The program WGET can be used to download a remote directory noninteractively. More details on WGET can be obtained from the Free Software Foundation. Assuming you have WGET installed, use the following command which generates a lot of output on the screen:
% wget -m 'ftp://ftp.uk.embnet.org/pub/EMBOSS' --15:04:41-- ftp://ftp.uk.embnet.org:21/pub/EMBOSS => `ftp.uk.embnet.org/pub/.listing' Connecting to ftp.uk.embnet.org:21... connected! Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in! ==> TYPE I ... done. ==> CWD pub ... done. ==> PORT ... done. ==> LIST ... done. ... many pages truncated ... FINISHED --15:04:55-- Downloaded: 2,657,366 bytes in 4 filesA new directory ftp.uk.embnet.org has been created and EMBOSS can be found at ftp.uk.embnet.org/pub/EMBOSS. You may wish to create a symbolic link to this from your /packages directory for convenience.