FTP and Secure FTP (FTPS, SFTP) - change remote directory using the cd command

by
Jeremy Canfield |
Updated: September 22 2022
| FTP and Secure FTP (FTPS, SFTP) articles
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)
The cd (local change directory) command is used to change directories on the remote FTP system (not on your local PC). In this example, the cd command is used to change into the /tmp directory on the remote FTP system.
ftp> cd /tmp
Remote directory is now /tmp
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