File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
- author:: Nathan Acks
- date:: 2022-04-03
Commands
- LIST - List contents of the supplied directory (or user’s FTP root)
- PASS - Specify the password for the account logging on
- PASV - Switch to passive mode
- QUIT - End the current session/connection
- RETR - Retrieve the provided file
- STAT - Provide connection/server information
- SYST - Provide system “type” information
- TYPE - Switch between ASCII (A) and binary (I) transfer modes
- USER - Specify the username for the account logging on
There are a lot more obscure commands as well, though the above is sufficient for basic operations.
- FTP Commands: QUIT, USER, ABOR, ACCT, SYST, XDEL
- FTP Commands: APPE, MLSD, MLST, LIST, RETR, STOR, STOU
File Retrieval
Note that you cannot receive files using FTP with a single telnet/netcat session, as file transfers are conducted over a separate channel (either a channel originating from port 20 on the server for “active” mode or a random port above 1023 on the client for “passive” mode).
However, you can retrieve files using two sessions.
- Switch to passive mode (PASV).
- The FTP server will reply with a string of the form (o1,o2,o3,o4,p1,p2), where o1 - o4 are the four octets of the server’s IP address and p1 - p2 are the high + low bytes of the port number to connect to.
- Use (256 Ă— p1) + p2 to determine the decimal port number. For example, if p1 = 117 and p2 = 85, then then port number you need to connect to is 30037.
- Connect a second telnet/netcat client to the IP + port provided by the server.
- Issue the appropriate file retrieval (RETR) command in the original telnet/netcat client. The file will be sent to the second client.
Which is a lot of work, but sometimes you just don’t have an FTP client.
FTPS
FTPS (FTP over SSL) uses port 990 by default. Mostly supplanted by SFTP.