ncftp - Browser program for the File Transfer Protocol


SYNOPSIS

       ncftp [host]

       ncftp [ftp://host.name/directory/]


DESCRIPTION

       The purpose of ncftp is to provide a powerful and flexible
       interface to the Internet standard File Transfer Protocol.
       It is intended to replace the stock ftp program that comes
       with the system.

       Although the program appears to be rather spartan,  you'll
       find  that  ncftp has a wealth of valuable performance and
       usage features.  The program was designed with an emphasis
       on  usability, and it does as much as it can for you auto­
       matically so you can do what you expect to do with a  file
       transfer  program,  which  is  transfer  files between two
       interconnected systems.

       Some of the cooler features include progress meters, file­
       name completion, command-line editing, background process­
       ing, auto-resume downloads, bookmarking, cached  directory
       listings, host redialing, working with firewalls and prox­
       ies, downloading entire directory trees, etc., etc.

       The ncftp distribution comes with the useful utility  pro­
       grams  ncftpget(1)  and ncftpput(1) which were designed to
       do command-line FTP.  In particular, they are  very  handy
       for  shell  scripts.  This version of ncftp no longer does
       command-line FTP, since the main ncftp program is more  of
       a browser-type program.

   OPTIONS
       The  program allows you to specify a host or directory URL
       on the command line.  This is a synonym for running  ncftp
       and then using the open command.  A few command-line flags
       are allowed with this mode:

       -u XX   Use username XX instead of anonymous.

       -p XX   Use password XX with the username.

       -j XX   Use account XX in supplement to the  username  and
               password (deprecated).

       -P XX   Use port number XX instead of the default FTP ser­
               vice port (21).

   INTRODUCTION TO THE COMMAND SHELL
       Upon running the  program  you  are  presented  a  command
       prompt  where  you  type  commands to the program's shell.

       transfer  files  to and from your local machine's filesys­
       tem.  To do that, you need to know the  symbolic  name  of
       the  remote system, or its Internet Protocol (IP) address.
       For example, a symbolic name might be ``typhoon.unl.edu,''
       and  its  IP address could be ``129.93.33.24.''  To open a
       connection to that system, you use the program's open com­
       mand:

            open typhoon.unl.edu
            open 129.93.33.24

       Both  of  these  try to open the machine called typhoon at
       the University of Nebraska.  Using the  symbolic  name  is
       the preferred way, because IP addresses may change without
       notice, while the symbolic names usually stay the same.

       When you open a remote filesystem, you need to  have  per­
       mission.  The FTP Protocol's authentication system is very
       similar to that of logging in to your account.   You  have
       to  give  an  account name, and its password for access to
       that account's files.  However, most remote  systems  that
       have  anything you might be interested in don't require an
       account name for use.  You can often get anonymous  access
       to  a  remote filesystem and exchange files that have been
       made publicly accessible.  The  program  attempts  to  get
       anonymous  permission to a remote system by default.  What
       actually happens is that the program tries to use ``anony­
       mous''  as the account name, and when prompted for a pass­
       word, uses your E-mail address as a courtesy to the remote
       system's  maintainer.  You can have the program try to use
       a specific account also.  That will be explained later.

       After the open command  completes  successfully,  you  are
       connected  to the remote system and logged in.  You should
       now see the command prompt change to reflect the  name  of
       the  current  remote directory.  To see what's in the cur­
       rent remote directory, you can use the  program's  ls  and
       dir commands.  The former is terse, preferring more remote
       files in less screen space, and the latter  is  more  ver­
       bose,  giving  detailed information about each item in the
       directory.

       You can use the program's cd  command  to  move  to  other
       directories  on the remote system.  The cd command behaves
       very much like the command of the same name in the  Bourne
       and Korn shell.

       The  purpose of the program is to exchange data with other
       systems.  You can use the program's get command to copy  a
       file from the remote system to your local system:

            get README.txt

       the screen, so you can tell how  much  needs  to  be  done
       before the transfer finishes.  When the transfer does fin­
       ish, then you can enter more  commands  to  the  program's
       command shell.

       You  can use the program's put command to copy a file from
       your system to the remote system:

            put something.tar

       When you are finished using the  remote  system,  you  can
       open another one or use the quit

       Before quitting, you may want to save the current FTP ses­
       sion's settings for later.  You can use the bookmark  com­
       mand  to  save  an  entry into your $HOME/.ncftp/bookmarks
       file.  When you use the bookmark command, you also specify
       a  bookmark  name, so the next time instead of opening the
       full hostname you can use the name  of  the  bookmark.   A
       bookmark  acts  just  like one for your web browser, so it
       saves the remote directory you were in, the  account  name
       you  used,  etc., and other information it learned so that
       the next time you use the bookmark it  should  require  as
       little effort from you as possible.

   COMMAND REFERENCE
       help   The  first  command  to  know is help.  If you just
              type

                   help

              from the command  shell,  the  program  prints  the
              names  of  all  of  the  supported  commands.  From
              there, you can get specific help for a  command  by
              typing the command after, for example:

                   help open

              prints information about the open command.

       ascii  This  command sets the transfer type to ASCII text.
              This is useful for text-only transfers because  the
              concept  of  text  files  differs between operating
              systems.  For example on UNIX, a text file  denotes
              line  breaks  with the linefeed character, while on
              MS-DOS a line break is denoted by both  a  carriage
              return character and a line feed character.  There­
              fore, for data transfers that you consider the data
              as  text  you can use ascii to ensure that both the
              remote system and local  system  translate  accord­
              ingly.   The  default transfer type that ncftp uses
              is not ASCII, but straight binary.

              These commands correspond to the get and  put  com­
              mands  explained below, except that they do the job
              in the background.  Normally when you do a get then
              the program does the download immediately, and does
              not return control to you until the  download  com­
              pletes.   The background transfers are nice because
              you can continue browsing the remote filesystem and
              even open other systems.  In fact, they are done by
              a daemon process, so even if you log off your  UNIX
              host  the  daemon  should  still do your transfers.
              The daemon  will  also  automatically  continue  to
              retry  the  transfers  until  they finish.  To tell
              when background jobs have  finished,  you  have  to
              examine  the $HOME/.ncftp/batchlog file, or run the
              jobs command from within NcFTP.

              Both the bgget and  bgput  commands  allow  you  to
              schedule  when  to  do  the transfers.  They take a
              ``-@'' parameter, whose argument is a date  of  the
              form  YYYYMMDDhhmmss  (four digit year, month, day,
              hour, minute, second).  For example, to schedule  a
              download at 3 AM on November 6, you could try:

                   bgget -@ 19971106030000 /pub/idstuff/quake/q2_100.zip

       bgstart
              This  command  tells ncftp to immediately start the
              background transfers you've requested, which simply
              runs  a  copy  of  the  ncftpbatch program which is
              responsible for the background jobs.  Normally  the
              program  will  start  the background job as soon as
              you close the current site, open  a  new  site,  or
              quit  the  program.  The reason for this is because
              since so many users still  use  slow  dialup  links
              that  starting the transfers would slow things to a
              crawl, making it difficult  to  browse  the  remote
              system.   An added bonus of starting the background
              job when you close the site is that ncftp can  pass
              off that open connection to the ncftpbatch program.
              That is nice when the site is always busy, so  that
              the background job doesn't have to wait and get re-
              logged on to do its job.

       binary Sets the transfer type to raw binary,  so  that  no
              translation  is done on the data transferred.  This
              is the default anyway,  since  most  files  are  in
              binary.

       bookmark
              Saves  the  current session settings for later use.
              This is useful to save the remote system and remote
              working  directory  so you can quickly resume where
              you left off some other time.  The bookmark data is


       bookmarks
              Lists  the  contents of your $HOME/.ncftp/bookmarks
              file in a human-readable format.  You can use  this
              command to recall the bookmark name of a previously
              saved bookmark, so that you can use the  open  com­
              mand with it.

       cat    Acts  like  the ``/bin/cat'' UNIX command, only for
              remote files.  This downloads the file you  specify
              and  dumps  it  directly  to  the screen.  You will
              probably find the page command more  useful,  since
              that  lets  you  view the file one screen at a time
              instead of printing the entire file at once.

       cd     Changes the working directory on the  remote  host.
              Use  this command to move to different areas on the
              remote server.  If you just opened a new site,  you
              might  be in the root directory.  Perhaps there was
              a  directory  called   ``/pub/news/comp.sources.d''
              that  someone told you about.  From the root direc­
              tory, you could:

                   cd pub
                   cd news
                   cd comp.sources.d

              or, more concisely,

                   cd /pub/news/comp.sources.d

              Then, commands such as get, put, and  ls  could  be
              used to refer to items in that directory.

              Some  shells in the UNIX environment have a feature
              I like, which is switching to the  previous  direc­
              tory.  Like those shells, you can do:

                   cd -

              to change to the last directory you were in.

       chmod  Acts like the ``/bin/chmod'' UNIX command, only for
              remote files.  However, this is not a standard com­
              mand, so remote FTP servers may not support it.

       close  Disconnects  you  from the remote server.  The pro­
              gram does this for you automatically  when  needed,
              so you can simply open other sites or quit the pro­
              gram without worrying about closing the  connection
              by hand.

       debug  This  command  is mostly for internal testing.  You


                   debug 1

              to turn debugging mode on.  Then you could see  all
              messages between the program and the remote server,
              and things that are only printed in debugging mode.
              However,  this information is also available in the
              $HOME/.ncftp/trace file, which is created each time
              you run ncftp.  If you need to report a bug, send a
              trace file if you can.

       dir    Prints a detailed directory listing.  It  tries  to
              behave  like UNIX's ``/bin/ls -l'' command.  If the
              remote server seems to be a UNIX host, you can also
              use the same flags you would with ls, for instance

                   dir -rt

              would try to act like

                   /bin/ls -lrt

              would on UNIX.

       get    Copies  files from the current working directory on
              the remote host to your machine's  current  working
              directory.   To  place  a  copy  of  ``README'' and
              ``README.too'' in your local directory,  you  could
              try:

                   get README README.too

              You  could also accomplish that by using a wildcard
              expression, such as:

                   get README*

              This command is similar to the  behavior  of  other
              FTP  programs'  mget command.  To retrieve a remote
              file but give it a different name on your host, you
              can use the ``-z'' flag.  This example shows how to
              download a  file  called  ReadMe.txt  but  name  it
              locally as README:

                   get -z ReadMe.txt README

              The   program  tries  to  ``resume''  downloads  by
              default.  This means that if the remote FTP  server
              lost  the  connection and was only able to send 490
              kilobytes of a 500 kilobyte file, you could  recon­
              nect  to  the  FTP server and do another get on the
              same file name and it would get the last  10  kilo­
              bytes, instead of retrieving the entire file again.

              that  behavior.   To  turn  it  off you can use the
              ``-Z'' flag.

              There are also times where you want to append to an
              existing file.  You can do this by using the ``-A''
              flag, for example

                   get -A log.11

              would append to  a  file  named  ``log.11''  if  it
              existed locally.

              Another  thing  you  can do is delete a remote file
              after you download it.  This can be useful  when  a
              remote  host  expects  a file to be removed when it
              has been retrieved.  Use the double-D flag, such as
              ``get -DD'' to do this.

              The  get command lets you retrieve entire directory
              trees, too.  Although it may  not  work  with  some
              remote  systems,  you  can  try  ``get -R''  with a
              directory to download the directory  and  its  con­
              tents.

       jobs   Views  the  list of currently executing NcFTP back­
              ground tasks.  This actually just  runs  ncftpbatch
              -l for you.

       lcd    The  lcd  command  is the first of a few ``l'' com­
              mands that work with the local host.  This  changes
              the  current  working  directory on the local host.
              If you want to  download  files  into  a  different
              local  directory,  you  could  use lcd to change to
              that directory and then do your downloads.

       lchmod Runs ``/bin/chmod'' on the local host.

       lls    Another local command that comes in  handy  is  the
              lls  command,  which  runs ``/bin/ls'' on the local
              host and displays the results in the program's win­
              dow.   You  can  use the same flags with lls as you
              would in your command shell, so you can  do  things
              like:

                   lcd ~/doc
                   lls -lrt p*.txt

       lmkdir Runs ``/bin/mkdir'' on the local host.

       lookup The  program  also  has a built-in interface to the
              name service via the lookup  command.   This  means
              you can lookup entries for remote hosts, like:


              prints:

                   cse.unl.edu               129.93.33.1
                   typhoon.unl.edu           129.93.33.24
                   sphygmomanometer.unl.edu  129.93.33.126

              There  is also a more detailed option, enabled with
              ``-v,'' i.e.:

                   lookup -v cse.unl.edu ftp.cs.unl.edu

              prints:

                   cse.unl.edu:
                       Name:     cse.unl.edu
                       Address:  129.93.33.1

                   ftp.cs.unl.edu:
                       Name:     typhoon.unl.edu
                       Alias:    ftp.cs.unl.edu
                       Address:  129.93.33.24

              You can also give IP addresses, so this would  work
              too:

                   lookup 129.93.33.24

              prints:

                   typhoon.unl.edu           129.93.33.24

       lpage  Views  a  local  file one page at a time, with your
              preferred $PAGER program.

       lpwd   Prints the current local directory.  Use this  com­
              mand  when  you  forget where you are on your local
              machine.

       lrename
              Runs ``/bin/mv'' on the local host.

       lrm    Runs ``/bin/rm'' on the local host.

       lrmdir Runs ``/bin/rmdir'' on the local host.

       ls     Prints a directory listing from the remote  system.
              It tries to behave like UNIX's ``/bin/ls -CF'' com­
              mand.  If the remote server  seems  to  be  a  UNIX
              host,  you  can  also  use the same flags you would
              with ls, for instance

                   ls -rt


                   /bin/ls -CFrt

              would on UNIX.

              ncftp has a powerful built-in  system  for  dealing
              with  directory  listings.   It tries to cache each
              one, so if you list the same directory, odds are it
              will  display  instantly.  Behind the scenes, ncftp
              always tries a long listing, and then reformats  it
              as it needs to.  So even if your first listing of a
              directory was a regular ``ls'' which displayed  the
              files  in  columns,  your  next  listing  could  be
              ``ls -lrt'' and ncftp would still  use  the  cached
              directory  listing  to quickly display the informa­
              tion for you!

       mkdir  Creates a new directory on the  remote  host.   For
              many  public  archives,  you  won't have the proper
              access permissions to do that.

       open   Establishes an FTP control connection to  a  remote
              host.  By default, ncftp logs in anonymously to the
              remote host.  You may want to use a  specific  user
              account  when you log in, so you can use the ``-u''
              flag to specify which user.  This example shows how
              to  open  the  host ``bowser.nintendo.co.jp'' using
              the username ``mario:''

                   open -u mario bowser.nintendo.co.jp

              Here is a list of options available  for  use  with
              the open command:

              -u XX Use username XX instead of anonymous.

              -p XX Use password XX with the username.

              -j  XX Use account XX in supplement to the username
              and password (deprecated).

              -P XX Use port number XX instead of the default FTP
              service port (21).

       page   Browses  a  remote  file  one page at a time, using
              your $PAGER program.  This is  useful  for  reading
              README's  on  the  remote  host without downloading
              them first.

       pdir and pls
              These commands are equivalent to dir and ls respec­
              tively,  only they feed their output to your pager.
              These commands are useful if the directory  listing


       put    Copies  files  from  the  local  host to the remote
              machine's current working directory.   To  place  a
              copy  of  ``xx.zip''  and  ``yy.zip'' in the remote
              directory, you could try:

                   put xx.zip yy.zip

              You could also accomplish that by using a  wildcard
              expression, such as:

                   put *.zip

              This  command  is  similar to the behavior of other
              FTP programs' mput command.  To send a remote  file
              but  give it a different name on your host, you can
              use the ``-z'' flag.  This  example  shows  how  to
              upload  a  file  called ``ncftpd-2.0.6.tar.gz'' but
              name it remotely as ``NFTPD206.TGZ:''

                   put -z ncftpd-2.0.6.tar.gz NFTPD206.TGZ

              The program does not try to ``resume''  uploads  by
              default.   If  you do want to resume an upload, use
              the ``-z'' flag.

              There are also times where you want to append to an
              existing remote file.  You can do this by using the
              ``-A'' flag, for example

                   put -A log11.txt

              would append to a file named  ``log11.txt''  if  it
              existed on the remote server.

              Another  thing  you  can  do is delete a local file
              after you upload it.  Use the double-D  flag,  such
              as ``put -DD'' to do this.

              The  put  command  lets  you  send entire directory
              trees, too.  It should work on all remote  systems,
              so  you  can  try  ``put -R''  with  a directory to
              upload the directory and its contents.

       pwd    Prints the current  remote  working  directory.   A
              portion  of  the  pathname is also displayed in the
              shell's prompt.

       quit   Of course, when you finish using the program,  type
              quit  to  end  the program (You could also use bye,
              exit, or ^D).

       quote  This can be used to  send  a  direct  FTP  Protocol

              too useful to the average user.

       rename If you need to change the name of  a  remote  file,
              you can use the rename command, like:

                   rename SPHYGMTR.TAR sphygmomanometer-2.3.1.tar

       rhelp  Sends  a  help  request  to the remote server.  The
              list of FTP Protocol commands is often printed, and
              sometimes  some  other information that is actually
              useful, like how to reach the site administrator.

              Depending on the remote server, you may be able  to
              give a parameter to the server also, like:

                   rhelp NLST

              One server responded:

                   Syntax: NLST [ <sp> path-name ]

       rm     If you need to delete a remote file you can try the
              rm command.  Much  of  the  time  this  won't  work
              because  you  won't  have the proper access permis­
              sions.  This command doesn't accept any  flags,  so
              you  can't nuke a whole tree by using ``-rf'' flags
              like you can on UNIX.

       rmdir  Similarly, the rmdir command removes  a  directory.
              Depending  on the remote server, you may be able to
              remove a non-empty directory, so be careful.

       set    This lets you  configure  some  program  variables,
              which    are    saved    between    runs   in   the
              $HOME/.ncftp/prefs file.  The basic syntax is:

                   set <option> <value>

              For example, to change the value you  use  for  the
              anonymous password, you might do:

                   set anon-password ncftp@ncftp.com

              See  the  next  section  for  a  list of things you
              change.

       show   This lets you display program variables.   You  can
              do  ``show all''  to display all of them, or give a
              variable name to just display that one, such as:

                   show anon-password

       site   One obscure command you may have to use someday  is

              cific'' commands.  These ``site'' commands vary  of
              course, such as:

                   site chmod 644 README

              Actually,  ncftp's  chmod  command  really does the
              above.

              Try doing one of  these  to  see  what  the  remote
              server supports, if any:

                   rhelp SITE
                   site help

       type   You  may  need  to change transfer types during the
              course of a session with a server.  You can use the
              type command to do this.  Try one of these:

                   type ascii
                   type binary
                   type image

              The  ascii command is equivalent to ``type a'', and
              the binary command is equivalent to ``type i''  and
              ``type b''.

       umask  Sets the process' umask on the remote server, if it
              has any concept of a umask, i.e.:

                   umask 077

              However, this is not a standard command, so  remote
              FTP servers may not support it.

       version
              This  command dumps some information about the par­
              ticular edition of the program you are  using,  and
              how it was installed on your system.

   VARIABLE REFERENCE
       anon-password
              Specifies what to use for the password when logging
              in anonymously.  Internet convention  has  been  to
              use  your  E-mail address as a courtesy to the site
              administrator.  If you change this, be  aware  that
              some  sites  require (i.e. they check for) valid E-
              mail addresses.

       auto-resume
              NcFTP 3 now prompts the user by  default  when  you
              try to download a file that already exists locally,
              or upload a  file  that  already  exists  remotely.
              Older versions of the program automatically guessed

              to resume where it left off, but sometimes the pro­
              gram would guess wrong.  If you would  prefer  that
              the  program always guess which action to take, set
              this variable to yes, otherwise, leave it set to no
              and the program will prompt you for which action to
              take.

       autosave-bookmark-changes
              With the advent of version 3 of NcFTP, the  program
              treats bookmarks more like they would with your web
              browser, which means that  once  you  bookmark  the
              site,  the  remote directory is static.  If you set
              this variable to yes, then the program  will  auto­
              matically  update  the  bookmark's  starting remote
              directory with the directory you were in  when  you
              closed  the site.  This behavior would be more like
              that of NcFTP version 2.

       confirm-close
              By default the program will ask you when a site you
              haven't  bookmarked is about to be closed.  To turn
              this prompt off, you can set this variable to no.

       connect-timeout
              Previous versions of  the  program  used  a  single
              timeout  value  for  everything.   You can now have
              different values for  different  operations.   How­
              ever, you probably do not need to change these from
              the defaults unless you have special  requirements.

              The  connect-timeout  variable controls how long to
              wait, in seconds, for a connection establishment to
              complete  before  considering it hopeless.  You can
              choose to not use a timeout at all by setting  this
              to -1.

       control-timeout
              This is the timer used when ncftp sends an FTP com­
              mand over the  control  connection  to  the  remote
              server.   If the server hasn't replied in that many
              seconds, it considers the session lost.

       logsize
              This  is  controls  how  large  the  transfer   log
              ($HOME/.ncftp/log)  can grow to, in kilobytes.  The
              default is 200, for 200kB; if you don't want a log,
              set this to 0.

       pager  This  is the external program to use to view a text
              file, and is more by default.

       passive
              This   controls   ncftp's   behavior    for    data

              the default, optional.  When passive  mode  is  on,
              ncftp  uses  the FTP command primitive PASV to have
              the  client  establish  data  connections  to   the
              server.   The  default  FTP protocol behavior is to
              use the FTP command primitive PORT  which  has  the
              server  establish  data  connections to the client.
              The default setting for  this  variable,  optional,
              allows  ncftp  to  choose whichever method it deems
              necessary.

       progress-meter
              You can change how the program reports file  trans­
              fer status.  Select from meter 2, 1, or 0.

       redial-delay
              When  a  host  is  busy or unavailable, the program
              waits this number of seconds before  trying  again.
              The  smallest  you can set this is to 10 seconds --
              so if you were  planning  on  being  inconsiderate,
              think again.

       save-passwords
              If  you  set this variable to yes, the program will
              save passwords along with the bookmarks  you  save.
              While  this  makes non-anonymous logins more conve­
              nient,  this  can  be  very  dangerous  since  your
              account   information   is   now   sitting  in  the
              $HOME/.ncftp/bookmarks file.  The passwords  aren't
              in  clear  text,  but it is still trivial to decode
              them if someone wants to make a modest effort.

       so-bufsize
              If your operating system supports  TCP  Large  Win­
              dows, you can try setting this variable to the num­
              ber of bytes to set the TCP/IP  socket  buffer  to.
              This  option won't be of much use unless the remote
              server also supports large window sizes and is pre-
              configured with them enabled.

       xfer-timeout
              This  timer  controls  how  long  to  wait for data
              blocks to complete.  Don't set this too low or else
              your transfers will timeout without completing.

   FIREWALL AND PROXY CONFIGURATION
       You  may find that your network administrator has placed a
       firewall between your machine and the Internet,  and  that
       you cannot reach external hosts.

       The  answer  may be as simple as setting ncftp to use pas­
       sive mode only, which you can  do  from  a  ncftp  command
       prompt like this:


       The reason for this is because many firewalls do not allow
       incoming connections to the site, but do  allow  users  to
       establish outgoing connections.  A passive data connection
       is established by the client to the  server,  whereas  the
       default  is  for the server to establish the connection to
       the client, which firewalls may object to.  Of course, you
       now  may  have  problems  with  sites  whose primitive FTP
       servers do not support passive mode.

       Otherwise, if you know you need to have ncftp  communicate
       directly with a firewall or proxy, you can try editing the
       separate $HOME/.ncftp/firewall configuration  file.   This
       file  is  created automatically the first time you run the
       program, and contains all the information you need to  get
       the program to work in this setup.

       The  basics  of  this  process  are configuring a firewall
       (proxy) host to go through, a user  account  and  password
       for  authentication  on  the  firewall,  and which type of
       firewall method to use.  You can also setup  an  exclusion
       list, so that ncftp does not use the firewall for hosts on
       the local network.


FILES

       $HOME/.ncftp/batchlog
              Information for background data transfer processes.

       $HOME/.ncftp/bookmarks
              Saves bookmark and host information.

       $HOME/.ncftp/firewall
              Firewall access configuration file.

       $HOME/.ncftp/prefs
              Program preferences.

       $HOME/.ncftp/spool/
              Directory  where  background jobs are stored in the
              form of spool configuration files.

       $HOME/.ncftp/trace
              Debugging output for entire program run.

       $HOME/.ncftp/v3init
              Used to tell if this version of the program has run
              before.


ENVIRONMENT

       PATH   User's  search  path,  used  to find the ncftpbatch
              program, pager, and some other system utilities.

       PAGER  Program to use to view text files  one  page  at  a


       TERM   If  the  program  was compiled with support for GNU
              Readline it will need to know how to manipulate the
              terminal  correctly  for  line-editing,  etc.   The
              pager program will also take advantage of this set­
              ting.

       HOME   By  default,  the  program writes its configuration
              data in a .ncftp subdirectory of  the  HOME  direc­
              tory.

       NCFTPDIR
              If set, the program will use this directory instead
              of $HOME/.ncftp.  This variable is optional  except
              for  those  users  whose home directory is the root
              directory.

       COLUMNS
              Both the built-in ls command and  the  external  ls
              command  need  this  to  determine  how many screen
              columns the terminal has.


BUGS

       There are no such  sites  named  bowser.nintendo.co.jp  or
       sphygmomanometer.unl.edu.

       Auto-resume  should  check  the file timestamps instead of
       relying upon just the file sizes, but it is  difficult  to
       do this reliably within FTP.

       Directory   caching  and  recursive  downloads  depend  on
       UNIX-like behavior of the remote host.


AUTHOR

       Mike Gleason, NcFTP Software (mgleason@ncftp.com).


SEE ALSO

       ncftpput(1), ncftpget(1), ncftpbatch(1),  ftp(1),  rcp(1),
       tftp(1).

       LibNcFTP (http://www.ncftp.com/libncftp).

       NcFTPd (http://www.ncftp.com/ncftpd).


THANKS

       Thanks  to everyone who uses the program.  Your support is
       what drives me to improve the program!

       I thank Dale Botkin and Tim  Russell  at  my  former  ISP,
       Probe Technology.

       Ideas and some code contributed by my partner, Phil Dietz.

       refining  the development of the backbone of this project,
       LibNcFTP.

       I'd like to thank my former  system  administrators,  most
       notably Charles Daniel, for making testing on a variety of
       platforms possible, letting me have some extra disk space,
       and for maintaining the UNL FTP site.

       For  testing versions 1 and 2 above and beyond the call of
       duty,  I  am   especially   grateful   to:   Phil   Dietz,
       Kok Hon Yin, and Andrey A. Chernov (ache@astral.msk.su).

       Thanks  to  Tim  MacKenzie (t.mackenzie@trl.oz.au) for the
       original filename completion code for  version  2.3.0  and
       2.4.2.

       Thanks to DaviD W. Sanderson (dws@ora.com), for helping me
       out with the man page.

       Thanks to those of you at UNL who appreciate my work.

       Thanks to Red  Hat  Software  for  honoring  my  licensing
       agreement,  but  more  importantly, thanks for providing a
       solid and affordable development platform.


APOLOGIES

       To the users, for not being able to respond personally  to
       most of your inquiries.

       To Phil, for things not being the way they should be.


Man(1) output converted with man2html