1SFTP(1) BSD General Commands Manual SFTP(1)
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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, chmod,
64 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 ChallengeResponseAuthentication
129 CheckHostIP
130 Ciphers
131 Compression
132 ConnectionAttempts
133 ConnectTimeout
134 ControlMaster
135 ControlPath
136 ControlPersist
137 GlobalKnownHostsFile
138 GSSAPIAuthentication
139 GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
140 HashKnownHosts
141 Host
142 HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms
143 HostbasedAuthentication
144 HostKeyAlgorithms
145 HostKeyAlias
146 Hostname
147 IdentitiesOnly
148 IdentityAgent
149 IdentityFile
150 IPQoS
151 KbdInteractiveAuthentication
152 KbdInteractiveDevices
153 KexAlgorithms
154 KnownHostsCommand
155 LogLevel
156 MACs
157 NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
158 NumberOfPasswordPrompts
159 PasswordAuthentication
160 PKCS11Provider
161 Port
162 PreferredAuthentications
163 ProxyCommand
164 ProxyJump
165 PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms
166 PubkeyAuthentication
167 RekeyLimit
168 SendEnv
169 ServerAliveInterval
170 ServerAliveCountMax
171 SetEnv
172 StrictHostKeyChecking
173 TCPKeepAlive
174 UpdateHostKeys
175 User
176 UserKnownHostsFile
177 VerifyHostKeyDNS
178 -P port
180 Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host.
181 -p Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the
183 original files transferred.
184 -q Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and
186 diagnostic messages from ssh(1).
187 -R num_requests
189 Specify how many requests may be outstanding at any one time.
190 Increasing this may slightly improve file transfer speed but will
191 increase memory usage. The default is 256 outstanding requests
192 providing for 8MB of outstanding data with a 32KB buffer.
193 -r Recursively copy entire directories when uploading and download‐
195 ing. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links encountered
196 in the tree traversal.
197 -S program
199 Name of the program to use for the encrypted connection. The
200 program must understand ssh(1) options.
201 -s subsystem | sftp_server
203 Specifies the SSH2 subsystem or the path for an sftp server on
204 the remote host. A path is useful when the remote sshd(8) does
205 not have an sftp subsystem configured.
206 -v Raise logging level. This option is also passed to ssh.
208
210 Once in interactive mode, sftp understands a set of commands similar to
211 those of ftp(1). Commands are case insensitive. Pathnames that contain
212 spaces must be enclosed in quotes. Any special characters contained
213 within pathnames that are recognized by glob(3) must be escaped with
214 backslashes (‘\’).
215 bye Quit sftp.
217 cd [path]
219 Change remote directory to path. If path is not specified, then
220 change directory to the one the session started in.
221 chgrp [-h] grp path
223 Change group of file path to grp. path may contain glob(7) char‐
224 acters and may match multiple files. grp must be a numeric GID.
225 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
227 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
228 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
229 chmod [-h] mode path
231 Change permissions of file path to mode. path may contain
232 glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
233 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
235 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
236 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
237 chown [-h] own path
239 Change owner of file path to own. path may contain glob(7) char‐
240 acters and may match multiple files. own must be a numeric UID.
241 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
243 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
244 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
245 df [-hi] [path]
247 Display usage information for the filesystem holding the current
248 directory (or path if specified). If the -h flag is specified,
249 the capacity information will be displayed using "human-readable"
250 suffixes. The -i flag requests display of inode information in
251 addition to capacity information. This command is only supported
252 on servers that implement the “statvfs@openssh.com” extension.
253 exit Quit sftp.
255 get [-afpR] remote-path [local-path]
257 Retrieve the remote-path and store it on the local machine. If
258 the local path name is not specified, it is given the same name
259 it has on the remote machine. remote-path may contain glob(7)
260 characters and may match multiple files. If it does and
261 local-path is specified, then local-path must specify a direc‐
262 tory.
263 If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial
265 transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that
266 any partial copy of the local file matches the remote copy. If
267 the remote file contents differ from the partial local copy then
268 the resultant file is likely to be corrupt.
269 If the -f flag is specified, then fsync(2) will be called after
271 the file transfer has completed to flush the file to disk.
272 If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and ac‐
274 cess times are copied too.
275 If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied re‐
277 cursively. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
278 performing recursive transfers.
279 help Display help text.
281 lcd [path]
283 Change local directory to path. If path is not specified, then
284 change directory to the local user's home directory.
285 lls [ls-options [path]]
287 Display local directory listing of either path or current direc‐
288 tory if path is not specified. ls-options may contain any flags
289 supported by the local system's ls(1) command. path may contain
290 glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
291 lmkdir path
293 Create local directory specified by path.
294 ln [-s] oldpath newpath
296 Create a link from oldpath to newpath. If the -s flag is speci‐
297 fied the created link is a symbolic link, otherwise it is a hard
298 link.
299 lpwd Print local working directory.
301 ls [-1afhlnrSt] [path]
303 Display a remote directory listing of either path or the current
304 directory if path is not specified. path may contain glob(7)
305 characters and may match multiple files.
306 The following flags are recognized and alter the behaviour of ls
308 accordingly:
309 -1 Produce single columnar output.
311 -a List files beginning with a dot (‘.’).
313 -f Do not sort the listing. The default sort order is lexi‐
315 cographical.
316 -h When used with a long format option, use unit suffixes:
318 Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte,
319 and Exabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to
320 four or fewer using powers of 2 for sizes (K=1024,
321 M=1048576, etc.).
322 -l Display additional details including permissions and own‐
324 ership information.
325 -n Produce a long listing with user and group information
327 presented numerically.
328 -r Reverse the sort order of the listing.
330 -S Sort the listing by file size.
332 -t Sort the listing by last modification time.
334 lumask umask
336 Set local umask to umask.
337 mkdir path
339 Create remote directory specified by path.
340 progress
342 Toggle display of progress meter.
343 put [-afpR] local-path [remote-path]
345 Upload local-path and store it on the remote machine. If the re‐
346 mote path name is not specified, it is given the same name it has
347 on the local machine. local-path may contain glob(7) characters
348 and may match multiple files. If it does and remote-path is
349 specified, then remote-path must specify a directory.
350 If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial
352 transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that
353 any partial copy of the remote file matches the local copy. If
354 the local file contents differ from the remote local copy then
355 the resultant file is likely to be corrupt.
356 If the -f flag is specified, then a request will be sent to the
358 server to call fsync(2) after the file has been transferred.
359 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
360 "fsync@openssh.com" extension.
361 If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and ac‐
363 cess times are copied too.
364 If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied re‐
366 cursively. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
367 performing recursive transfers.
368 pwd Display remote working directory.
370 quit Quit sftp.
372 reget [-fpR] remote-path [local-path]
374 Resume download of remote-path. Equivalent to get with the -a
375 flag set.
376 reput [-fpR] local-path [remote-path]
378 Resume upload of local-path. Equivalent to put with the -a flag
379 set.
380 rename oldpath newpath
382 Rename remote file from oldpath to newpath.
383 rm path
385 Delete remote file specified by path.
386 rmdir path
388 Remove remote directory specified by path.
389 symlink oldpath newpath
391 Create a symbolic link from oldpath to newpath.
392 version
394 Display the sftp protocol version.
395 !command
397 Execute command in local shell.
398 ! Escape to local shell.
400 ? Synonym for help.
402
404 ftp(1), ls(1), scp(1), ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5),
405 glob(7), sftp-server(8), sshd(8)
406 T. Ylonen and S. Lehtinen, SSH File Transfer Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-
408 filexfer-00.txt, January 2001, work in progress material.
409BSD February 12, 2021 BSD