Any good lftp applications for the Mac to connect to a server using FTPS?

Topic

New Reply

[OscarCP]

A government facility with an archive of data I need to use in my work, is transitioning from anonymous FTP and SFTP to FTPS as part of a progressive tightening of measures to protect government sites from cyber attacks (why FTPS and not SFTP? Don’t ask me.)

I have my own software to create and run scripts for doing my big downloads, so what I was finding out with the help of a person from this facility’s support group was how to modify those programs I have written to create the scripts and run them, to produce now totally kosher FTPS scripts that, so far, these programs produce for FTP or SFTP, as the case might be.

Because I would need an application installed to have an FTPS capability in my Mac (for some reason, things like curl and wget are not options at this government’s site) I need to install lftp. So I need some “lftp” application for the Mac. At the government’s facility, the support person that has been helping me with this transition is not familiar with Macs, only Linux, so I am asking this rather technical question here, in case someone might have some good suggestions either about some lftp applications for the Mac and, or some useful Web sites where I can look for reviews of such applications, etc.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by OscarCP.

Reply | Quote

Replies

[anita.yk]

How about FileZilla?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by anita.yk.

Reply | Quote

Thanks, anita.yk. Looking in the FileZilla Web site, as you have suggested, it is not clear to me whether this is, or is not meant to be used interactively through a GUI. I need to work from the command line, while having the actual connection to the server that gives access to the archived files I want to download, handled as unobtrusively to me as possibly by the application I am looking for. Those scripts I described in my original post at the top of this thread are all made of sftp command line statements too.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote

I’ve mainly worked with traditional FTP and SFTP clients. I use Transmit since it offers the best performance of any FTP/SFTP client. CyberDuck is also a good solution as well. Both of them use a GUI, and I’m not sure if they offer command line support.

You probably need to install a command line package manager for Mac, then install a ftps client if the built-in ftp command line client in macOS doesn’t work. You’ll first want to install Xcode Command Line Tools. You don’t need the full Xcode to do this, just run this in Terminal: xcode-select –install

Then install Homebrew or MacPorts. I’ve used both in the past. I’m using Homebrew right now since it allowed me to install PowerShell on my Mac easily:

https://brew.sh/

https://www.howtogeek.com/211541/homebrew-for-os-x-easily-installs-desktop-apps-and-terminal-utilities/

https://www.macports.org/install.php

Either is going to give you similar install capability to apt or yum in Linux.

Nathan Parker

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

Reply | Quote

Nathan, thanks. The situation, to be more detailed about it, something I clearly have not done so far, is this: I have Xcode command line tools and homebrew installed. I have used homebrew already a few times to install things like some of the Gnu compilers. Today I also have discovered that it looks I also have a thing called Curl, that can be used to connect to FTPS servers — as  well as to those that accept FTP and SFTP — already pre (?) installed in the Mac (at least it has a “man page” there). The support person from the place that has the archive I want to get things from now and then, however, said to get “lftp”, not Curl. But he also has admitted that he is a Linux person. So I’ll see what happens if I try to run one my scripts, suitably modified a bit here and there to be amenable to FTPS servers, with Curl, already in the Mac, instead of lftp.

However, I am not at all clear as to what I might be really doing in that case, which I find a tad unnerving.

As a system administrator I had, way back, when I was doing my higher degree in Sydney used to say: “It is all very strange.”

But if you or anyone here has any further advice to ease my predicament as just described, please, by all means, do so and I’ll be most grateful for that.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote

How about Waterfox (which you already use!) plus FireFTP?

I have not verified this addon, but it looks to be what you are looking for.  The developer has unfortunately chosen to abandon the project after the Firefox Quantum leap backward… People who still need this can still use Waterfox, so it would be nice if the dev would and keep going, but if someone wants to pack it in, that’s their choice.  Still, the existing version could work well.

Some classic addons are still being updated for Waterfox (Tab Mix Plus says it may be, though I have not seen any new XPIs; Classic Theme restorer and uBlock Origin legacy have been updated after the cutoff date), and one (Status-4-Evar) has been revived for Waterfox (though by a new dev).  There could be more, but these are the ones I use and am therefore aware of.

It’s a smaller audience with Waterfox than it was with the already small Firefox audience, but those who need the classic addons make up nearly all of the Waterfox (classic) user share.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

2 users thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker, OscarCP

Reply | Quote

[OscarCP]

Ascaris, Thanks. Yes! I have discovered and installed, just yesterday, FireFTP as an add-on in Waterfox and verified that it certainly works there. That does take care of the problem of downloading some files by hand, which I also do now and then, so to me this really matters. But for the big downloads that I also have to do on occasion, I need to use my scripts. For that I have to work from the command line with “Terminal”, which in macOS is pretty much, in looks and feel, like the application of the same name in Linux. (The macOs default shell is Bash.)

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by OscarCP.

Reply | Quote

When I look up lftp, it seems to be a Linux command line FTP client for Mac.

I found this on Apple’s forums:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3133824

And this:

https://osxdaily.com/2018/08/07/get-install-ftp-mac-os/

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Thanks Nathan. From the contents in the Web page of the first link you have included in your reply, it looks like “curl” can be used to invoke ftp-ssl, which I understand to be another name for “lftp”. So, maybe with “curl”, that I probably already have installed and ready to go in the Mac, I might be able to run “lftp” and so make the server of the data archival facility I need to access, one that is truly happy to see me.

As to FTP, it has been deprecated as not safe enough for the government requirements, but the manner of installation described in the article of the second link might also be applied to FTPS applications. As usual, this is a case of learning what one needs to know to get somewhere while on the march to somewhere.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Hope it helps. I generally do everything over SFTP now (not FTPS), and I generally use Transmit for manual stuff, GoodSync when I need to sync files from a NAS to my SFTP drive, and Arq for online backups.

Your post reminded me I need to install the TFTP GUI on a Mac due to my Cisco router switch since I’ll occasionally need to move files to it over TFTP. That’s a discussion for another post (so I won’t elaborate here), but your post helped reminded me I needed to do it!

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Nathan, I also use SFTP for most file transfers, whether initiated from the command line or with a browser. FTPS seems to have some problems SFTP does not have, for example, I’ve read, when dealing with firewalls. But this one government site (with more coming) now requires it and I am happy (not really) to oblige. Because such is life.

Good luck with your own quest to install that TFTP GUI!

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote

FTPS is an extension to FTP that uses TLS (the secure transport used for mail etc). It should be used whenever you want secure FTP transfers.

curl seems to be the standard command line tool and is available on almost every platform you can imagine.

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nathan Parker

Reply | Quote

Here are the best solutions, I think it’s at least worth a look: https://mac.eltima.com/best-sftp-mac.html

Reply | Quote