How Do I ftp and Download files from a UNIX Shell Script

Question: I would like to execute ftp from inside a shell script. I would also like to provide the username and password required for the FTP file download inside the shell script itself. Can you explain me how to perform this bath ftp from a shell script?

Answer: For downloading / uploading files using ftp in batch mode, you can either user FTP scripting using HERE document from command line, or call FTP from a shell script as explained below.

FTP Scripting using HERE document

$ ftp -in URL << SCRIPTEND
user USERNAME PASSWORD
binary
cd PATH
mget PATH
SCRIPTEND

In the above ftp scripting:

• ftp : ftp command
• -i : Disable interactive prompting
• -n : Disable autologin
• user USERNAME PASSWORD : login using the supplied user name and password
• binary : Set binary mode for binary file transfer
• cd PATH : change directory in remote machine
• mget PATH : get the specified file
• SCRIPTEND : Both the tag represents HERE document start and end.
• HERE docs are used to provide input to commands, refer Here document to know more about it.

FTP Scripting using Shell Script

Following is a sample shell script script that downloads a tar file from the FTP server.

$ cat download.sh
ftp -in mirrors.issp.co.th << SCRIPTEND
user anonymous test@test.com
binary
cd cpan/authors/id/P/PM/PMQS/
mget Compress-Raw-Bzip2-2.027.tar.gz
SCRIPTEND

Execute this shell script to download the files from the ftp.

$ sh download.sh
$ ls
download.sh
Compress-Raw-Bzip2-2.027.tar.gz

For more FTP command refer our earlier article FTP and SFTP Beginners Guide with 10 Examples