FTPFS(4)                                                 FTPFS(4)

     NAME
          ftpfs  - file transfer protocol (FTP) file system

     SYNOPSIS
          ftpfs [ -/dq ] [ -m mountpoint ] [ -a password ] system

     DESCRIPTION
          Ftpfs dials the TCP file transfer protocol (FTP) port, 21,
          on system and mounts itself (see bind(2)) on mountpoint
          (default /n/ftp) to provide access to files on the remote
          machine.  If required by the remote machine, ftpfs will
          prompt for a user name and password.  The user names ftp and
          anonymous conventionally offer guest/read-only access to
          machines.  Anonymous FTP may be called without user interac-
          tion by using the -a option and specifying the password.

          By default the file seen at the mount point is the user's
          remote home directory.  The option -/ forces the mount point
          to correspond to the remote root.

          To avoid seeing startup messages from the server use option
          -q.  To see all messages from the server use option -d.

          To terminate the connection, unmount (see bind(1)) the mount
          point.

     EXAMPLE
          You want anonymous FTP access to the system
          export.lcs.mit.edu.  The first import(4) command is only
          necessary if your machine does not have access to the
          desired system, but another, called gateway in this example,
          does.

               import gateway /net
               ftpfs -a yourname@yourmachine export.lcs.mit.edu

     SOURCE
          /sys/src/cmd/ftpfs

     SEE ALSO
          bind(2)

     BUGS
          Symbolic links on remote Unix systems will always have mode
          0777 and a length of 8.

          After connecting to a TOPS-20 system, the mount point will
          contain only one directory, usually /n/ftp/PS:<ANONYMOUS>.
          However, walking to any valid directory on that machine will
          succeed and cause that directory entry to appear under the

     Page 1                       Plan 9            (printed 10/30/25)

     FTPFS(4)                                                 FTPFS(4)

          mount point.

          Ftpfs caches files and directories.  A directory will fall
          from the cache after 5 quiescent minutes or if the local
          user changes the directory by writing or removing a file.
          Otherwise, remote changes to the directory that occur after
          the directory has been cached might not be immediately visi-
          ble.

          There is no way to issue the appropriate commands to handle
          special synthetic FTP file types such as directories that
          automatically return a tar of their contents.

     Page 2                       Plan 9            (printed 10/30/25)