Tftp (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) is a very simple client server protocol used to transfer data and files over network. Ftp is very popular protocol but it have a lot features which may not be needed always. Tftp is lightweight alternative to Ftp protocol. We can say that Tftp is featureless protocol because it only download and upload files.
- Tftp has no authentication or authorization mechanism.
- Tftp protocol do not have file listing feature.
- Tftp is clear text or not encrypted protocol
- Tftp is fast and simple to implement
- Tftp uses generally UDP
Install
Installation of Tftp tools is simple as the protocol. As Tftp lightweight there is no dependency for other libraries.
Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Kali:
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$ apt install tftp |
Fedora, CentOS, RedHat:
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$ yum install tftp |
Syntax
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tftp [host] |
Help
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$ info tftp |
Connect
Connecting a to the Tftp server is very easy. As stated in the beginning of the post Tftp do not have any authentication and authorization mechanisms. so Just providing the servers host name of IP address is enough to connect Tftp server. In this example we will connect 192.168.122.239 IP address.
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$ tftp 192.168.122.239 |
Interactive Shell
After connection to the Tftp server we will get an interactive shell. In this shell we will issue commands to get information about status of the connection, download or get files, upload or put files to the server. We can list available commands provided by Tftp shell with ? .
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? |
Upload or Put File
We can upload or put files to the Tftp server with put command. In the example we upload file named body.txt
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put body.txt |
Download or Get File
We can also download or get files from Tftp server with get command. In the example we get file named body.txt from Tftp server.
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get body.txt |
Show Status
As Tftp works generally on the UDP protocol there is no session like TCP. But we can query current connection status with status command. This status command will provide us information about the connected server IP address, current working mode, Rexmt-interval, Max-timeout etc.
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status |
Quit From Shell
In order to quit from the Tftp shell we need to issue the q command.
Verbose Mode
While making transfer we may need more information about the transmission. We can get more information about the transfer with the verbose mode.
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verbose |
