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TFTP(1)                                  BSD General Commands Manual                                 TFTP(1)

NAME
     tftp -- trivial file transfer program

SYNOPSIS
     tftp [-e] [host] [port]

DESCRIPTION
     The tftp utility is the user interface to the Internet TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol), which
     allows users to transfer files to and from a remote machine.  The remote host (and optional port) may
     be specified on the command line, in which case tftp uses host (and port) as the default for future
     transfers (see the connect command below).

     The optional -e argument sets a binary transfer mode as well as setting the extended options as if
     tout, tsize, and blksize 65464, had been given.

COMMANDS
     Once tftp is running, it issues the prompt `tftp>' and recognizes the following commands:

     ? command-name ...
              Print help information.

     ascii    Shorthand for mode ascii.

     binary   Shorthand for mode binary.

     blksize blk-size
              Set the tftp blksize option to blk-size octets (8-bit bytes).  Since the number of blocks in a
              tftp get or put is 65535, the default block size of 512 bytes only allows a maximum of just
              under 32 megabytes to be transferred.  The value given for blk-size must be between 8 and
              65464, inclusive.  Note that many servers will not respect this option.

     connect host-name [port]
              Set the host (and optionally port) for transfers.  Note that the TFTP protocol, unlike the FTP
              protocol, does not maintain connections between transfers; thus, the connect command does not
              actually create a connection, but merely remembers what host is to be used for transfers.  You
              do not have to use the connect command; the remote host can be specified as part of the get or
              put commands.

     get filename
     get remotename localname
     get file1 file2 ... fileN
              Get one or more files from the remote host.  When using the host argument, the host will be
              used as default host for future transfers.  If localname is specified, the file is stored
              locally as localname, otherwise the original filename is used.  Note that it is not possible
              to download two files at a time, only one, three, or more than three files, at a time.

              To specify an IPv6 numeric address for a host, wrap it using square brackets like
              ``[3ffe:2900:e00c:ffee::1234]:file'' to disambiguate the colons used in the IPv6 address from
              the colon separating the host and the filename.

     mode transfer-mode
              Set the mode for transfers; transfer-mode may be one of ascii or binary.  The default is
              ascii.

     put file
     put localfile remotefile
     put file1 file2 ... fileN remote-directory
              Put a file or set of files to the specified remote file or directory.  The destination can be
              in one of two forms: a filename on the remote host, if the host has already been specified, or
              a string of the form hosts:filename to specify both a host and filename at the same time.  If
              the latter form is used, the hostname specified becomes the default for future transfers.
              When remotename is specified, the file is stored remotely as remotename, otherwise the origi-nal original
              nal filename is used.  If the remote-directory argument is used, the remote host is assumed to
              be a UNIX machine.  To specify an IPv6 numeric address for a host, see the example under the
              get command.

     quit     Exit tftp.  An end of file also exits.

     rexmt retransmission-timeout
              Set the per-packet retransmission timeout, in seconds.

     status   Show current status.

     timeout total-transmission-timeout
              Set the total transmission timeout, in seconds.

     tout     Toggle the tftp "timeout" option.  If enabled, the client will pass its retransmission-timeout
              to the server.  Note that many servers will not respect this option.

     trace    Toggle packet tracing.

     tsize    Toggle the tftp "tsize" option.  If enabled, the client will pass and request the filesize of
              a file at the beginning of a file transfer.  Note that many servers will not respect this
              option.

     verbose  Toggle verbose mode.

HISTORY
     The tftp command appeared in 4.3BSD.  IPv6 support was implemented by WIDE/KAME project in 1999.  TFTP
     options were implemented by Wasabi Systems, Inc., in 2003, and first appeared in NetBSD 2.0.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
     Because there is no user-login or validation within the TFTP protocol, the remote site will probably
     have some sort of file-access restrictions in place.  The exact methods are specific to each site and
     therefore difficult to document here.

     Files larger than 33488896 octets (65535 blocks) cannot be transferred without client and server sup-porting supporting
     porting blocksize negotiation (RFC1783).

BSD                                             June 11, 2003                                            BSD