NcFTP Client: Frequently Asked Questions

### Documentation Links

- NcFTP - FTP browser program
- NcFTPGet - command-line utility program
- NcFTPPut - command-line utility program
- NcFTPLs - command-line utility program
- NcFTPBatch - batch FTP program
- NcFTPSpooler - background batch FTP service for systems

You can also download the source code or compiled executables which contain the documentation.

### Frequently Asked Questions about NcFTP

1. Q. Is there a registration or licensing fee to use NcFTP Client?

   A. No, it is free! We would appreciate a donation if you find it useful. Your support allows us to keep maintaining the project!

2. Q. How do I connect to a non-standard port number?

   A. Use the -P option (i.e. `ncftp -P 2121 ftp.example.com`). This works with all the programs as well as the open command in the NcFTP shell.

3. Q. Does NcFTP support any secure FTP modes a la SFTP/SSL/SSH Tunnels?

   A. NcFTP does not have any built-in support for encryption or secure FTP of any type. We do not support any type of interaction with hacks such as FTP over SSH tunnels. We may implement a secure FTP mode at a future date, but please do not ask for an ETA.

4. Q. How do I login to a server using a regular username instead of anonymous?

   A. Use the -u option (i.e. `ncftp -u joeuser ftp.example.com`). This works with all the programs as well as the open command in the NcFTP shell.

5. Q. Do the utility programs (`ncftpget`, `ncftpput`, `ncftpls`, `ncftpbatch`) use my preferences or bookmarks files in `$HOME/.ncftp`?

   A. No. The utility programs have a complete set of command-line switches and the current behavior is to require the user to explicity choose each option needed.

6. Q. How do I change NcFTP's redial delay from 20 seconds?

   A. From within the NcFTP shell, you can simply do `set redial-delay 60` to set it to 60 seconds. When using the utility programs, you need to use the -r flag to specify both the number of redials and the redial delay, such as `ncftpget -r 3,60 ...` which would try 3 dials with a delay of 60 seconds between each.

   Note that you cannot change what `ncftpbatch` uses, since it is uses an internal algorithm to wait progressively longer between redials.

7. Q. How do I make the default behavior to always ask for a username/password rather than using anonymous logins?

   A. Sorry, you can't do that unless you want to hack on the source code.

8. Q. My macros from NcFTP 2 or NcFTP 1 do not work with NcFTP version 3!

   A. We removed that feature as it was unnecessary bloat which 99% of the users were not using. Besides, you should use the command-line utility programs if you need to do any kind of automation.

9. Q. NcFTP doesn't always preserve the timestamps of downloaded files. When using other client programs to download the identical file from the same server, they are preserving the timestamp.

   A. Those client programs are probably parsing the date and time from the directory listing. That should not be done because most servers use local time for their directory listings rather than GMT. NcFTP would rather preserve the timestamps only when the server implements MDTM, which requires that the time be in GMT. This guarantees that if the time is preserved, it is the correct time, and not some half-assed guess which could be hours off.

10. Q. What happened to Visual Mode like NcFTP 2.4.3 used?

    A. That was removed because of too many problems with the Curses library. Specifically, there were too many bugs, ambiguities, and missing features with various implementations of curses.

    However, NcFTP 3 still tries to use curses for the bookmark editor, `ncftpbookmarks`. When you do an open without a hostname from the NcFTP shell, you will get the visual bookmark editor if it could be compiled and installed. This way, if curses is too broken, you can build and run the NcFTP shell without it.

11. Q. NcFTP's command-line editor seems to work differently than the one with Bash.

    A. That's because NcFTP doesn't use GNU Readline by default.