LFTP Cheat Sheet: Enhance Your File Transfer Capabilities

Explore the full potential of LFTP with this detailed cheat sheet. From setting up torrent options, SSH key configurations, to mastering FXP transfers and multi-segment downloading, this guide provides all you need for efficient file management and transfer.

Install lftp

emerge --ask lftp

Transfer 20 parallel threads over ssh

lftp -u root, -e "set sftp:connect-program 'ssh -a -x -T -c aes128-gcm@openssh.com -o Compression=no'; 
mirror --reverse --parallel=20 --use-pget-n=5 site/ /var/www/linux-shell.se/; quit" sftp://linux-shell.se

Transfer 20 parallel threads over ssh

lftp -u root, -e "
  set sftp:connect-program 'ssh -a -x -T -c aes128-gcm@openssh.com -o Compression=no';
  set net:limit-total-rate 0;
  set fish:connect-program 'ssh -a -x -T -c aes128-gcm@openssh.com -o Compression=no';
  mirror --reverse --parallel=20 --use-pget-n=5 site/ /var/www/linux-shell.se/;
  quit
" sftp://linux-shell.se

List all files in a tarball 'on-the-fly'

lftp -e "cat debootstrap_1.0.119~bpo10+1.tar.gz | tar -tzvf -" https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/debootstrap/

This is my currnet lftpd config

# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Author https://github.com/lavv17
# https://www.mail-archive.com/lftp@uniyar.ac.ru/
# http://lav.yar.ru/programs.html
# http://lav.yar.ru/hw.html# https://mail.uniyar.ac.ru/mailman/listinfo/lftp
# https://linux.overshoot.tv/wiki/lftp
# https://web.archive.org/web/20111024014512/http://tutorials.papamike.ca/pub/lftp.html
# https://web.archive.org/web/20111024014512/http://tutorials.papamike.ca/pub/lftp.html
# https://web.archive.org/web/20120605031935/http://fryth.com/lftpfaq/
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
debug 5

##########################################
# Set HTTP Settings.
###########################################
set http:set-cookies true
set http:user-agent "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/99.0.9999.99 Safari/537.36"
set http:referer ''
set http:accept-language "Accept-Language: en"

##########################################
# Set SSL Settings.
###########################################
set ssl:verify-certificate no
set ssl:check-hostname no

##########################################
# Set LFTP Prompt.
###########################################
# set prompt "\[\e[0;32m\]┌┼───┤\[\e[1;33m\] [lftp] \[\e[0;36m\]\u\[\e[0;33m\]\@\[\e[0;36m\]\h \[\e[0;32m\]├───┤\[\e[0;33m\]\w\[\e[0;32m\]├───\n└┼─\[\e[1;33m\]$\[\e[0;32m\]─┤► :\[\e[0m\] "
# set prompt "\[\033[m\]|\[\033[1;35m\]\t\[\033[m\]|\[\e[1;31m\]\u\[\e[1;36m\]\[\033[m\]@\[\e[1;36m\]\h\[\033[m\]:\[\e[0m\]\[\e[1;32m\][\W]> \[\e[0m\]"
set prompt "\[\e[1;37m\]lftp\] \[\e[0;32m\]\h\] \w\] \[\e[1;37m\]>\[\e[0m\] "

##########################################
# Set FTP Settings 
###########################################
set ftp:fix-pasv-address no
set ftp:passive-mode no

#set ftp:port-ipv4 your.ip.address
#set ftp:port-range minport-maxport (eg. 2000-2050)
##########################################
# Set NET Settings 
###########################################
set net:reconnect-interval-base 60
set net:reconnect-interval-multiplier 1

##########################################
# Set BOOKMARK Settings 
###########################################
set bmk:save-passwords yes

##########################################
# Set LOG Setting (enabled)
###########################################
set log:enabled 1
set log:level 1
set log:file "lftp.log"
set log:file/xfer "lftp-transfers.log"
set log:max-size 5242880
set log:prefix-error "ERROR: "
set log:prefix-note "NOTE: "
set log:prefix-recv "<- "
set log:prefix-send "-> "
set log:show-ctx true
set log:show-pid true
set log:show-time true
set xfer:log 1
set xfer:eta-period 3
set xfer:log-file "lftp-transfers.log"

# Active (PORT) mode settings

# This allows you to see welcome banners, directory messages, etc.
# Or you can use an even higher debug level to see all FTP messages. # debug 5
# To get a listing of all settings, type set -a, or try the lftp man page.

set ssl:verify-certificate no

Torrent settings

set torrent:ip ""
set torrent:ipv6 ""
set torrent:max-peers 60
set torrent:port-range 6881-6889
set torrent:retracker ""
set torrent:seed-max-time 30d
set torrent:seed-min-peers 3
set torrent:stop-on-ratio 2.0
set torrent:use-dht yes

Add ssh key in either way in lftprc

set ssl:key-file ~/.ssh
set sftp:connect-program "ssh -a -x -i yourprivatekeyfile"

FXP: Server A > Server B

lftp -c 'open -e "mirror <server-A_dir_path> <server-B_url>" <server-A_site>'

Dump current settings

lftp -e "set;exit"

Dump all settings

lftp -e "set -a ;exit"

Multi-segment file downloading with lftp

lftp -u user,pass ftp://site.com -e 'pget -c -n 6 file'

Multi-segment directory downloading with lftp

lftp -u user,pass ftp://site.com/ -e 'mirror -c --parallel=3 --use-pget-n=5 "Some folder"'

Upload a File

lftp -e 'put /local/path/yourfile.mp4; bye' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Connection Timeout

lftp -e 'set net:timeout 10; put /local/path/yourfile.mp4; bye' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Active Mode

For what it's worth, Active mode -- older, stinkier, and won't go through your firewall:

lftp -e 'set ftp:passive-mode false; set net:timeout 10; put /local/path/yourfile.mp4; bye' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Download

lftp -e 'set net:timeout 10; get yourfile.mp4; bye' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

If you need to put it in a specific local directory

lftp -e 'set net:timeout 10; get yourfile.mp4 -o /local/path/yourfile.mp4; bye' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Recursive Upload

lftp -e 'mirror -R /local/path/ /' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Recursive Download

lftp -e 'mirror / /local/path/' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Regular-Expression–Match Upload

lftp -e 'mirror -R -i "\.(html?|css|js)$" /local/path/ /' -u user,password ftp.foo.com

Special Characters in Username or Password

lftp -e 'put /local/path/yourfile.mp4; bye' -u user,password\!\! ftp.foo.com

FXP Transfer: site 1 > site2

lftp -d  -c open -e "mirror  -P15 \
	"ftp://user:password@host:port/path" \
	'ftp://user:password@host:port/path'

FXP Transfer: site 1 > site2

lftp -e "mirror -I googleAnalytics-master-dfd9155.tar.gz \ 
	https://extdist.wmflabs.org/dist/extensions ftp://user:password@localhost:65005/site/"

Download all files from server in 20 parallel transfers

lftp -d -e open https://extdist.wmflabs.org/dist/extensions/ -e "mirror -P 20 ."

Disable notification check

mkdir ~/.lftp
echo "set ssl:verify-certificate no" >> ~/.lftp/rc

Download all folders inside /mp3/* on ftp to mp3

lftp -e open ftp://user1:pass1:site1:port -e "mirror -c -P1 remote/path /local/path" -d

FXP Between SITE 1 and SITE 2 with 20 threads at same time

lftp -e "set ftp:use-fxp true ;mirror -R -P20 ftp://user1:pass1:site1:port:/path \
	ftp://user1:pass1:site1:port:/path"  -d

Use lftp to multi-threaded download files from websites

lftp -c "pget -n 10 http://example.com/foo.bar"

Mirrors directory to a ftp server

lftp -u login,passwd" -e "mirror reverse /my/from/dir/ /ftp/target/dir/" ftp://site.com/

Mirror a directory structure from websites with an Apache-generated file indexes

lftp -e "mirror -c" http://example.com/foobar/

Multi-segment file downloading with lftp

lftp -u "user,pass" ftp://site.com -e 'pget -c -n 6 file'

Mirror a directory structure from websites with an Apache-generated file indexes

lftp -e "mirror -c" http://example.com/foobar/

Backup sda partition to ftp (using pipes and gziped backup)

dd if=/dev/sda bs=2048 conv=noerror,sync | gzip -fc | lftp -u user,passwd domain.tld -e "put /dev/stdin -o backup-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M).gz; quit"

Fastest segmented parallel sync of a remote directory over ssh

lftp -u user,pwd -e "set sftp:connect-program 'ssh -a -x -T -c arcfour -o Compression=no'; mirror -v -c --loop --use-pget-n=3 -P 2 /remote/dir/ /local/dir/; quit" sftp://remotehost:22

Multi-segment directory downloading with lftp

lftp -u "user,pass" ftp://site.com/ -e 'mirror -c parallel=3 use-pget-n=5 "Some folder"'

Gets directory and files tree listing from a FTP-server

lftp -u "user,pass" ftp://site.com/ -e "du -a;exit" > server-listing.txt

Resource(s)