ncftpget(1)						      General Commands Manual						       ncftpget(1)

NAME

       ncftpget - Internet file transfer program for scripts

SYNOPSIS

       ncftpget [options] remote-host local-directory remote-files...

       ncftpget -f login.cfg [options] local-directory remote-files...

       ncftpget [options] ftp://url.style.host/path/name

       ncftpget -c [options] remote-host remote-file > stdout

       ncftpget -c [options] ftp://url.style.host/path/name > stdout

OPTIONS

   Command line flags:
       -u XX   Use username XX instead of anonymous.

       -p XX   Use password XX with the username.

       -P XX   Use port number XX instead of the default FTP service port (21).

       -j XX   Use account XX in supplement to the username and password (deprecated).

       -d XX   Use the file XX for debug logging.

       -a      Use ASCII transfer type instead of binary.

       -t XX   Timeout after XX seconds.

       -v/-V   Do (do not) use progress meters.  The default is to use progress meters if the output stream is a TTY.

       -f XX   Read the file XX for host, user, and password information.

       -c      Send output to standard out, rather than writing to a local file.

       -A      Append to local files, instead of overwriting them.

       -z/-Z   Do (do not) try to resume transfers.  The default is to try to resume (-z).

       -E      Use regular (PORT) data connections.

       -F      Use  passive (PASV) data connections.  The default is to use passive, but to fallback to regular if the passive connection fails or
	       times out.

       -DD     Delete remote file after successfully downloading it.

       -R      Recursive mode; copy whole directory trees.

       -T      Do not use automatic on-the-fly TAR mode for downloading whole directory trees.	ncftpget uses TAR  whenever  possible  since  this
	       usually	preserves  symbolic  links  and file permissions.  TAR mode can also result in faster transfers for directories containing
	       many small files, since a single data connection can be used rather than an FTP data connection for each small file.  The  downside
	       to  using  TAR is that it forces downloading of the whole directory, even if you had previously downloaded a portion of it earlier,
	       so you may want to use this option if you want to resume downloading of a directory.

       -r XX   Redial a maximum of XX times until connected to the remote FTP server.

       -b      Run in background (by submitting a batch job and then spawning ncftpbatch).

       -bb     Similar to -b option, but only submits the batch job.  You will need to run ncftpbatch for the batch job to be processed.  This	is
	       useful if you already have a ncftpbatch process running, or wish to have better control of when batch jobs are processed.

	       For  example, if you wanted to do background processing of three files all on the same remote server, it is more polite to use just
	       one ncftpbatch process to process the three jobs sequentially, rather than having three ncftpbatch processes open three	simultane-
	       ous FTP sessions to the same server.

       -B XX   Try setting the TCP/IP socket buffer size to XX bytes.

       -W XX   Send raw FTP command XX after logging in.

       -X XX   Send raw FTP command XX after each file transferred.

       -Y XX   Send raw FTP command XX before logging out.

	       The  -W, -X, and -Y options are useful for advanced users who need to tweak behavior on some servers.  For example, users accessing
	       mainframes might need to send some special SITE commands to set blocksize and record format information.

	       For these options, you can use them multiple times each if you need to send multiple commands.  For the -X option, you can use  the
	       cookie %s to expand into the name of the file that was transferred.

DESCRIPTION

       The  purpose  of  ncftpget  is to do file transfers from the command-line without entering an interactive shell.  This lets you write shell
       scripts or other unattended processes that can do FTP.  It is also useful for advanced users who want to retrieve files from the shell com-
       mand line without entering an interactive FTP program such as ncftp.

       One  particularly  useful  feature  of this program is that you can give it a uniform resource locator as the only argument and the program
       will download that file.  You can then copy and paste from your web browser or newsreader and use that URL.  Example:

	   $ cd /tmp
	   $ ncftpget ftp://ftp.ncftp.com/pub/ncftp/ncftp.tar.Z
	   $ zcat ncftp.tar.Z | tar xf -

       By default the program tries to open the remote host and login anonymously, but you can specify a username and password	information.   The
       -u  option  is used to specify the username to login as, and the -p option is used to specify the password.  If you are running the program
       from the shell, you may omit the -p option and the program will prompt you for the password.

       Using the -u and -p options are not recommended, because your account information is exposed to anyone who can see  your  shell	script	or
       your process information.  For example, someone using the ps program could see your password while the program runs.

       You may use the -f option instead to specify a file with the account information.  However, this is still not secure because anyone who has
       read access to the information file can see the account information.  Nevertheless, if you choose to use the -f option the file should look
       something like this:

	   host sphygmomanometer.ncftp.com
	   user gleason
	   pass mypasswd

       Don't forget to change the permissions on this file so no one else can read them.

       The  -d option is very useful when you are trying to diagnose why a file transfer is failing.  It prints out the entire FTP conversation to
       the file you specify, so you can get an idea of what went wrong.  If you specify the special name stdout as the name of the debugging  out-
       put file, the output will instead print to the screen.  Example:

	   $ ncftpget -d stdout bowser.nintendo.co.jp . /pub/README
	   220: FTP server ready.
	   Connected to bowser.nintendo.co.jp.
	   Cmd: USER anonymous
	   331: Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
	   Cmd: PASS xxxxxxxx
	   230: Welcome!
	   Logged in to bowser.nintendo.co.jp as anonymous.
	   Cmd: TYPE I
	   200: Type set to I.
	   Cmd: PORT 192,168,9,37,6,76
	   200: PORT command successful.
	   Cmd: RETR /pub/README
	   550: /pub/README: File in use.
	   Cmd: QUIT
	   221: Goodbye.

       Using  ASCII  mode is helpful when the text format of your host differs from that of the remote host.  For example, if you are retrieving a
       .TXT file from a Windows-based host to a UNIX system, you could use the -a flag which would use ASCII transfer mode so that the	file  cre-
       ated on the UNIX system would be in the UNIX text format instead of the MS-DOS text format.

       You  can  retrieve an entire directory tree of files by using the -R flag.  However, this will work only if the remote FTP server is a UNIX
       server, or emulates UNIX's list output.	Example:

	   $ ncftpget -R ftp.ncftp.com /tmp /pub/ncftp

       This would create a /tmp/ncftp hierarchy.

DIAGNOSTICS

       ncftpget returns the following exit values:

       0       Success.

       1       Could not connect to remote host.

       2       Could not connect to remote host - timed out.

       3       Transfer failed.

       4       Transfer failed - timed out.

       5       Directory change failed.

       6       Directory change failed - timed out.

       7       Malformed URL.

       8       Usage error.

       9       Error in login configuration file.

       10      Library initialization failed.

       11      Session initialization failed.

AUTHOR

       Mike Gleason, NcFTP Software (mgleason@ncftp.com).

SEE ALSO

       ncftpput(1), ncftp(1), ftp(1), rcp(1), tftp(1).

       LibNcFTP (http://www.ncftp.com/libncftp/).

Software							       NcFTP							       ncftpget(1)