Bash FTP login into Microsoft FTP Service, Invalid command

Question

This is my script. As you can see it executes only 1 command (cd /) after connecting to a remote FTP server. It's very simple... but it doesn't work and give me "Invalid command".

I don't understand why.

#!/bin/bash

HOST=xxx             #This is the FTP servers host or IP address.
USER=xxx                     #This is the FTP user that has access to the server.
PASS=xxx              #This is the password for the FTP user.

# Call 1. Uses the ftp command with the -inv switches. 
#-i turns off interactive prompting. 
#-n Restrains FTP from attempting the auto-login feature. 
#-v enables verbose and progress. 

ftp -inv $HOST << EOF

# Call 2. Here the login credentials are supplied by calling the variables.

user $USER $PASS

pass

# Call 3. I change to the directory where I want to put or get
cd /

# Call4.  Here I will tell FTP to put or get the file.
#put...

# End FTP Connection
bye

EOF

This is the output:

Connected to [IP]
220 Microsoft FTP Service
?Invalid command
331 Password required for logweb.
230 User logged in.
Remote system type is Windows_NT.
Passive mode on.
?Invalid command
250 CWD command successful.
?Invalid command
?Invalid command
?Invalid command
221 Goodbye.

Answer 1

The "Invalid command" error is due to those # lines. The ftp does not recognize the # as a comment prefix.

If you need the comments in the script, you can abuse an escape to shell command ! and follow that by a shell comment:

!# This is comment

---

Other than that, I believe all commands in your script are executed, despite your claim that only one is:

> user $USER $PASS
< 331 Password required for logweb.
< 230 User logged in.

> cd /
< 250 CWD command successful.

> bye
< 221 Goodbye.