lftp: file tranfers with a very smart tool!

lftp is a very nice tool that can simplify file transfer operations that would be complicate to do with shell scripting

lftp generic syntax

• protocol: can be ftp,sftp,http,https
• username: the ftp username, needs to have access to the directories you want to get/put files.
• password: if the password contains characters like @,! that the shell might try to parse them try to escape them like this \! \@
• host: the server
• command: can be common ftp commands like ls mkdir etc, but can be lfpt specific like mirror that we will see some examples, commands must be semicollon separated.$ lftp protocol://username:password@host -e "command1;command2"

How to mirror an sftp directory to localhost (get)

• mirror: instructs lftp to copy the files from the ftp server to localhost
• source: is a directory on the ftp host
• target: is a directory on local host

One thing you have to be aware is that you need to run lftp as a user which have access rights to the target directory or else copy will fail.$ lftp sftp://username:password@host -e "mirror source target"

How to mirror a local directory to the sftp server (put)

• mirror -R: instructs lftp to copy files from localhost to the ftp server
• source: is a directory on local host
• target: is a directory on ftp host

One thing you have to be aware is that you need to run lftp as a user which have access rights to the source directory or else copy will fail.$ lftp sftp://username:password@host -e "mirror -R source target"

Cool options that make lftp cool

• mirror -P n: Copy files in parallel, n is the number of files
• mirror -c: Resume a copy operation if possible

Here is a complete list of options as taken from the man page-c, --continue continue a mirror job if possible
-e, --delete delete files not present at remote site
--delete-first delete old files before transferring new ones
--depth-first descend into subdirectories before transferring files
-s, --allow-suid set suid/sgid bits according to remote site
--allow-chown try to set owner and group on files
--ascii use ascii mode transfers (implies --ignore-size)
--ignore-time ignore time when deciding whether to download
--ignore-size ignore size when deciding whether to download
--only-missing download only missing files
--only-existing download only files already existing at target
-n, --only-newer download only newer files (-c won't work)
--no-empty-dirs don't create empty directories (implies --depth-first)
-r, --no-recursion don't go to subdirectories
--no-symlinks don't create symbolic links
-p, --no-perms don't set file permissions
--no-umask don't apply umask to file modes
-R, --reverse reverse mirror (put files)
-L, --dereference download symbolic links as files
-N, --newer-than=SPEC download only files newer than specified time
--on-change=CMD execute the command if anything has been changed
--older-than=SPEC download only files older than specified time
--size-range=RANGE download only files with size in specified range
-P, --parallel[=N] download N files in parallel
--use-pget[-n=N] use pget to transfer every single file
--loop loop until no changes found
-i RX, --include RX include matching files
-x RX, --exclude RX exclude matching files
-I GP, --include-glob GP include matching files
-X GP, --exclude-glob GP exclude matching files
-v, --verbose[=level] verbose operation
--log=FILE write lftp commands being executed to FILE
--script=FILE write lftp commands to FILE, but don't execute them
--just-print, --dry-run same as --script=-
--use-cache use cached directory listings
--Remove-source-files remove files after transfer (use with caution)
-a same as --allow-chown --allow-suid --no-umask

Enjoy your file transfers!