6.1.1 -b: specify a file containing batch commands

In normal operation, PSFTP is an interactive program which displays a command line and accepts commands from the keyboard.

If you need to do automated tasks with PSFTP, you would probably prefer to specify a set of commands in advance and have them executed automatically. The -b option allows you to do this. You use it with a file name containing batch commands. For example, you might create a file called myscript.scr containing lines like this:

cd /home/ftp/users/jeff
del jam-old.tar.gz
ren jam.tar.gz jam-old.tar.gz
put jam.tar.gz
chmod a+r jam.tar.gz

and then you could run the script by typing

psftp user@hostname -b myscript.scr

When you run a batch script in this way, PSFTP will abort the script if any command fails to complete successfully. To change this behaviour, you can add the -be option (section 6.1.3).

PSFTP will terminate after it finishes executing the batch script.