Download a file from a FTP server to a specific location?

I know I can get to a FTP location by accessing:

open ftp://user:pass@my_ftp_server/my_file

This will download the file in the Downloads folder.

How can I tell FTP tp download the file to a specific location I want?

I am looking for something like:

open ftp://user:pass@my_ftp_server/my_file=/tmp/fileDownloadedFromFtp

Use curl instead of open :-)

• curl 'ftp://user:pass@my_ftp_server/my_file' > '/tmp/fileDownloadedFromFtp'
• curl -o '/tmp/fileDownloadedFromFtp' 'ftp://user:pass@my_ftp_server/my_file'
• (cd /tmp && curl -O 'ftp://user:pass@my_ftp_server/my_file')

curl by default dumps the received data on standard output, so the first option just uses output redirection to store it. The second option explicitely sets the target directory/name, the third changes to the target directory first and then has curl store the data into a file named the same way as on the source side.

If you want to avoid that username/password are visible to other users by running ps (or by looking into your shell history)

• create a text file .netrc in your home directory with the following content (replace my_ftp_server, user, pass with the real values)

  machine my_ftp_server login user password pass
  

• run chmod 600 ~/.netrc

• Use curl -n ...