File Transfer - Command-line FTP, LFTP, WPUT & cURL

FTP

Commands

to resume a single file upload using the built-in ftp command you will need to know how many bytes of the file you have already sent. This should be accessible by using ls. Then you use the following sequence to restart your upload replacing <#> with the number of bytes already sent and <filename> with the filename you are uploading.

restart <#>
put <filename>

If the server allows it you should receive a message such as the following...

350 Restart position accepted (<#>).
150 Ok to send data.

This will resume your upload.

LFTP

Using the LFTP command this allows you to restart a died ftp session

Commands

The following command is the login to the server and go to the folder you are placing the file in

lftp user:pass@host/path/to/folder

This command is to restart the failed FTP replace the "file.txt" with your file

reput file.txt

After a quick search, there's a command line program called lftp that provides ftp mirroring functionality.

Adapted from a guide here, something like this should do the trick:

#!/bin/bash
HOST='address.co.uk'
USER='myuser'
PASS='mypass'
TARGETFOLDER='/public_html/java/desktop/'
SOURCEFOLDER='deploy/'

lftp -f "
open $HOST
user $USER $PASS
lcd $SOURCEFOLDER
mirror --reverse --delete --verbose $SOURCEFOLDER $TARGETFOLDER
bye
"

I'd suggest you'd do it without the --delete until you're sure you've got the arguments right!

Example of simple bash script ftp client

This script first defines variables such as hostname of the ftp server, username and password and then it creates an ftp session and uploads the specified file into your selected directory:

#!/bin/bash

ftp_site=127.0.0.1
username=ftpuser
passwd=YOUR_PASSWORD

PS3='Select a destination directory: '

# bash select
select path in "." "/test" "public_html/myblog/" "backup/images/"
do
ftp -n $ftp_site<<EOF
quote USER $username
quote PASS $passwd
binary
cd $path
put $1
quit
EOF
break
done

Be sure to edit the ftp_site, username, and passwd variables above. You should also change the paths to whichever directories you most commonly upload your files to.

Executing the script:

$ chmod +x ftp_bash_script.sh
$ ./ftp_bash_script.sh file1

Example script output:

$ ./ftp_bash_script.sh somerandomfile 
1) .
2) /test
3) public_html/myblog/
4) backup/images/
Select a destination directory: 2
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
220 (vsFTPd 3.0.5)
331 Please specify the password.
230 Login successful.
200 Switching to Binary mode.
250 Directory successfully changed.
local: somerandomfile remote: somerandomfile
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||10078|)
150 Ok to send data.
     0        0.00 KiB/s 
226 Transfer complete.
221 Goodbye.

WPUT

This is to resume a files transfer using wput instead ftp or lftp commands and can be used in Windows or Linux

WPUT Commands

Here is an example how wput continues upload after connection problems:

wput -v -u -B upload.zip ftp://login:YOUR_PASSWORD@server.com/dir/upload.zip
--20:14:23-- `upload.zip'
    => ftp://login:YOUR_PASSWORD@111.111.111.111:21/dir/upload.zip
Connecting to 111.111.111.111:21... connected! 
Logging in as login ... Logged in!
==> CWD dir
==> TYPE I ... done.
==> SIZE upload.zip ... done (4313 bytes)
==> PASV ... done.
==> REST 3584 ... done.
==> STOR upload.zip ... done.
Length: 902,153,406 [902,149,822 to go]
 7% [======>                                                                                         ] 65,658,368       194.0K/s ETA  1:10hError: Error encountered during uploading data (Operation now in progress)
==> ABOR ... Error: recv() timed out. No data received
Receive-Warning: read() timed out. Read '' so far.
failed.
Waiting 10 seconds... Error: recv() timed out. No data received
Receive-Warning: read() timed out. Read '' so far.
Connecting to 111.111.111.111:21... connected! 
Logging in as login ... Logged in!
==> CWD dir
==> TYPE I ... done.
==> SIZE upload.zip ... done (65247144 bytes)
==> PASV ... done.
==> REST 65246208 ... done.
==> STOR upload.zip ... done.
Length: 902,153,406 [836,907,198 to go]
 9% [++++++==> 

CURL

This is the resume a file transfer using curl instead ftp or lftp commands and can be used in Windows or Linux

CURL Commands

curl -C - --upload-file source_file ftp://destination.server.com/