Upload files with FTP using PowerShell - powershell

Question

I want to use PowerShell to transfer files with FTP to an anonymous FTP server. I would not use any extra packages. How?

Answer 1

I am not sure you can 100% bullet proof the script from not hanging or crashing, as there are things outside your control (what if the server loses power mid-upload?) - but this should provide a solid foundation for getting you started:
# create the FtpWebRequest and configure it
$ftp = [System.Net.FtpWebRequest]::Create("ftp://localhost/me.png")
$ftp = [System.Net.FtpWebRequest]$ftp
$ftp.Method = [System.Net.WebRequestMethods+Ftp]::UploadFile
$ftp.Credentials = new-object System.Net.NetworkCredential("anonymous","anonymous#localhost")
$ftp.UseBinary = $true
$ftp.UsePassive = $true
# read in the file to upload as a byte array
$content = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("C:\me.png")
$ftp.ContentLength = $content.Length
# get the request stream, and write the bytes into it
$rs = $ftp.GetRequestStream()
$rs.Write($content, 0, $content.Length)
# be sure to clean up after ourselves
$rs.Close()
$rs.Dispose()

Answer 2

There are some other ways too. I have used the following script:
$File = "D:\Dev\somefilename.zip";
$ftp = "ftp://username:password#example.com/pub/incoming/somefilename.zip";
Write-Host -Object "ftp url: $ftp";
$webclient = New-Object -TypeName System.Net.WebClient;
$uri = New-Object -TypeName System.Uri -ArgumentList $ftp;
Write-Host -Object "Uploading $File...";
$webclient.UploadFile($uri, $File);
And you could run a script against the windows FTP command line utility using the following command
ftp -s:script.txt
(Check out this article)
The following question on SO also answers this: How to script FTP upload and download?

Answer 3

I'm not gonna claim that this is more elegant than the highest-voted solution...but this is cool (well, at least in my mind LOL) in its own way:
$server = "ftp.lolcats.com"
$filelist = "file1.txt file2.txt"
"open $server
user $user $password
binary
cd $dir
" +
($filelist.split(' ') | %{ "put ""$_""`n" }) | ftp -i -in
As you can see, it uses that dinky built-in windows FTP client. Much shorter and straightforward, too. Yes, I've actually used this and it works!

Answer 4

Easiest way
The most trivial way to upload a binary file to an FTP server using PowerShell is using WebClient.UploadFile:
$client = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$client.Credentials =
New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential("username", "password")
$client.UploadFile(
"ftp://ftp.example.com/remote/path/file.zip", "C:\local\path\file.zip")
Advanced options
If you need a greater control, that WebClient does not offer (like TLS/SSL encryption, etc), use FtpWebRequest. Easy way is to just copy a FileStream to FTP stream using Stream.CopyTo:
$request = [Net.WebRequest]::Create("ftp://ftp.example.com/remote/path/file.zip")
$request.Credentials =
New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential("username", "password")
$request.Method = [System.Net.WebRequestMethods+Ftp]::UploadFile
$fileStream = [System.IO.File]::OpenRead("C:\local\path\file.zip")
$ftpStream = $request.GetRequestStream()
$fileStream.CopyTo($ftpStream)
$ftpStream.Dispose()
$fileStream.Dispose()
Progress monitoring
If you need to monitor an upload progress, you have to copy the contents by chunks yourself:
$request = [Net.WebRequest]::Create("ftp://ftp.example.com/remote/path/file.zip")
$request.Credentials =
New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential("username", "password")
$request.Method = [System.Net.WebRequestMethods+Ftp]::UploadFile
$fileStream = [System.IO.File]::OpenRead("C:\local\path\file.zip")
$ftpStream = $request.GetRequestStream()
$buffer = New-Object Byte[] 10240
while (($read = $fileStream.Read($buffer, 0, $buffer.Length)) -gt 0)
{
$ftpStream.Write($buffer, 0, $read)
$pct = ($fileStream.Position / $fileStream.Length)
Write-Progress `
-Activity "Uploading" -Status ("{0:P0} complete:" -f $pct) `
-PercentComplete ($pct * 100)
}
$ftpStream.Dispose()
$fileStream.Dispose()
Uploading folder
If you want to upload all files from a folder, see
PowerShell Script to upload an entire folder to FTP

Answer 5

I recently wrote for powershell several functions for communicating with FTP, see https://github.com/AstralisSomnium/PowerShell-No-Library-Just-Functions/blob/master/FTPModule.ps1. The second function below, you can send a whole local folder to FTP. In the module are even functions for removing / adding / reading folders and files recursively.
#Add-FtpFile -ftpFilePath "ftp://myHost.com/folder/somewhere/uploaded.txt" -localFile "C:\temp\file.txt" -userName "User" -password "pw"
function Add-FtpFile($ftpFilePath, $localFile, $username, $password) {
$ftprequest = New-FtpRequest -sourceUri $ftpFilePath -method ([System.Net.WebRequestMethods+Ftp]::UploadFile) -username $username -password $password
Write-Host "$($ftpRequest.Method) for '$($ftpRequest.RequestUri)' complete'"
$content = $content = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes($localFile)
$ftprequest.ContentLength = $content.Length
$requestStream = $ftprequest.GetRequestStream()
$requestStream.Write($content, 0, $content.Length)
$requestStream.Close()
$requestStream.Dispose()
}
#Add-FtpFolderWithFiles -sourceFolder "C:\temp\" -destinationFolder "ftp://myHost.com/folder/somewhere/" -userName "User" -password "pw"
function Add-FtpFolderWithFiles($sourceFolder, $destinationFolder, $userName, $password) {
Add-FtpDirectory $destinationFolder $userName $password
$files = Get-ChildItem $sourceFolder -File
foreach($file in $files) {
$uploadUrl ="$destinationFolder/$($file.Name)"
Add-FtpFile -ftpFilePath $uploadUrl -localFile $file.FullName -username $userName -password $password
}
}
#Add-FtpFolderWithFilesRecursive -sourceFolder "C:\temp\" -destinationFolder "ftp://myHost.com/folder/" -userName "User" -password "pw"
function Add-FtpFolderWithFilesRecursive($sourceFolder, $destinationFolder, $userName, $password) {
Add-FtpFolderWithFiles -sourceFolder $sourceFolder -destinationFolder $destinationFolder -userName $userName -password $password
$subDirectories = Get-ChildItem $sourceFolder -Directory
$fromUri = new-object System.Uri($sourceFolder)
foreach($subDirectory in $subDirectories) {
$toUri = new-object System.Uri($subDirectory.FullName)
$relativeUrl = $fromUri.MakeRelativeUri($toUri)
$relativePath = [System.Uri]::UnescapeDataString($relativeUrl.ToString())
$lastFolder = $relativePath.Substring($relativePath.LastIndexOf("/")+1)
Add-FtpFolderWithFilesRecursive -sourceFolder $subDirectory.FullName -destinationFolder "$destinationFolder/$lastFolder" -userName $userName -password $password
}
}

Answer 6

Here's my super cool version BECAUSE IT HAS A PROGRESS BAR :-)
Which is a completely useless feature, I know, but it still looks cool \m/ \m/
$webclient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
Register-ObjectEvent -InputObject $webclient -EventName "UploadProgressChanged" -Action { Write-Progress -Activity "Upload progress..." -Status "Uploading" -PercentComplete $EventArgs.ProgressPercentage } > $null
$File = "filename.zip"
$ftp = "ftp://user:password#server/filename.zip"
$uri = New-Object System.Uri($ftp)
try{
$webclient.UploadFileAsync($uri, $File)
}
catch [Net.WebException]
{
Write-Host $_.Exception.ToString() -foregroundcolor red
}
while ($webclient.IsBusy) { continue }
PS. Helps a lot, when I'm wondering "did it stop working, or is it just my slow ASDL connection?"

Answer 7

You can simply handle file uploads through PowerShell, like this.
Complete project is available on Github here https://github.com/edouardkombo/PowerShellFtp
#Directory where to find pictures to upload
$Dir= 'c:\fff\medias\'
#Directory where to save uploaded pictures
$saveDir = 'c:\fff\save\'
#ftp server params
$ftp = 'ftp://10.0.1.11:21/'
$user = 'user'
$pass = 'pass'
#Connect to ftp webclient
$webclient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$webclient.Credentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential($user,$pass)
#Initialize var for infinite loop
$i=0
#Infinite loop
while($i -eq 0){
#Pause 1 seconde before continue
Start-Sleep -sec 1
#Search for pictures in directory
foreach($item in (dir $Dir "*.jpg"))
{
#Set default network status to 1
$onNetwork = "1"
#Get picture creation dateTime...
$pictureDateTime = (Get-ChildItem $item.fullName).CreationTime
#Convert dateTime to timeStamp
$pictureTimeStamp = (Get-Date $pictureDateTime).ToFileTime()
#Get actual timeStamp
$timeStamp = (Get-Date).ToFileTime()
#Get picture lifeTime
$pictureLifeTime = $timeStamp - $pictureTimeStamp
#We only treat pictures that are fully written on the disk
#So, we put a 2 second delay to ensure even big pictures have been fully wirtten in the disk
if($pictureLifeTime -gt "2") {
#If upload fails, we set network status at 0
try{
$uri = New-Object System.Uri($ftp+$item.Name)
$webclient.UploadFile($uri, $item.FullName)
} catch [Exception] {
$onNetwork = "0"
write-host $_.Exception.Message;
}
#If upload succeeded, we do further actions
if($onNetwork -eq "1"){
"Copying $item..."
Copy-Item -path $item.fullName -destination $saveDir$item
"Deleting $item..."
Remove-Item $item.fullName
}
}
}
}

Answer 8

You can use this function :
function SendByFTP {
param (
$userFTP = "anonymous",
$passFTP = "anonymous",
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]$serverFTP,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]$localFile,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]$remotePath
)
if(Test-Path $localFile){
$remoteFile = $localFile.Split("\")[-1]
$remotePath = Join-Path -Path $remotePath -ChildPath $remoteFile
$ftpAddr = "ftp://${userFTP}:${passFTP}#${serverFTP}/$remotePath"
$browser = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$url = New-Object System.Uri($ftpAddr)
$browser.UploadFile($url, $localFile)
}
else{
Return "Unable to find $localFile"
}
}
This function send specified file by FTP.
You must call the function with these parameters :
userFTP = "anonymous" by default or your username
passFTP = "anonymous" by default or your password
serverFTP = IP address of the FTP server
localFile = File to send
remotePath = the path on the FTP server
For example :
SendByFTP -userFTP "USERNAME" -passFTP "PASSWORD" -serverFTP "MYSERVER" -localFile "toto.zip" -remotePath "path/on/the/FTP/"

Answer 9

Goyuix's solution works great, but as presented it gives me this error: "The requested FTP command is not supported when using HTTP proxy."
Adding this line after $ftp.UsePassive = $true fixed the problem for me:
$ftp.Proxy = $null;

Answer 10

Simple solution if you can install curl.
curl.exe -p --insecure "ftp://<ftp_server>" --user "user:password" -T "local_file_full_path"