FTP - windows to unix file upload using FTP

How to upload files from windows to Unix using FTP utility ?

Go to start->run-> type cmd and Hit Enter

in the command prompt go to the location of the file which u want to FTP to remote unix machine.

Say your file location is : C:\Documents and Settings\Kbabu\abc.txt

So go to that directory in command prompt.

Then you want to move your abc.txt file to a unix server with IP 9.180.210.227.

On the server you want to move it to "/opt"

So now at the Windows command prompt give following command 

FTP 9.180.210.227

It asks u for user name and pass word so give those say root/root.

Once you are logged in move to /opt on server

using cd /opt

Then run the following commands one by one 

ha - To know the status of upload (It prints # symbols while upload in-progress)

bi- It transfers files in binary mode.

mput abc.txt - It starts uploading of the file abc.txt once you say "Y" to its confirmation.

Bye - To end the FTP session once transfer of file is completed.

What is ftp?

ftp is a program that allows you to exchange files between your machine, and 

a remote one. You can upload files (send them from your machine to the remote

one), or you can download files (your machine receives them from the remote 

one). FTP is also the name of the protocol the program uses to transfer the 

files (File Transfer Protocol), but in this document, ftp will refer to the 

program. 

Note: There is more than one ftp program (or client), so this file refers to

the command line utility found on most unix/linux systems. The MS-DOS ftp

program will probably be very similar, and even the basics will be applicable

to most GUI (Graphical User Interface) ftp clients. Modern web browsers, and

even some not so modern ones, are able to download files from ftp sites.

  

Why use ftp?

ftp can be used to upload/download any files to any machine running an ftp 

server (or daemon), and on which you have a valid login account, or the server 

has a anonymous account anyone can use. e.g. lots of web sites allow you to 

upload your page with ftp, and lots of programs/files (including many 

distributions of Linux) are available from ftp sites which have anonymous 

accounts. Anonymous accounts are accounts that anyone can use, instead of

entering your user name when prompted, to make use of an anonymous account,

you use the name 'anonymous', and normally you get asked to use your email

address as the account password. Normally an anonymous accout has limited 

privilages, meaning an anonymous user can only access certain parts of the 

site and more often than not, can only download files; they wouldn't be able 

to upload them.

While ftp used to be almost exclusively used for uploading files, it is now

losing ground to scp, which uses ssh to transfer the files, and is 

thus infinitely more secure. The use of scp is beyond the scope of this file,

but there are plans for a file on scp.

Using ftp:

As with most Unix programs, there is more than one way to connect to a remote

ftp site. One way is to start ftp and specify the remote machine (or server) on

the command line. Another way is to start ftp, and then use the open command

inside ftp to open a connection.

Note: Once ftp is running, it has it's own special prompt, just like a unix

shell. This prompt will normally look like this 'ftp>'.

(Please note: A fictional ftp site has been used for security reasons)

cog@pingu:/usr/cog $ ftp ftp.attrition.org

Connected to forced.attrition.org.

220 ProFTPD 1.2.0pre3a Server (forced proftpd service) [forced.attrition.org]

Name (ftp.attrition.org:cog): cog

331 Password required for cog.

Password:

230 User cog logged in.

Remote system type is UNIX.

Using binary mode to transfer files.

ftp>

or:

cog@pingu:/usr/cog $ ftp

ftp> open ftp.attrition.org

Connected to forced.attrition.org.

220 ProFTPD 1.2.0pre3a Server (forced proftpd service) [forced.attrition.org]

Name (ftp.attrition.org:cog): cog

331 Password required for cog.

Password:

230 User cog logged in.

ftp>

Now you're connected to your ftp site, you need to know how to transfer 

files to (download) and from (upload) your machine to the ftp server.

To upload files from your machine to the server you can use the put and 

mput commands.

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.

[send can also be used, and is a synonym for put]

mput [local-files]

Expand wildcards in local-files given as arguments and do a 

put for each file.

e.g.:

ftp> put ftp.file.html

local: ftp.file.html remote: ftp.file.html

200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for ftp.file.html

226 Transfer complete

ftp> put ftp.file.html ftp.html

local: ftp.file.html remote: ftp.html

200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for ftp.html

226 Transfer complete

ftp> mput */index.*

mput news/index? y

200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for news/index.

226 Transfer complete.

442 bytes sent in 0.0835 secs (5.2 Kbytes/sec)

mput news/index.html? y

200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for news/index.html.

226 Transfer complete.

1377 bytes sent in 0.256 secs (5.3 Kbytes/sec)

mput news/index.old.shtml? n

mput linux/index? y

200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for linux/index.

226 Transfer complete.

1192 bytes sent in 0.156 secs (7.5 Kbytes/sec)

mput linux/index.html? y

200 PORT command successful.

150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for linux/index.html.

226 Transfer complete.

ftp>bye

As the above example shows, when using mput, ftp normally asks you before 

transferring the files. If you're transferring lots of files, this can get 

very tedious, and is time consuming, so I like to start ftp with the -i 

flag. This turns off interactive prompting and transfers the files without

asking you. Once at the ftp> prompt, if you type prompt, you can 

toggle the status of interactive mode.

If, as in the above example, you are transferring files to any directory other

than the current working directory (which can be found using the pwd 

command), then you need to make sure the directory you're transferring files 

to already exists, because ftp will not automatically create it for you.

To create directories you can use the mkdir command just as you would in a

normal Unix shell.

e.g.:

ftp> mkdir /test

257 "/test" - directory successfully created.

Now, to download a file from the remote server to your computer you first 

need to locate the file you want to download. One command you may use to do 

this is ls, which works the same as the unix version of ls, except 

the output is in the format of ls -l. dir can also be used, as 

can mdir. dir is a synonym for ls, and mdir is the same as dir,

except that multiples files can be specified with mdir.

If you need to move around directories on the remote machine you can use

the command cd.

Once you've located the file to download, there are several ways you can get

the file; get, mget, reget, recv and newer.

get remote-file [local-file]

Retrieve the remote file and store it on the local machine. If the

local filename is not specified, it is given the same name as it has

on the remote machine. 

mget is rather like mput; it is the same as get, except that 

wildcards are expanded with mget.

reget also works the same as get, except if the local file already

exists, and the local file is smaller, it assumes that the local file is a

partial download of the remote file and continues the download from the end 

of local file. This is good if the transfer is dropped half way through.

newer is again, the same as get, except the remote file is only got if

it is newer than the already existing local file. This is useful for seeing if

a particular package/file has been updated, and then downloading it if it has.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009 // Labels: UNIX // 8 comments //

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8 comments to "FTP - windows to unix file upload using FTP"

• 

  9 April 2009 at 21:48
  Sudheer Kumar Battula says:

  hello bro, there was a open source FTP utility with name WINSCP. i'm sure with that utility you can skip most of the tricky things that were supposed to do on the command line...
  
  if your intention was do things on cmdline then there was another opensource utility with name putty. Security wise which is more secure and reliable...
  
  Kindly let me know if i am wrong...

• 

  9 April 2009 at 22:34
  Krishna says:

  @Sudheer: WINSCPis a secure copy tool with which we can do FTP as well, which most of the unix users pretty well(Ofcourse me too).
  Coming to Putty I want to slightly correct Your line - PuTTY is a client program for the SSH, Telnet and Rlogin network protocols. for more info on putty refere this link
  Note: Actually I posted this dummy old tricks for one of my fresh mate team. That to this post explains you how to use FTP toll given in DOS prompt.BTW I suggest you to try FileZilla(Free tool) instead of Winscp. Filezilla -I'm sure u love it. There are many more free FTP tools in the internet. Of course we can write our own FTP tool in some known language(Java) using the above underlying commands.

• 

  4 September 2009 at 16:44
  Pankaj says:

  while doing ftp from cmd to unix system i want to change the file permission as well..CHmod doesn't work.Is there any way??

• 

  8 February 2010 at 02:29
  alex says:

  Hi,
  
  I use TotalEdit Pro, I use it on my windows workstation to edit files on work's unix servers no problem. It can upload and download files too, but I tend to use another ftp program for the big files e.g core ftp.

• 

  23 December 2010 at 22:39
  Milak says:

  Krishna, great blog! I have saved it under my favorites! Do you also blog about Java for absolute beginners? Thanks.

• 

  14 February 2011 at 11:22
  Anonymous says:

  Very useful information, You are doing a great service. Your explanations on how to use ftp on command line are very clear.

• 

  6 August 2012 at 14:16
  Anonymous says:

  Superb.. Its like a spoon feeding for freshers.

• 

  9 October 2012 at 14:36
  Anonymous says:

  వీలయితే నాల్గు పోస్టులు ...కుదురితే ఒక కామెంటూ ...