1SFTP(1) BSD General Commands Manual SFTP(1)
2
4 sftp — OpenSSH secure file transfer
5
7 sftp [-46AaCfNpqrv] [-B buffer_size] [-b batchfile] [-c cipher]
8 [-D sftp_server_path] [-F ssh_config] [-i identity_file]
9 [-J destination] [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port]
10 [-R num_requests] [-S program] [-s subsystem | sftp_server]
11 destination
12
14 sftp is a file transfer program, similar to ftp(1), which performs all
15 operations over an encrypted ssh(1) transport. It may also use many fea‐
16 tures of ssh, such as public key authentication and compression.
17 The destination may be specified either as [user@]host[:path] or as a URI
19 in the form sftp://[user@]host[:port][/path].
20 If the destination includes a path and it is not a directory, sftp will
22 retrieve files automatically if a non-interactive authentication method
23 is used; otherwise it will do so after successful interactive authentica‐
24 tion.
25 If no path is specified, or if the path is a directory, sftp will log in
27 to the specified host and enter interactive command mode, changing to the
28 remote directory if one was specified. An optional trailing slash can be
29 used to force the path to be interpreted as a directory.
30 Since the destination formats use colon characters to delimit host names
32 from path names or port numbers, IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in
33 square brackets to avoid ambiguity.
34 The options are as follows:
36 -4 Forces sftp to use IPv4 addresses only.
38 -6 Forces sftp to use IPv6 addresses only.
40 -A Allows forwarding of ssh-agent(1) to the remote system. The de‐
42 fault is not to forward an authentication agent.
43 -a Attempt to continue interrupted transfers rather than overwriting
45 existing partial or complete copies of files. If the partial
46 contents differ from those being transferred, then the resultant
47 file is likely to be corrupt.
48 -B buffer_size
50 Specify the size of the buffer that sftp uses when transferring
51 files. Larger buffers require fewer round trips at the cost of
52 higher memory consumption. The default is 32768 bytes.
53 -b batchfile
55 Batch mode reads a series of commands from an input batchfile in‐
56 stead of stdin. Since it lacks user interaction, it should be
57 used in conjunction with non-interactive authentication to obvi‐
58 ate the need to enter a password at connection time (see sshd(8)
59 and ssh-keygen(1) for details).
60 A batchfile of ‘-’ may be used to indicate standard input. sftp
62 will abort if any of the following commands fail: get, put,
63 reget, reput, rename, ln, rm, mkdir, chdir, ls, lchdir, copy, cp,
64 chmod, chown, chgrp, lpwd, df, symlink, and lmkdir.
65 Termination on error can be suppressed on a command by command
67 basis by prefixing the command with a ‘-’ character (for example,
68 -rm /tmp/blah*). Echo of the command may be suppressed by pre‐
69 fixing the command with a ‘@’ character. These two prefixes may
70 be combined in any order, for example -@ls /bsd.
71 -C Enables compression (via ssh's -C flag).
73 -c cipher
75 Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the data transfers.
76 This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
77 -D sftp_server_path
79 Connect directly to a local sftp server (rather than via ssh(1)).
80 This option may be useful in debugging the client and server.
81 -F ssh_config
83 Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for ssh(1).
84 This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
85 -f Requests that files be flushed to disk immediately after trans‐
87 fer. When uploading files, this feature is only enabled if the
88 server implements the "fsync@openssh.com" extension.
89 -i identity_file
91 Selects the file from which the identity (private key) for public
92 key authentication is read. This option is directly passed to
93 ssh(1).
94 -J destination
96 Connect to the target host by first making an sftp connection to
97 the jump host described by destination and then establishing a
98 TCP forwarding to the ultimate destination from there. Multiple
99 jump hops may be specified separated by comma characters. This
100 is a shortcut to specify a ProxyJump configuration directive.
101 This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
102 -l limit
104 Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s.
105 -N Disables quiet mode, e.g. to override the implicit quiet mode set
107 by the -b flag.
108 -o ssh_option
110 Can be used to pass options to ssh in the format used in
111 ssh_config(5). This is useful for specifying options for which
112 there is no separate sftp command-line flag. For example, to
113 specify an alternate port use: sftp -oPort=24. For full details
114 of the options listed below, and their possible values, see
115 ssh_config(5).
116 AddressFamily
118 BatchMode
119 BindAddress
120 BindInterface
121 CanonicalDomains
122 CanonicalizeFallbackLocal
123 CanonicalizeHostname
124 CanonicalizeMaxDots
125 CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
126 CASignatureAlgorithms
127 CertificateFile
128 CheckHostIP
129 Ciphers
130 Compression
131 ConnectionAttempts
132 ConnectTimeout
133 ControlMaster
134 ControlPath
135 ControlPersist
136 GlobalKnownHostsFile
137 GSSAPIAuthentication
138 GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
139 HashKnownHosts
140 Host
141 HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms
142 HostbasedAuthentication
143 HostKeyAlgorithms
144 HostKeyAlias
145 Hostname
146 IdentitiesOnly
147 IdentityAgent
148 IdentityFile
149 IPQoS
150 KbdInteractiveAuthentication
151 KbdInteractiveDevices
152 KexAlgorithms
153 KnownHostsCommand
154 LogLevel
155 MACs
156 NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
157 NumberOfPasswordPrompts
158 PasswordAuthentication
159 PKCS11Provider
160 Port
161 PreferredAuthentications
162 ProxyCommand
163 ProxyJump
164 PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms
165 PubkeyAuthentication
166 RekeyLimit
167 SendEnv
168 ServerAliveInterval
169 ServerAliveCountMax
170 SetEnv
171 StrictHostKeyChecking
172 TCPKeepAlive
173 UpdateHostKeys
174 User
175 UserKnownHostsFile
176 VerifyHostKeyDNS
177 -P port
179 Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host.
180 -p Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the
182 original files transferred.
183 -q Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and
185 diagnostic messages from ssh(1).
186 -R num_requests
188 Specify how many requests may be outstanding at any one time.
189 Increasing this may slightly improve file transfer speed but will
190 increase memory usage. The default is 64 outstanding requests.
191 -r Recursively copy entire directories when uploading and download‐
193 ing. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links encountered
194 in the tree traversal.
195 -S program
197 Name of the program to use for the encrypted connection. The
198 program must understand ssh(1) options.
199 -s subsystem | sftp_server
201 Specifies the SSH2 subsystem or the path for an sftp server on
202 the remote host. A path is useful when the remote sshd(8) does
203 not have an sftp subsystem configured.
204 -v Raise logging level. This option is also passed to ssh.
206
208 Once in interactive mode, sftp understands a set of commands similar to
209 those of ftp(1). Commands are case insensitive. Pathnames that contain
210 spaces must be enclosed in quotes. Any special characters contained
211 within pathnames that are recognized by glob(3) must be escaped with
212 backslashes (‘\’).
213 bye Quit sftp.
215 cd [path]
217 Change remote directory to path. If path is not specified, then
218 change directory to the one the session started in.
219 chgrp [-h] grp path
221 Change group of file path to grp. path may contain glob(7) char‐
222 acters and may match multiple files. grp must be a numeric GID.
223 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
225 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
226 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
227 chmod [-h] mode path
229 Change permissions of file path to mode. path may contain
230 glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
231 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
233 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
234 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
235 chown [-h] own path
237 Change owner of file path to own. path may contain glob(7) char‐
238 acters and may match multiple files. own must be a numeric UID.
239 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
241 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
242 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
243 copy oldpath newpath
245 Copy remote file from oldpath to newpath.
246 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
248 "copy-data" extension.
249 cp oldpath newpath
251 Alias to copy command.
252 df [-hi] [path]
254 Display usage information for the filesystem holding the current
255 directory (or path if specified). If the -h flag is specified,
256 the capacity information will be displayed using "human-readable"
257 suffixes. The -i flag requests display of inode information in
258 addition to capacity information. This command is only supported
259 on servers that implement the “statvfs@openssh.com” extension.
260 exit Quit sftp.
262 get [-afpR] remote-path [local-path]
264 Retrieve the remote-path and store it on the local machine. If
265 the local path name is not specified, it is given the same name
266 it has on the remote machine. remote-path may contain glob(7)
267 characters and may match multiple files. If it does and
268 local-path is specified, then local-path must specify a direc‐
269 tory.
270 If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial
272 transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that
273 any partial copy of the local file matches the remote copy. If
274 the remote file contents differ from the partial local copy then
275 the resultant file is likely to be corrupt.
276 If the -f flag is specified, then fsync(2) will be called after
278 the file transfer has completed to flush the file to disk.
279 If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and ac‐
281 cess times are copied too.
282 If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied re‐
284 cursively. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
285 performing recursive transfers.
286 help Display help text.
288 lcd [path]
290 Change local directory to path. If path is not specified, then
291 change directory to the local user's home directory.
292 lls [ls-options [path]]
294 Display local directory listing of either path or current direc‐
295 tory if path is not specified. ls-options may contain any flags
296 supported by the local system's ls(1) command. path may contain
297 glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
298 lmkdir path
300 Create local directory specified by path.
301 ln [-s] oldpath newpath
303 Create a link from oldpath to newpath. If the -s flag is speci‐
304 fied the created link is a symbolic link, otherwise it is a hard
305 link.
306 lpwd Print local working directory.
308 ls [-1afhlnrSt] [path]
310 Display a remote directory listing of either path or the current
311 directory if path is not specified. path may contain glob(7)
312 characters and may match multiple files.
313 The following flags are recognized and alter the behaviour of ls
315 accordingly:
316 -1 Produce single columnar output.
318 -a List files beginning with a dot (‘.’).
320 -f Do not sort the listing. The default sort order is lexi‐
322 cographical.
323 -h When used with a long format option, use unit suffixes:
325 Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte,
326 and Exabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to
327 four or fewer using powers of 2 for sizes (K=1024,
328 M=1048576, etc.).
329 -l Display additional details including permissions and own‐
331 ership information.
332 -n Produce a long listing with user and group information
334 presented numerically.
335 -r Reverse the sort order of the listing.
337 -S Sort the listing by file size.
339 -t Sort the listing by last modification time.
341 lumask umask
343 Set local umask to umask.
344 mkdir path
346 Create remote directory specified by path.
347 progress
349 Toggle display of progress meter.
350 put [-afpR] local-path [remote-path]
352 Upload local-path and store it on the remote machine. If the re‐
353 mote path name is not specified, it is given the same name it has
354 on the local machine. local-path may contain glob(7) characters
355 and may match multiple files. If it does and remote-path is
356 specified, then remote-path must specify a directory.
357 If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial
359 transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that
360 any partial copy of the remote file matches the local copy. If
361 the local file contents differ from the remote local copy then
362 the resultant file is likely to be corrupt.
363 If the -f flag is specified, then a request will be sent to the
365 server to call fsync(2) after the file has been transferred.
366 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
367 "fsync@openssh.com" extension.
368 If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and ac‐
370 cess times are copied too.
371 If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied re‐
373 cursively. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
374 performing recursive transfers.
375 pwd Display remote working directory.
377 quit Quit sftp.
379 reget [-fpR] remote-path [local-path]
381 Resume download of remote-path. Equivalent to get with the -a
382 flag set.
383 reput [-fpR] local-path [remote-path]
385 Resume upload of local-path. Equivalent to put with the -a flag
386 set.
387 rename oldpath newpath
389 Rename remote file from oldpath to newpath.
390 rm path
392 Delete remote file specified by path.
393 rmdir path
395 Remove remote directory specified by path.
396 symlink oldpath newpath
398 Create a symbolic link from oldpath to newpath.
399 version
401 Display the sftp protocol version.
402 !command
404 Execute command in local shell.
405 ! Escape to local shell.
407 ? Synonym for help.
409
411 ftp(1), ls(1), scp(1), ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5),
412 glob(7), sftp-server(8), sshd(8)
413 T. Ylonen and S. Lehtinen, SSH File Transfer Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-
415 filexfer-00.txt, January 2001, work in progress material.
416BSD March 31, 2022 BSD