Warning: You must use a secure ftp client such as SSH or MacSSH to use command line ftp.

Sometimes your ftp client isn't available to you and you just need to do a quick file upload to your server. Most computers will have some type of command line program available for you to do this. (Note: the exception is a pre-OS X Mac will not have a command line tool). On a Unix or OS X Mac computer, the application to run is simply called MacSSH. On Windows, use SSH. So start up your clients, and use these commands to upload or download files.

New Definition: root directory. The root directory, or commonly referred to as just "root" is the directory at the top of the hierarchy that all other directories fall under.

Once you are into your SFTP session, you can not select a directory to upload from or download to. You will be stuck with the last directory you were in when you opened your SFTP session. To change the directory, the command is cd <dirname>. To get to a directory called files that is one level below root, the command would be: cd files

Open your connection, the command for this is simply, open <server>, where <server> is where you want to connect. So to connect to the Brown web server, you would type: open webpub.brown.edu

If the server is available, you will be prompted for your username. It might not be echoed back on the screen, so you may not see your username as you type. Hit enter. You will then be prompted for your password. This will not be echoed back to the screen, nor will you see dots or asterisks. The screen will look like it isn't capturing the information, but it is. Type your password correctly, and hit enter.

You're in.

Next is to get to the directory where you will want to upload files to or download them from. This process is the same as above, with the cd command, but the first things you may want to do include finding out what directory you're in on the server, and what other directories you have the option to get to. To see what directory you're in on the server, type pwd (present working directory). The full path will be shown. To see what other files or directories are in that directory, type ls (list). Now that you know what your options are for changing directories, you can get to the files or directory needed.

Once you get to your target directory, and you finally want to upload a file, the command for this is:
put <filename>
where if you want to upload your index page, you would type: put index.html
Remember, we initially went to the directory that the file was in, so now we don't easily have the option to select a file from a directory other than the one we started in.

To download a file, the command is: get <filename>
If you want to download a copy of your index page, type: get index.html and it will put it into the directory that you started from before you started the sftp.

When you're done with your sftp session, the disconnect command is simply: bye. To close the entire window completely, type: exit.

Binary vs. ASCII

One thing that graphical SFTP clients do really well, is determine the file type that is being uploaded or downloaded and open the appropriate connections. Some files are in ASCII format, which basically means that it is a text file, such as web pages. Other files are in binary format, such as images or .htaccess files. When using command line sftp, the default setting is ASCII. To make sure binary files get transferred properly, you will need to change this setting before transferring. Before transferring a binary file, at the command line, simply type: bin. To get back to ASCII, type ascii.

Other Tips

A few other interesting characters that can be used when changing directories with the cd command are the / and .. (two periods). Earlier, we defined "root". If you need to change directories all the way back to the root directory, or want to get to a different directory under root, use the / character. For example, if my pwd is /export/home/jcarberry/www and I want to quickly get to the first directory listed, I would type: cd /export

To go backward one directory, use the .. So, if the pwd is /export/home/jcarberry/www and I want to get to the jcarberry directory, I would type: cd ..

That's about it, happy SFTPing!