rftp

SOCKS client version of ftp

Syntax:

rftp [-AadFginptVv]
     [-P port] [-r wait] [-T dir,max[,inc]]
     [[user@]host [port]]
     [user@]host:[path][/]
     [file:///path]

     [rftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/path[/]]

rftp -u url file [...]

Options:

-A

Always use an active connection. By default, rftp tries to use active-mode; it's useful for connecting to very old servers that don't implement passive-mode (-p) properly.

-a

Bypass normal login procedure, and use an anonymous login instead.

-d

Enable debugging.

-F

Allow clients to access non-regular files. You can only operate on files that are not considered regular files, e.g. named special files under /dev/shmem (see S_ISREG under stat()).

-g

Disable filename globbing.

-i

Don't perform interactive prompting during multiple file transfers.

-n

Don't attempt "autologin" on initial connection.

If autologin is enabled, rftp checks the .netrc file in your home directory for an entry describing an account on the remote machine. Please see the ftp utility page for a description of .netrc file.

If no entry exists, rftp prompts for the login name of the remote machine (default is the user ID on the local machine) and, if necessary, for a password and an account.

-P port

Set the port number.

-p

Enable passive-mode operations for use behind connection filtering firewalls. By default, rftp tries to use active-mode (see -A).

-r wait

Retry the connection attempt if it fails, pausing for wait seconds.

-T direction,maximum[,increment]

Set the maximum transfer rate for the direction to maximum bytes/second, and if specified, the increment to increment bytes/second. See the description of rate in the ftp utility page.

-t

Enable packet tracing.

-u url file [...]

Upload files on the command line to url, where:

• url is a format supported by auto-fetch (with an optional target filename for single file uploads). See the description of "Auto-fetching files" in the ftp utility page.
• file is one or more local files to be uploaded.

-V

Disable verbose and progress, overriding the default of enabled when output is to a terminal. See the description of verbose and progress in the ftp utility page.

-v

Enable verbose and progress; show all responses from the remote server and report on data-transfer statistics. See the description of verbose and progress in the ftp utility page. This is the default if the output is sent to a terminal (and, in the case of progress, rftp is the foreground process).

Description:

The rftp and rtelnet utilities provide the well-known functionalities to hosts within a firewall. Normally, when a firewall is constructed, IP-accessibility across the firewall is cut off to reduce security risk to hosts within the firewall. As a result, inside hosts can no longer use many of the well-known tools directly to access the resources outside the firewall.

For further information on all rftp functionalities, please refer to ftp documentation.

These utilities restore the convenience of the well-known tools while maintaining the security requirement. Though the utilities differ very much from their counterparts in the use of the communication scheme, they should behave almost indistinguishably to the users.

Your password is echoed as you type it in if you're using anonymous as a login name.

These are "versatile" clients -- they can be used for connections to inside hosts directly and to outside hosts via SOCKS proxy servers. So they can be used as replacements of their traditional counterparts.

When rftp starts, it prints to stderr its version number and the name or IP address of its default SOCKS proxy server. It then consults the configuration file (/etc/socks.conf) to determine whether a request should be allowed or denied based on the requesting user, the destination host, and the requested service.

For allowable requests, the configuration file also dictates whether direct or proxy connection should be used to the given destination, and optionally the actual SOCKS servers to use for the proxy connection. See /etc/socks.conf.

You can use the environment variable SOCKS_NS to set the nameserver for domain name resolutions. Be sure you use the IP address of the nameserver you want to use, not its domain name. If SOCKS_NS doesn't exist, the IP address defined by the symbol SOCKS_DEFAULT_NS at compile time is used if the programs were compiled with that symbol defined. Otherwise, the nameservers specified in /etc/resolv.conf are used.

All the client processes log their activities using syslog() with facility daemon and level notice. In order to capture the log messages, you need to have syslogd running.

Environment variables:

SOCKS_SERVER

If defined, specifies the name or IP address of the SOCKS proxy server host to use, overriding the default server compiled into the programs.

SOCKS_NS

If defined, specifies the IP address of the domain nameserver that should be used for name resolution, overriding both the definition of symbol SOCKS_DEFAULT_NS and the file /etc/resolv.conf.

See also:

ftp, rtelnet, syslogd

syslog() in the Library Reference