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 64 outstanding requests.
192 -r Recursively copy entire directories when uploading and download‐
194 ing. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links encountered
195 in the tree traversal.
196 -S program
198 Name of the program to use for the encrypted connection. The
199 program must understand ssh(1) options.
200 -s subsystem | sftp_server
202 Specifies the SSH2 subsystem or the path for an sftp server on
203 the remote host. A path is useful when the remote sshd(8) does
204 not have an sftp subsystem configured.
205 -v Raise logging level. This option is also passed to ssh.
207
209 Once in interactive mode, sftp understands a set of commands similar to
210 those of ftp(1). Commands are case insensitive. Pathnames that contain
211 spaces must be enclosed in quotes. Any special characters contained
212 within pathnames that are recognized by glob(3) must be escaped with
213 backslashes (‘\’).
214 bye Quit sftp.
216 cd [path]
218 Change remote directory to path. If path is not specified, then
219 change directory to the one the session started in.
220 chgrp [-h] grp path
222 Change group of file path to grp. path may contain glob(7) char‐
223 acters and may match multiple files. grp must be a numeric GID.
224 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
226 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
227 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
228 chmod [-h] mode path
230 Change permissions of file path to mode. path may contain
231 glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
232 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
234 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
235 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
236 chown [-h] own path
238 Change owner of file path to own. path may contain glob(7) char‐
239 acters and may match multiple files. own must be a numeric UID.
240 If the -h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed.
242 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
243 "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension.
244 df [-hi] [path]
246 Display usage information for the filesystem holding the current
247 directory (or path if specified). If the -h flag is specified,
248 the capacity information will be displayed using "human-readable"
249 suffixes. The -i flag requests display of inode information in
250 addition to capacity information. This command is only supported
251 on servers that implement the “statvfs@openssh.com” extension.
252 exit Quit sftp.
254 get [-afpR] remote-path [local-path]
256 Retrieve the remote-path and store it on the local machine. If
257 the local path name is not specified, it is given the same name
258 it has on the remote machine. remote-path may contain glob(7)
259 characters and may match multiple files. If it does and
260 local-path is specified, then local-path must specify a direc‐
261 tory.
262 If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial
264 transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that
265 any partial copy of the local file matches the remote copy. If
266 the remote file contents differ from the partial local copy then
267 the resultant file is likely to be corrupt.
268 If the -f flag is specified, then fsync(2) will be called after
270 the file transfer has completed to flush the file to disk.
271 If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and ac‐
273 cess times are copied too.
274 If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied re‐
276 cursively. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
277 performing recursive transfers.
278 help Display help text.
280 lcd [path]
282 Change local directory to path. If path is not specified, then
283 change directory to the local user's home directory.
284 lls [ls-options [path]]
286 Display local directory listing of either path or current direc‐
287 tory if path is not specified. ls-options may contain any flags
288 supported by the local system's ls(1) command. path may contain
289 glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
290 lmkdir path
292 Create local directory specified by path.
293 ln [-s] oldpath newpath
295 Create a link from oldpath to newpath. If the -s flag is speci‐
296 fied the created link is a symbolic link, otherwise it is a hard
297 link.
298 lpwd Print local working directory.
300 ls [-1afhlnrSt] [path]
302 Display a remote directory listing of either path or the current
303 directory if path is not specified. path may contain glob(7)
304 characters and may match multiple files.
305 The following flags are recognized and alter the behaviour of ls
307 accordingly:
308 -1 Produce single columnar output.
310 -a List files beginning with a dot (‘.’).
312 -f Do not sort the listing. The default sort order is lexi‐
314 cographical.
315 -h When used with a long format option, use unit suffixes:
317 Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte,
318 and Exabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to
319 four or fewer using powers of 2 for sizes (K=1024,
320 M=1048576, etc.).
321 -l Display additional details including permissions and own‐
323 ership information.
324 -n Produce a long listing with user and group information
326 presented numerically.
327 -r Reverse the sort order of the listing.
329 -S Sort the listing by file size.
331 -t Sort the listing by last modification time.
333 lumask umask
335 Set local umask to umask.
336 mkdir path
338 Create remote directory specified by path.
339 progress
341 Toggle display of progress meter.
342 put [-afpR] local-path [remote-path]
344 Upload local-path and store it on the remote machine. If the re‐
345 mote path name is not specified, it is given the same name it has
346 on the local machine. local-path may contain glob(7) characters
347 and may match multiple files. If it does and remote-path is
348 specified, then remote-path must specify a directory.
349 If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial
351 transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that
352 any partial copy of the remote file matches the local copy. If
353 the local file contents differ from the remote local copy then
354 the resultant file is likely to be corrupt.
355 If the -f flag is specified, then a request will be sent to the
357 server to call fsync(2) after the file has been transferred.
358 Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the
359 "fsync@openssh.com" extension.
360 If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and ac‐
362 cess times are copied too.
363 If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied re‐
365 cursively. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
366 performing recursive transfers.
367 pwd Display remote working directory.
369 quit Quit sftp.
371 reget [-fpR] remote-path [local-path]
373 Resume download of remote-path. Equivalent to get with the -a
374 flag set.
375 reput [-fpR] local-path [remote-path]
377 Resume upload of local-path. Equivalent to put with the -a flag
378 set.
379 rename oldpath newpath
381 Rename remote file from oldpath to newpath.
382 rm path
384 Delete remote file specified by path.
385 rmdir path
387 Remove remote directory specified by path.
388 symlink oldpath newpath
390 Create a symbolic link from oldpath to newpath.
391 version
393 Display the sftp protocol version.
394 !command
396 Execute command in local shell.
397 ! Escape to local shell.
399 ? Synonym for help.
401
403 ftp(1), ls(1), scp(1), ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5),
404 glob(7), sftp-server(8), sshd(8)
405 T. Ylonen and S. Lehtinen, SSH File Transfer Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-
407 filexfer-00.txt, January 2001, work in progress material.
408BSD February 12, 2021 BSD