SFTP: FTP to secure sites

If you can only use ssh to connect to a remote site, chances are it won't support regular FTP transactions either, probably due to higher security. Mac OS X also includes a version of ftp that is compatible with the standard SSH server programs and works identically to regular FTP. Just type sftp at the command line. Here's an example:

$ cd downloads
$ sftp taylor@intuitive.com
Connecting to intuitive.com...
The authenticity of host 'intuitive.com (128.121.96.234)' can't be 
established.
RSA key fingerprint is d0:db:8a:cb:74:c8:37:e4:9e:71:fc:7a:eb:d6:40:81.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'intuitive.com,128.121.96.234' (RSA) to the list 
of known hosts.
taylor@intuitive.com's password: 
sftp> cd mybin
sftp> dir -l
drwxr-xr-x    0 24810    100          1024 Jun 26 20:18 .
drwxr-xr-x    0 24810    100          1536 Sep 16 18:59 ..
-rw-r--r--    0 24810    100           140 Jan 17  2003 .library.account.
info
-rwxr-xr-x    0 24810    100          3312 Jan 27  2003 addvirtual
...
-rw-r--r--    0 24810    100           406 Jan 24  2003 trimmailbox.sh
-rwxr-xr-x    0 24810    100          1841 Jan 24  2003 unpacker
-rwxr-xr-x    0 24810    100           946 Jan 22  2003 
webspell
sftp> get webspell
webspell                                100%  946     4.7KB/s   00:00    
sftp> quit
$ ls -l webspell
-rwxr-xr-x  1 taylor  taylor  946 25 Sep 11:28 webspell

FTP with a web browser

If you need a file from a remote site, and you don't need all the control that you get with the ftp program, you can use a web browser to download files using anonymous FTP. To do that, make a URL (location) with this syntax:

ftp://hostname/pathname

For instance, ftp://somecorp.za/pub/reports/2001.pdf specifies the file 2001.pdf from the directory /pub/reports on the host somecorp.za. In most cases, you can also start with just the first part of the URL—such as ftp://somecorp.za—and browse your way through the FTP directory tree to find what you want. If your web browser doesn't prompt you to save a file, use its Save menu command.

NOTE: If you are using the Safari browser, it will open ftp: directories by mounting them in the Finder.

An even faster way to download a file is with the curl (copy from URL) command. For example, to save a copy of the report in the current directory, simply enter:

$ curl -O ftp://somecorp.za/pub/reports/2001.pdf

Without the -O option, curl will display the file in the Terminal window. If you want to read a text file from an Internet server, you can combine curl and less:

$ curl ftp://ftp.oreilly.com/pub/README.ftp | less

You can also use curl with web pages, but this will bring the page up in HTML source view:

$ curl http://www.oreilly.com | less

Other FTP solutions

Easy Shortcuts with Connect to Server

Practice

You can practice your ftp skills by connecting to the public FTP archive ftp.apple.com. Log in as ftp with your email address as the password, then look around. Try downloading a research paper or document. If you have an account on a remote system, try using rcp and scp to copy files back and forth.

Footnotes