Manpage of bbftp

Updated: 2000/08/28

Section: User Commands (1)

NAME

bbftp - transfer files using compression and parallel streams

SYNOPSIS

bbftp -v

bbftp -u RemoteUsername -i ControlFile [ -b ] [ -c ] [ -o OutputFile ] [ -p NumberOfParallelStreams ] [ -r NumberOfTries ] [ -t ] RemoteHost

DESCRIPTION

Use the bbftp command to transfer files between the local host and a remote host.

In order to get better performance on a loaded Wide Area Network than transferring with the standard ftp command, use the bbftp command. bbftp has been designed to take advantage of the RFC 1323 and uses multiple streams is order to speed up transfer. It also implements an automatic retry in case of failure of commands contained in the ControlFile

The bbftpd daemon has to be installed on the remote host in order to be able to transfer files.

The behaviour of bbftp is controled by the ControlFile (see CONTROL FILE FORMAT ) which contains the commands to be executed. Those commands cannot be given interactively. bbftp also generates a ResultFile which is located in the same directory as the ControlFile (see RESULT FILE FORMAT ).

bbftp may be used in one of the following ways:

bbftp

: to print a short help

bbftp -v

: to write to standard output the version of the software.

bbftp [ Options ] -i ControlFile -u RemoteUsername RemoteHost

to request the execution of the control file ControlFile using RemoteUsername on RemoteHost. The password for the RemoteUsername will then be requested interactively and transmitted encrypted to the RemoteHost.

See OPTIONS section, for a full description of the Options.

OPTIONS

-b: Use this option to run bbftp in background after the request of the password.
-c: Use this option to compress the data during transmission. Compression and uncompression are done "on the fly" and do not require any additionnal disk space. Do not use it if the files to transmit are not compressible, as this will only lead to a waste of CPU and time.
-o OutputFile: Use this option to redirect the data generated on the standard output to OutputFile
-p NumberOfParralelStreams: Use this option to increase the number of streams to use during the file transfer. The maximum is 10. Default is 1.
-r NumberOfTries: Use this option to change the number of tries to use when a transfer fail. The default is 5.
-t: Use this option to have a timestamp on the output.

CONTROL FILE FORMAT

The control file is an ASCII file containing the commands to be executed. Each line of the file represent one command. The following commands are available:

cd RemoteDirectory

Change the current directory of the daemon on the remote host.

If the RemoteDirectory is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /), it is searched relative to the directory where the daemon is currently. After the first connection the current directory is the home directory of the RemoteUsername.

The client keep in mind the current remote directory so in case of broken connection during a transfer, it reset the current directory of the daemon to the correct directory

get RemoteFile LocalFile

Transfer the remote file RemoteFile to the local host with the name LocalFile. If the local file already exists it is overwritten. Under some circumstances (No space left on device, Access denied, File is a directory ...), no retry is done and the next command of the file is processed.

If the LocalFile is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /) the file is created relative to the directory where the bbftp command is running (which may have been changed with the lcd command).

get RemoteFile

Transfer the remote file RemoteFile to the local host with the name RemoteFile.

If the RemoteFile is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /), it is searched relative to the current directory on the remote host (which is set to the home directory of the RemoteUsername at the beginning) and created on the local host relative to the directory where the bbftp command is running (which may have been changed with the lcd command).

getrfio RemoteFile LocalFile

Has exactly the same behaviour as the get command except than the remote file is read througth the RFIO system. This needs the daemon bbftpd to be compiled with the RFIO option.

getrfio RemoteFile

Has exactly the same behaviour as the get command except than the remote file is read througth the RFIO system. This needs the daemon bbftpd to be compiled with the RFIO option.

lcd LocalDirectory

Change the current directory on the local host.

If the LocalDirectory is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /), it is searched relative to the directory where the client is currently.

mget RemoteFiles

Expand the RemoteFiles on the remote machine and do a get for each file name thus produced. Files are transferred into the local working directory, which can be changed with lcd LocalDirectory

mkdir RemoteDirectory

Create the directory RemoteDirectory on the remote host. If the directory already exist no retry is done and the next command of the file is processed. If the RemoteDirectory is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /) the directory is created relative to the current remote directory.

If one directory in the path given does not exist the command fail and no retry is done.

mput LocalFiles

Expand wild cards in the list of local files given as arguments and do a put for each file in the resulting list.

put LocalFile RemoteFile

Transfer the local file LocalFile to the remote host with the name RemoteFile. If the remote file already exists it is overwritten. Under some circumstances (No space left on device, Access denied ...), no retry is done and the next command of the file is processed.

If the RemoteFile is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /), it is created relative to the current directory on the remote host (which is set to the home directory of the RemoteUsername at the beginning).

put LocalFile

Transfer the local file LocalFile to the remote host with the name LocalFile.

If the LocalFile is given in relative mode (not beginning by a /) the file is searched relative to the directory where the bbftp command is running (which may have been changed with the lcd command) and created relative to the current directory on the remote host (which is set to the home directory of the RemoteUsername at the beginning).

putrfio LocalFile RemoteFile

Has exactly the same behaviour as the put command except than the local file is read througth the RFIO system. This needs the bbftp command to be compiled with the RFIO option.

putrfio LocalFile

Has exactly the same behaviour as the put command except than the local file is read througth the RFIO system. This needs the bbftp command to be compiled with the RFIO option.

WARNING

Do not believe that the transfer is ended because the new file ( RemoteFile for a put or LocalFile for a get) has the expected size, IT IS CREATED WITH ITS EXPECTED SIZE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TRANSFER. Look at the standard output or at the result file to know if the transfer has finished correctly.

NOTES

On SunOS, IRIX and OSF1 all transfer commands (except getrfio) are able to transfer files of more than 2 Gigabytes.

On Linux all transfer commands are limited to files of 2 Gigabytes.

RESULT FILE FORMAT

The ResultFile is created in the same directory as the ControlFile. Its name is ControlFile with the extension ".res". It contains the same lines as the ControlFile plus the keyword OK, in case of success, or FAILED, in case of failure.

EXAMPLE

The following control file named ctrlfile:

mkdir /scratch/jon
put /home/user/f1 /scratch/jon/f1
put f2 f3
get f4 /tmp/f5

may be used in the following command:

bbftp -i ctrlfile -u jon -p 5 -c host2

This mean that the bbftp command will used the ControlFile ctrlfile to execute several commands. All transfer commands will be done in compressed mode with five streams. The username on host2 will be jon.

Commands 1 and 2 are done in absolute mode. Commands 3 is done relative to the directory where the bbftp command is run for f2 and relative to the home directory of user jon on host2 for f3. Command 4 is done relative to the directory of user jon on host2 for f4 and in absolute mode for file f5.

The ResultFile whose name will be ctrlfile.res may contain :

mkdir /scratch/jon OK
put /home/user/f1 /scratch/jon/f1 FAILED
put f2 f3 OK
get f4 /tmp/f5 OK
This means that commands 1 3 and 4 were successfull and command 2 failed.

RETURN VALUES

No return value, see the ResultFile or the standard output

MESSAGES AND ERRORS

Informative and error messages are written to the standard output file.

AUTHOR

bbftp was developed by Gilles Farrache (farrache@cc.in2p3.fr) at the Centre de Calcul de l'IN2P3 - Villeurbanne (FRANCE).

This software uses the cryptolib 0.9.5 of the OpenSSL project and zlib 1.1.3 written by Jean-Loup Gally and Mark Adler.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 09:43:06 GMT, August 28, 2000