cron jobs to upload a file via FTP

Question

Is it possible to use CRON to upload a file via FTP? If yes how can I call FTP to run an upload?

Answer 1

Assuming a UNIX-like operating system you could setup a cron job that pointed to a shell script like the following:

#!/bin/sh
cd [source directory]
ftp -n [destination host]<<END
user [user] [password]
put [source file]
quit
END

Depending on your ftp client defaults and the source file type you may need to specify binary prior to the put.

Answer 2

You may use ncftp -- they have an handy tools called "ncftpput"

It is easier then using expect -- it is just a single command with useful return code.

Answer 3

You probably are looking for a program called "expect" which is designed for dealing with interactive processes.

http://expect.nist.gov/

If you have "cron", you likely already have "expect" as well, these days.

Answer 4

Schedule a script call from cron.
In the script,

• Use Public Key Authentication to open a Secure FTP communication with your server
• Execute a batch file of PUTs to your server (there is a -b option in sftp)

For this,

• you will need to setup the public key authentication between the server and your client,machine.
• you will need a sftp client on the client machine (there are clients for all platforms -- PuTTY, Winscp.net, unix variants usually have this already installed).
• finally, try the PUT manually with public key authentication and note down the commands -- you can write them down in to the batch file for automation

---

Some other notes.

• expect is an overkill for this requirement.
• More over, any scheme that requires the password to be scripted is bad
• ncftp is good for an interactive session (not such automation)
• I do not know if wput allows public key authentication (probably not), in which case its not good for such automation either