Since I switched to Mac I need to learn a bunch of stuff I was taking for granted for years. Recently I needed to upload a bigger file or two to my server and scp is not the tool for the job. So instead of starting a hunt for a decent free FTP client, I tried the good old command line.
Turns out it's much easier to FTP files from the command line than I would think.
Connecting to the server
$ ftp phpied.com Connected to phpied.com. 220---------- Welcome to Pure-FTPd [TLS] ---------- 220-You are user number 1 of 50 allowed. 220-Local time is now 02:17. Server port: 21. 220-IPv6 connections are also welcome on this server. 220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity. Name (phpied.com:stoyan): myusername 331 User myusername OK. Password required Password:
After supplying your credentials you're in and you have an inviting ftp> prompt:
230 OK. Current restricted directory is / Remote system type is UNIX. Using binary mode to transfer files. ftp>
So what do you do here? You can list available commands with
ftp> help
You can navigate with cd (good old "change directory")
ftp> cd www/phpied.com/files 250 OK. Current directory is /www/phpied.com/files
You can list the contents of a remote directory with ls or dir.
And finally you can copy files from your desktop to the remote machine. You don't copy files, you PUT them. You're rewarded with a nice progress indicator.
ftp> put src.zip local: src.zip remote: src.zip 229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||59237|) 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for src.zip 10% |*** | 511 KB 64.00 KB/s 01:09 ETA
later...
ftp> put src.zip local: src.zip remote: src.zip 229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||59237|) 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for src.zip 93% |********************************** | 4607 KB 45.62 KB/s 00:07 ETA
finally...
ftp> put src.zip local: src.zip remote: src.zip 229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||59237|) 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for src.zip 100% |*************************************| 4938 KB 44.73 KB/s 00:00 ETA 226 Transfer complete. 5056569 bytes sent in 01:53 (43.55 KB/s)
And then, bye-bye:
ftp> quit 221 Goodbye.
Comments? Find me on BlueSky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Threads, Twitter
