use PORT commands for each data transfer. This is useful for certain FTP
implementations which do ignore PORT commands but, incorrectly, indicate they've been ac‐
cepted.
set [option value]
Set option to value. If option and value are not given, display all of the options and
their values. The supported option values are:
anonpass Defaults to $FTPANONPASS
ftp_proxy Defaults to $ftp_proxy.
http_proxy Defaults to $http_proxy.
https_proxy Defaults to $https_proxy.
no_proxy Defaults to $no_proxy.
pager Defaults to $PAGER.
prompt Defaults to $FTPPROMPT.
rprompt Defaults to $FTPRPROMPT.
sslnoverify Defaults to $FTPSSLNOVERIFY.
site [arg ...]
The arguments specified are sent, verbatim, to the remote FTP server as a SITE command.
size remote-file
Return size of remote-file on remote machine.
sndbuf size
Set the size of the socket send buffer to size.
status Show the current status of tnftp.
struct struct-name
Set the file transfer data structures to struct-name. The default (and only supported)
struct-name is ‘file’.
sunique Toggle storing of files on remote machine under unique file names. The remote FTP server
must support FTP protocol STOU command for successful completion. The remote server will
report unique name. Default value is off.
system Show the type of operating system running on the remote machine.
tenex A synonym for type tenex.
throttle A synonym for rate.
trace Toggle packet tracing.
type [type-name]
Set the file transfer data type to type-name. If no type is specified, the current type
is printed. Supported type-name values are:
ascii Network ASCII. This is the default type.
binary 8-bit byte binary transfer, without any transformations.
ebcdic EBCDIC transfer. Not implemented in tnftp.
image A synonym for type binary.
tenex Set the file transfer type to that needed to binary transfer with TENEX ma‐
chines, with local byte size 8.
umask [newmask]
Set the default umask on the remote server to newmask. If newmask is omitted, the cur‐
rent umask is printed.
unset option
Unset option. Refer to set for more information.
usage command
Print the usage message for command.
user user-name [password [account]]
Identify yourself to the remote FTP server. If the password is not specified and the
server requires it, tnftp will prompt the user for it (after disabling local echo). If
an account field is not specified, and the FTP server requires it, the user will be
prompted for it. If an account field is specified, an account command will be relayed to
the remote server after the login sequence is completed if the remote server did not re‐
quire it for logging in. Unless tnftp is invoked with “auto-login” disabled, this
process is done automatically on initial connection to the FTP server.
verbose Toggle verbose mode. In verbose mode, all responses from the FTP server are displayed to
the user. In addition, if verbose is on, when a file transfer completes, statistics re‐
garding the efficiency of the transfer are reported. By default, verbose is on.
xferbuf size
Set the size of the socket send and receive buffers to size. If size is 0, the default
values for the operating system are used.
? [command]
A synonym for help.
Command arguments which have embedded spaces may be quoted with quote ‘"’ marks.
Commands which toggle settings can take an explicit on or off argument to force the setting appropri‐
ately.
Commands which take a byte count as an argument (e.g., hash, rate, and xferbuf) support an optional
suffix on the argument which changes the interpretation of the argument. Supported suffixes are:
b Causes no modification. (Optional)
k Kilo; multiply the argument by 1024
m Mega; multiply the argument by 1048576
g Giga; multiply the argument by 1073741824
If tnftp receives a SIGINFO (see the status argument of stty(1)) or SIGQUIT signal whilst a transfer
is in progress, the current transfer rate statistics will be written to the standard error output, in
the same format as the standard completion message.
AUTO-FETCHING FILES
In addition to standard commands, this version of tnftp supports an auto-fetch feature. To enable
auto-fetch, simply pass the list of hostnames/files on the command line.
The following formats are valid syntax for an auto-fetch element:
[user@]host:[path][/]
“Classic” FTP format.
If path contains a glob character and globbing is enabled, (see glob), then the equivalent of
mget path is performed.
If the directory component of path contains no globbing characters, it is stored locally with
the name basename (see basename(1)) of path, in the current directory. Otherwise, the full re‐
mote name is used as the local name, relative to the local root directory.
ftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path[/][;type=type]
An FTP URL, retrieved using the FTP protocol if set ftp_proxy isn't defined. Otherwise, trans‐
fer the URL using HTTP via the proxy defined in set ftp_proxy. If set ftp_proxy isn't defined
and user is given, login as user. In this case, use password if supplied, otherwise prompt the
user for one.
If a suffix of ‘;type=A’ or ‘;type=I’ is supplied, then the transfer type will take place as
type ascii or type binary (respectively). The default transfer type is type binary.
In order to be compliant with RFC 3986, tnftp interprets the path part of an ‘ftp://’ auto-
fetch URL as follows:
• The ‘/’ immediately after the host[:port] is interpreted as a separator before the path,
and not as part of the path itself.
• The path is interpreted as a ‘/’-separated list of name components. For all but the last
such component, tnftp performs the equivalent of a cd command. For the last path compo‐
nent, tnftp performs the equivalent of a get command.
• Empty name components, which result from ‘//’ within the path, or from an extra ‘/’ at the
beginning of the path, will cause the equivalent of a cd command without a directory name.
This is unlikely to be useful.
• Any ‘%XX’ codes (per RFC 3986) within the path components are decoded, with XX representing
a character code in hexadecimal. This decoding takes place after the path has been split
into components, but before each component is used in the equivalent of a cd or get com‐
mand. Some often-used codes are ‘%2F’ (which represents ‘/’) and ‘%7E’ (which represents
‘~’).
The above interpretation has the following consequences:
• The path is interpreted relative to the default login directory of the specified user or of
the ‘anonymous’ user. If the / directory is required, use a leading path of ‘%2F’. If a
user's home directory is required (and the remote server supports the syntax), use a lead‐
ing path of ‘%7Euser/’. For example, to retrieve /etc/motd from ‘localhost’ as the user
‘myname’ with the password ‘mypass’, use ‘ftp://myname:mypass@localhost/%2fetc/motd’
• The exact cd and get commands can be controlled by careful choice of where to use ‘/’ and
where to use ‘%2F’ (or ‘%2f’). For example, the following URLs correspond to the equiva‐
lents of the indicated commands:
ftp://host/dir1/dir2/file cd dir1, cd dir2, get file.
ftp://host/%2Fdir1/dir2/file cd /dir1, cd dir2, get file.
ftp://host/dir1%2Fdir2/file cd dir1/dir2, get file.
• You must have appropriate access permission for each of the intermediate directories that
is used in the equivalent of a cd command.
http://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path
An HTTP URL, retrieved using the HTTP protocol. If set http_proxy is defined, it is used as a
URL to an HTTP proxy server. If HTTP authorization is required to retrieve path, and user (and
optionally password) is in the URL, use them for the first attempt to authenticate.
https://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path
An HTTPS URL, retrieved using the HTTPS protocol. If set https_proxy is defined, it is used as
a URL to an HTTPS proxy server. If HTTPS authorization is required to retrieve path, and user
(and optionally password) is in the URL, use them for the first attempt to authenticate.
file:///path
A local URL, copied from /path on the local host.
about:topic
Display information regarding topic; no file is retrieved for this auto-fetched element. Sup‐
ported values include:
about:ftp Information about tnftp.
about:version The version of tnftp. Useful to provide when reporting problems.
Unless noted otherwise above, and -o output is not given, the file is stored in the current directory
as the basename(1) of path. Note that if a HTTP redirect is received, the fetch is retried using the
new target URL supplied by the server, with a corresponding new path. Using an explicit -o output is
recommended, to avoid writing to unexpected file names.
If a classic format or an FTP URL format has a trailing ‘/’ or an empty path component, then tnftp
will connect to the site and cd to the directory given as the path, and leave the user in interactive
mode ready for further input. This will not work if set ftp_proxy is being used.
Direct HTTP transfers use HTTP 1.1. Proxied FTP and HTTP transfers use HTTP 1.0.
If -R is given, all auto-fetches that don't go via the FTP or HTTP proxies will be restarted. For
FTP, this is implemented by using reget instead of get. For HTTP, this is implemented by using the
‘Range: bytes=’ HTTP/1.1 directive.
If WWW or proxy WWW authentication is required, you will be prompted to enter a username and password
to authenticate with.
When specifying IPv6 numeric addresses in a URL, you need to surround the address in square brackets.
E.g.: ‘ftp://[::1]:21/’. This is because colons are used in IPv6 numeric address as well as being
the separator for the port number.
ABORTING A FILE TRANSFER
To abort a file transfer, use the terminal interrupt key (usually Ctrl-C). Sending transfers will be
immediately halted. Receiving transfers will be halted by sending an FTP protocol ABOR command to
the remote server, and discarding any further data received. The speed at which this is accomplished
depends upon the remote server's support for ABOR processing. If the remote server does not support
the ABOR command, the prompt will not appear until the remote server has completed sending the re‐
quested file.
If the terminal interrupt key sequence is used whilst tnftp is awaiting a reply from the remote
server for the ABOR processing, then the connection will be closed. This is different from the tra‐
ditional behaviour (which ignores the terminal interrupt during this phase), but is considered more
useful.
FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS
Files specified as arguments to tnftp commands are processed according to the following rules.
1. If the file name ‘-’ is specified, the stdin (for reading) or stdout (for writing) is used.
2. If the first character of the file name is ‘|’, the remainder of the argument is interpreted as
a shell command. tnftp then forks a shell, using popen(3) with the argument supplied, and reads
(writes) from the stdout (stdin). If the shell command includes spaces, the argument must be
quoted; e.g. ‘"| ls -lt"’. A particularly useful example of this mechanism is: ‘dir "" |more’.
3. Failing the above checks, if globbing is enabled, local file names are expanded according to the
rules used in the csh(1); see the glob command. If the tnftp command expects a single local
file (e.g. put), only the first filename generated by the globbing operation is used.
4. For mget commands and get commands with unspecified local file names, the local filename is the
remote filename, which may be altered by a case, ntrans, or nmap setting. The resulting file‐
name may then be altered if runique is on.
5. For mput commands and put commands with unspecified remote file names, the remote filename is
the local filename, which may be altered by a ntrans or nmap setting. The resulting filename
may then be altered by the remote server if sunique is on.
FILE TRANSFER PARAMETERS
The FTP specification in RFC 959 specifies many parameters which may affect a file transfer.
The file transfer parameter data type is specified as one of “ASCII type”, “EBCDIC type”, “image
type” (also known as binary), and “local type” (for PDP-10's and PDP-20's mostly). tnftp only imple‐
ments type ascii, type binary, type image, and type tenex with local byte size 8.
tnftp supports only the default values for the remaining file transfer parameters via commands: mode,
form, and struct.
THE .netrc FILE
The .netrc file contains login and initialization information used by the auto-login process. It re‐
sides in the user's home directory, unless overridden with the -N netrc option, or specified in the
NETRC environment variable. The following tokens are recognized; they may be separated by spaces,
tabs, or new-lines:
machine name
Identify a remote machine name. The auto-login process searches the .netrc file for a
machine token that matches the remote machine specified on the tnftp command line or as an
open command argument. Once a match is made, the subsequent .netrc tokens are processed,
stopping when the end of file is reached or another machine or a default token is encoun‐
tered.
default This is the same as machine name except that default matches any name. There can be only
one default token, and it must be after all machine tokens. This is normally used as:
default login anonymous password user@site
thereby giving the user an automatic anonymous FTP login to machines not specified in
.netrc. This can be overridden by using the -n flag to disable auto-login.
login name
Identify a user on the remote machine. If this token is present, the auto-login process
will initiate a login using the specified name.
password string
Supply a password. If this token is present, the auto-login process will supply the speci‐
fied string if the remote server requires a password as part of the login process. Note
that if this token is present in the .netrc file for any user other than anonymous, tnftp
will abort the auto-login process if the .netrc is readable by anyone besides the user.
account string
Supply an additional account password. If this token is present, the auto-login process
will supply the specified string if the remote server requires an additional account pass‐
word, or the auto-login process will initiate an ACCT command if it does not.
macdef name
Define a macro. This token functions like the tnftp macdef command functions. A macro is
defined with the specified name; its contents begin with the next .netrc line and continue
until a blank line (consecutive new-line characters) is encountered. Like the other tokens
in the .netrc file, a macdef is applicable only to the machine definition preceding it. A
macdef entry cannot be used by multiple machine definitions; rather, it must be defined
following each machine it is intended to be used with. If a macro named init is defined,
it is automatically executed as the last step in the auto-login process. For example,
default
macdef init
epsv4 off
followed by a blank line.
COMMAND LINE EDITING
tnftp supports interactive command line editing, via the editline(3) library. It is enabled with the
edit command, and is enabled by default if input is from a tty. Previous lines can be recalled and
edited with the arrow keys, and other GNU Emacs-style editing keys may be used as well.
The editline(3) library is configured with a .editrc file — refer to editrc(5) for more information.
An extra key binding is available to tnftp to provide context sensitive command and filename comple‐
tion (including remote file completion). To use this, bind a key to the editline(3) command
ftp-complete. By default, this is bound to the TAB key.
COMMAND LINE PROMPT
By default, tnftp displays a command line prompt of ‘ftp> ’ to the user. This can be changed with
the set prompt command.
A prompt can be displayed on the right side of the screen (after the command input) with the set
rprompt command.
The following formatting sequences are replaced by the given information:
%/ The current remote working directory.
%c[[0]n], %.[[0]n]
The trailing component of the current remote working directory, or n trailing components
if a digit n is given. If n begins with ‘0’, the number of skipped components precede the
trailing component(s) in the format “/trailing” (for ‘%c’) or “...trailing” (for
‘%.’).
%M The remote host name.
%m The remote host name, up to the first dot ‘.’.
%n The remote user name.
%% A single percent character ‘%’.
ENVIRONMENT
tnftp uses the following environment variables.
FTPANONPASS Password to send in an anonymous FTP transfer. Defaults to “`whoami`@”.
FTPMODE Overrides the default operation mode. Supported values are:
active active mode FTP only
auto automatic determination of passive or active (this is the default)
gate gate-ftp mode
passive passive mode FTP only
FTPPROMPT Command-line prompt to use. Defaults to ‘ftp> ’. Refer to “COMMAND LINE PROMPT” for
more information.
FTPRPROMPT Command-line right side prompt to use. Defaults to empty string. Refer to “COMMAND
LINE PROMPT” for more information.
FTPSERVER Host to use as gate-ftp server when gate is enabled.
FTPSERVERPORT Port to use when connecting to gate-ftp server when gate is enabled. Default is port
returned by a getservbyname(3) lookup of “ftpgate/tcp”.
FTPUSERAGENT The value to send for the HTTP User-Agent header.
FTPSSLNOVERIFY
Set to 1 to not verify SSL certificates.
HOME For default location of a .netrc file, if one exists.
NETRC An alternate location of the .netrc file.
PAGER Used by various commands to display files. Defaults to more(1) if empty or not set.
SHELL For default shell.
ftp_proxy URL of FTP proxy to use when making FTP URL requests (if not defined, use the standard
FTP protocol).
See http_proxy for further notes about proxy use.
http_proxy URL of HTTP proxy to use when making HTTP URL requests. If proxy authentication is
required and there is a username and password in this URL, they will automatically be
used in the first attempt to authenticate to the proxy.
If “unsafe” URL characters are required in the username or password (for example ‘@’
or ‘/’), encode them with RFC 3986 ‘%XX’ encoding.
Note that the use of a username and password in ftp_proxy and http_proxy may be incom‐
patible with other programs that use it (such as lynx(1)).
NOTE: this is not used for interactive sessions, only for command-line fetches.
https_proxy URL of HTTPS proxy to use when making HTTPS URL requests.
See http_proxy for further notes about proxy use.
no_proxy A space or comma separated list of hosts (or domains) for which proxying is not to be
used. Each entry may have an optional trailing ‘:port’, which restricts the matching
to connections to that port.
EXTENDED PASSIVE MODE AND FIREWALLS
Some firewall configurations do not allow tnftp to use extended passive mode. If you find that even
a simple ls appears to hang after printing a message such as this:
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||58551|)
then you will need to disable extended passive mode with epsv4 off. See the above section “The
.netrc File” for an example of how to make this automatic.
SEE ALSO
getservbyname(3), editrc(5), services(5), ftpd(8)
STANDARDS
tnftp attempts to be compliant with:
RFC 959 File Transfer Protocol
RFC 1123 Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and Support
RFC 1635 How to Use Anonymous FTP
RFC 2389 Feature negotiation mechanism for the File Transfer Protocol
RFC 2428 FTP Extensions for IPv6 and NATs
RFC 2616 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
RFC 2822 Internet Message Format
RFC 3659 Extensions to FTP
RFC 3986 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
HISTORY
The tnftp command appeared in 4.2BSD.
Various features such as command line editing, context sensitive command and file completion, dynamic
progress bar, automatic fetching of files and URLs, modification time preservation, transfer rate
throttling, configurable command line prompt, and other enhancements over the standard BSD tnftp were
implemented in NetBSD 1.3 and later releases by Luke Mewburn ⟨lukem@NetBSD.org⟩.
IPv6 support was added by the WIDE/KAME project (but may not be present in all non-NetBSD versions of
this program, depending if the operating system supports IPv6 in a similar manner to KAME).
BUGS
Correct execution of many commands depends upon proper behavior by the remote server.
An error in the treatment of carriage returns in the 4.2BSD type ascii transfer code has been cor‐
rected. This correction may result in incorrect transfers of binary files to and from 4.2BSD servers
using type ascii. Avoid this problem by using type binary.
tnftp assumes that all IPv4 mapped addresses (IPv6 addresses with a form like ::ffff:10.1.1.1) indi‐
cate IPv4 destinations which can be handled by AF_INET sockets. However, in certain IPv6 network
configurations, this assumption is not true. In such an environment, IPv4 mapped addresses must be
passed to AF_INET6 sockets directly. For example, if your site uses a SIIT translator for IPv6-to-
IPv4 translation, tnftp is unable to support your configuration.
Debian February 7, 2026 TNFTP(1)