Ncftp - a replacement FTP client from Ncmersoft

NCFTP

Quick and Concise Document
Beginners
Advanced Usage

Ncftp is a client program to get files from ftp servers. Ncftp is a replacement for the traditional Unix ftp client. It automates anonymous login and has various ease-of-use improvements over the traditional client

Quick and Concise Document

Connect to ftp.uu.net:
```
	world%  ncftp  ftp.uu.net
```

Open a new site once ncftp is running:

	ncftp> close
	ncftp> open  ftp.u.washington.edu

Open a site you've acessed previously. (ncftp stores names of the last 30 places you've connected to, you can use an unambigous substring to return).
```
	world% ncftp  washing
```
Run a remote file through a World program:
```
	ncftp> get  ls-lR "|grep timezone"
```

Beginners guide to ncftp

To start Ncftp, type 'ncftp hostname'. To connect to "ftp.uu.net" from a Unix system, type:

	world% ncftp ftp.uu.net

NcFtp will now respond by logging you into "hostname" as "anonymous" automatically (you will not have to enter your email address or "anonymous" as you used to with regular "ftp"):

You are now connected to uunet. Some commands you can use a this point:

	ncftp> cd directory-name

This changes your directory on the remote machine. It works just like the Unix 'cd' command. Directory-name should be the name of the top level directory of the archive you are interested in. For example:

	ncftp> cd comp.sources.unix

If you plan to transfer non-ASCII files (e.g. executable, data, compressed, or object files) type:

	ncftp> bin

When connected to a UNIX site, bin is a conservative choice, it works with ASCII files as well.

You can now type:

	ncftp> get filename

and FTP will send you the file, giving it the same name in your directory. You can also use:

	ncftp> get filename local-filename

if you want to give the file a different name. To look at a directory through ncftp's internal pager, type:

	ncftp> pdir

this works like the Unix 'ls | more'.

That should get you started with ncftp; the 'advanced' material below may or may not be of interest.

Advanced ncftp usage

Colon mode: ncftp can retrieve files from remote servers with commands from the Unix prompt (this is useful in scripts).

Colon mode

Given the name of a server and the full file name of a file on that server, ncftp can fetch files without your "driving" it interactively. This has application most obviously in scripts or aliases.

For example, if you are interested in a file called "env-hazard.ps" on ftp.green.org in the directory /pub/docs/ps, the command:

	world%  ncftp  ftp.green.org:/pub/docs/ps/env-hazard.ps

will retrieve the file to the current working directory on World.

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