lftp

Original author(s)	Alexander V. Lukyanov
Stable release	4.0.4 / 2009-11-19; 49 days ago
Operating system	UNIX-like
Type	FTP client
License	GNU GPL
Website	http://lftp.yar.ru

lftp is a command-line file transfer program (FTP client) for UNIX and Unix-like systems. It was written by Alexander Lukyanov, and is made available under the GNU General Public License.

Besides FTP, it also supports FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, HFTP, FISH, and SFTP by specifying the desired protocol in a location URL. One feature which is especially handy is support for FXP i.e. data transfers between two FTP servers, bypassing the client machine. A BitTorrent client is also built-in as torrent command.

In addition to features common in advanced FTP clients, such as recursively mirroring entire directory trees, location bookmarks and resuming downloads, lftp also supports more advanced functionality. Transfers can be scheduled for execution at a later time, bandwidth can be throttled, transfer queues can be set up, and Unix shell-like job control is supported. The client can be fully scripted, instead of being used interactively.

[edit] Development history

Lftp was initially developed as part of the ftpclass package (announced August 1, 1996 in relcom.tcpip). Later on, it has grown and has become a more capable program, and therefore the package was renamed to lftp in February 1997. The initial goals of development were robustness, automatic resuming of transfers, and increasing transfer speed by transferring parts of a file in parallel using several connections as well as by protocol pipelining. Somewhat later, mirroring capability was added.

[edit] See also

• Ncftp
• Comparison of FTP client software

[edit] External links

• lftp website
• lftp man page
• lftp-vi: a module that adds editing capability to lftp
• LftpFS - filesystem based on FUSE and lftp