I need to autmate an ftp session where if the particular file I am looking for on the ftp server is newer than the file I have on my local machine I want to download it. Before I can get to the part where I compare dates (I'm looking for suggestions please), I can't even get a decent session to run because the server won't do cwd. I do not have any control over the server side at all.
I used Net::FTP, but the ftp server does not support the cwd command Net::FTP needs to work. Any suggestions?
*NOTE Net::FTP does not support the cd command either. 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# -----------------------------------------------------------
# FTP script
# -----------------------------------------------------------

use Net::FTP;

$host = 'ftp.ftpserver.com';
$user = 'anonymous';
$pass = 'someone@somewhere.com';
$remote_dir = '/pub/path/to/files';
$download_filter = "*.myfile.exe";
$destination_dir = "./";


print "Opening FTP connection to $host\n";

my $ftpBox = Net::FTP->new($host) ||
                die "failed to connect to $host $!";

$ftpBox->login($user, $pass) || die "failed to log onto $host $!";

$ftpBox->pasv();

if($remote_dir !~ /^ *$/)
{
        print "Changing remote directory to $remote_dir\n";
        $ftpBox->cd($remote_dir) ||
                die "failed to cwd to $remote_dir on $host ftp $!";
}

@file_list = $ftpBox->ls($download_filter);

foreach $filename (@file_list)
{
        print "getting $filename\n";
        $ftpBox->get($filename, $destination_dir . $filename) ||
                die "failed to get $filename to $destination_file";


}

print "Closing FTP download connection...\n";
$ftpBox->quit;

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In reply to Net::FTP Server does not support cwd...alternatives? by linebacker

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