Retrieve FTP directory tree from the command line

Question

What would be the fastest way to recursively retrieve entire directory listing from an ftp server using wget/curl/whatever? I don't need to download any files, just directory and file names. Basically what ls -R does.

Answer 1

The best I can do with wget is

wget -r --spider --no-remove-listing ftp://ftp.example.com/

Which will create empty directories containing a .listing file with the listing of the matching directory on the ftp server, and take forever.

You'll probably need to use a real ftp client like lftp:

lftp -e "find;quit" ftp://ftp.example.com/ > listing.txt

Answer 2

wget -r ftp://your.site.com/