Upload files with FTP using PowerShell

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

Solution 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()

Solution 2:

There are some other ways too. I have used the following script:

$File = "D:\Dev\somefilename.zip";
$ftp = "ftp://username:[email protected]/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?

Solution 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!