Downloading all files from an FTP Server

Question

I need to download everything from an FTP server to hosting on a different server. I have shell access only to the server I'm downloading the files to. How, using the Linux FTP comnand, can I download every file, creating the directories needed for them in the process?

Answer 1

You can't. Use wget instead.

Answer 2

Use wget in this manner (m for mirroring):

wget -m ftp://username:[email protected]

Alternatively, I found this guide which shows you how to do it in Debian. You will require root access to the new server if ncftp is not installed already.

In short:

sudo apt-get install ncftp
ncftpget –T –R –v –u "ftpuser" ftp.nixcraft.net /home/vivek/backup /www-data

Answer 3

Some FTP servers allow to download whole directories by suffixing their name with .tar or .tgz. The server then creates an archive of that directory.