Interactive Dos Batch File to Upload File via Ftp

Overview

Windows FTP scripts enable yous to put together a chain of commands in a file that y'all can call into play when needed. Scripts can come in handy when you want to automate file transfer processes. In this introductory post, we explicate what FTP scripts are, why you'll desire to use them, and how to create simple Windows-based scripts to upload or download files from a FTP server.

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In a previous article, we taught you how to execute FTP commands in the terminal. The examples we included in that tutorial were all done in interactive mode. Significant, they all required you lot to enter commands into the control line each time you wanted to practise something during an FTP session, eastward.k. login to a server, display a directory listing, upload files, download files, change a directory, and and then on.

Interactive mode is sufficient for ad hoc purposes. But if you demand to transfer files on a regular basis, e.g. as office of a B2B transaction or information commutation, then interactive mode is no longer practical. You'll be much more efficient if you can automate some parts of the process, and the way to that would be to write FTP scripts.

Annotation: FTP is no longer recommended for transferring sensitive files. Learn why in the commodityCountering Packet Sniffers Using Encrypted FTP

Simple FTP script for the Windows command line

An FTP script consists of the same commands that you normally effect in an interactive session, except that the commands are entered into a file. Permit's take a look at a uncomplicated script that:

1. Logs in to a FTP server at 192.168.100.101;
2. Enters "user1" as the username and "demo" equally that username's corresponding password;
3. Changes to the local directory "c:\ftpuploads";
4. Uploads the file "samplefile.txt" to the server; and
5. Exits

Here'due south the script for that:

open up 192.168.100.101

user1

demo

lcd c:\ftpuploads

put samplefile.txt

quit

Notice how we've simply entered the same commands you'd normally use in interactive fashion. You can use your favorite text editor to create the script and salve it in a text file, due east.g. ftpscript.txt. To run the script, yous just execute the FTP command with the -s choice. For example,

ftp -south:ftpscript.txt .

 Hither'due south how it looked like when I ran that command on my Windows command prompt:

So how different is this from interactive mode? Well, the BIG deviation is that, y'all no longer have to input the same values and FTP upload commands over and over every time you lot need to upload the same file to the aforementioned FTP server (in that location are certainly sophisticated scripts that tin can exercise more than than that).

Well-nigh B2B file transfers are quite repetitive. Practically the same file transfers are carried out periodically. Why assign someone (who tin probably do more productive tasks) to do that repetitive chore when you lot tin can just call a script?

In Windows, scripts usually work with batch files. You may call that control we showed earlier from a batch file similar this:

If the batch file (e.one thousand. fileupload.bat) is located in a directory whose path is included in your PATH surround variable, and then you'll be able to run that batch file as a command prompt executable file from any directory.

Here's the contents of a slightly more complicated Windows batch file (which we proper noun filedownload.bat) that creates an FTP script on the fly and then executes information technology:

@repeat off

echo open 192.168.100.101> ftpgetscript.txt

echo user1>> ftpgetscript.txt

echo demo>>ftpgetscript.txt

echo get %one>>ftpgetscript.txt

repeat quit>>ftpgetscript.txt

ftp -southward:ftpgetscript.txt

Notice that this batch file accepts an argument (%i) and passes the value to the script. Here'due south how it looked like when I executed the batch file to "download" the file named samplefile.txt. samplefile.txt is the argument we passed to the batch file, which in turn passed it on to the FTP script.

If y'all want to run this batch file (and consequently, the FTP script) on a pre-divers schedule, you lot'll accept to add together the batch file in your Windows Task Scheduler. That's a carve up configuration birthday and is beyond the scope of this blog post.

In the meantime, you might desire to read...

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Topics: Business Procedure Automation, FTP

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Source: https://www.jscape.com/blog/using-windows-ftp-scripts-to-automate-file-transfers

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