There are a number of ways to securely transfer files between systems.

• The PSFTP command line tool can be used to for SFTP (Secure FTP) to securetly transfer files between systems, from a remote system to your PC, or vice versa. This has the advantage of being able to transfer files between Linux, Mac and Windows systems.
• The scp command (Secure Copy Protocol) could be used to securely transfer files between Linux systems.

There are a number of different tools that can be used to connect to an FTP / FTPS / SFTP server.

• Windows or Linux command line prompt
• Scripting tool (e.g. Bash, Perl, PowerShell, Python, et cetera)
• The PSFTP command line tool PSFTP.exe (see Installing PuTTY PSFTP)

Using a Windows or Linux command line prompt, the ftp command can be used to start an FTP prompt.

ftp>

Enter the IP address or hostname of the system that contains the FTP server you want to connect to.

ftp> open server1.example.com
Connected to server1.example.com (10.14.115.77).
220---------- Welcome to Pure-FTPd [provsep] [TLS] ----------
220-You are user number 1 of 50 allowed.
220-Local time is now 23:34. Server port: 21
220-IPV6 connections are also welcome on thi server.
220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Name (server1.example.com:john.doe):

If the connection to the target system is successful, you should be prompted to log into the remote system.

login as: john.doe

 Or, to avoid the login prompt, you can include the username.

open john.doe@server1.example.com

If the username is allowed to connect to the remote system and password authentication is required, you should be prompted to provide the users password.

john.doe@server1.example.com's password: itsasecret

If you are successfully connected and authenticated, something like this should be displayed.

Remote working directory is /home/john.doe
ftp>

Use the close command to disconnect from the remote FTP server.

ftp > close

Use the exit command to close the shell.

ftp > exit