.\" $NetBSD: sftp.1,v 1.19.2.1 2023/12/25 12:31:06 martin Exp $ .\" $OpenBSD: sftp.1,v 1.143 2022/12/16 03:40:03 djm Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2001 Damien Miller. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, .\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY .\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT .\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF .\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .Dd December 16 2022 .Dt SFTP 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm sftp .Nd OpenSSH secure file transfer .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm sftp .Op Fl 46AaCfNpqrv .Op Fl B Ar buffer_size .Op Fl b Ar batchfile .Op Fl c Ar cipher .Op Fl D Ar sftp_server_command .Op Fl F Ar ssh_config .Op Fl i Ar identity_file .Op Fl J Ar destination .Op Fl l Ar limit .Op Fl o Ar ssh_option .Op Fl P Ar port .Op Fl R Ar num_requests .Op Fl S Ar program .Op Fl s Ar subsystem | sftp_server .Op Fl X Ar sftp_option .Ar destination .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is a file transfer program, similar to .Xr ftp 1 , which performs all operations over an encrypted .Xr ssh 1 transport. It may also use many features of ssh, such as public key authentication and compression. .Pp The .Ar destination may be specified either as .Sm off .Oo user @ Oc host Op : path .Sm on or as a URI in the form .Sm off .No sftp:// Oo user @ Oc host Oo : port Oc Op / path . .Sm on .Pp If the .Ar destination includes a .Ar path and it is not a directory, .Nm will retrieve files automatically if a non-interactive authentication method is used; otherwise it will do so after successful interactive authentication. .Pp If no .Ar path is specified, or if the .Ar path is a directory, .Nm will log in to the specified .Ar host and enter interactive command mode, changing to the remote directory if one was specified. An optional trailing slash can be used to force the .Ar path to be interpreted as a directory. .Pp Since the destination formats use colon characters to delimit host names from path names or port numbers, IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets to avoid ambiguity. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl 4 Forces .Nm to use IPv4 addresses only. .It Fl 6 Forces .Nm to use IPv6 addresses only. .It Fl A Allows forwarding of .Xr ssh-agent 1 to the remote system. The default is not to forward an authentication agent. .It Fl a Attempt to continue interrupted transfers rather than overwriting existing partial or complete copies of files. If the partial contents differ from those being transferred, then the resultant file is likely to be corrupt. .It Fl B Ar buffer_size Specify the size of the buffer that .Nm uses when transferring files. Larger buffers require fewer round trips at the cost of higher memory consumption. The default is 32768 bytes. .It Fl b Ar batchfile Batch mode reads a series of commands from an input .Ar batchfile instead of .Em stdin . Since it lacks user interaction, it should be used in conjunction with non-interactive authentication to obviate the need to enter a password at connection time (see .Xr sshd 8 and .Xr ssh-keygen 1 for details). .Pp A .Ar batchfile of .Sq \- may be used to indicate standard input. .Nm will abort if any of the following commands fail: .Ic get , put , reget , reput , rename , ln , .Ic rm , mkdir , chdir , ls , .Ic lchdir , copy , cp , chmod , chown , .Ic chgrp , lpwd , df , symlink , and .Ic lmkdir . .Pp Termination on error can be suppressed on a command by command basis by prefixing the command with a .Sq \- character (for example, .Ic -rm /tmp/blah* ) . Echo of the command may be suppressed by prefixing the command with a .Sq @ character. These two prefixes may be combined in any order, for example .Ic -@ls /bsd . .It Fl C Enables compression (via ssh's .Fl C flag). .It Fl c Ar cipher Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the data transfers. This option is directly passed to .Xr ssh 1 . .It Fl D Ar sftp_server_command Connect directly to a local sftp server (rather than via .Xr ssh 1 ) . A command and arguments may be specified, for example .Qq /path/sftp-server -el debug3 . This option may be useful in debugging the client and server. .It Fl F Ar ssh_config Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for .Xr ssh 1 . This option is directly passed to .Xr ssh 1 . .It Fl f Requests that files be flushed to disk immediately after transfer. When uploading files, this feature is only enabled if the server implements the "fsync@openssh.com" extension. .It Fl i Ar identity_file Selects the file from which the identity (private key) for public key authentication is read. This option is directly passed to .Xr ssh 1 . .It Fl J Ar destination Connect to the target host by first making an .Nm connection to the jump host described by .Ar destination and then establishing a TCP forwarding to the ultimate destination from there. Multiple jump hops may be specified separated by comma characters. This is a shortcut to specify a .Cm ProxyJump configuration directive. This option is directly passed to .Xr ssh 1 . .It Fl l Ar limit Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s. .It Fl N Disables quiet mode, e.g. to override the implicit quiet mode set by the .Fl b flag. .It Fl o Ar ssh_option Can be used to pass options to .Nm ssh in the format used in .Xr ssh_config 5 . This is useful for specifying options for which there is no separate .Nm sftp command-line flag. For example, to specify an alternate port use: .Ic sftp -oPort=24 . For full details of the options listed below, and their possible values, see .Xr ssh_config 5 . .Pp .Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact .It AddressFamily .It BatchMode .It BindAddress .It BindInterface .It CanonicalDomains .It CanonicalizeFallbackLocal .It CanonicalizeHostname .It CanonicalizeMaxDots .It CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs .It CASignatureAlgorithms .It CertificateFile .It CheckHostIP .It Ciphers .It Compression .It ConnectionAttempts .It ConnectTimeout .It ControlMaster .It ControlPath .It ControlPersist .It GlobalKnownHostsFile .It GSSAPIAuthentication .It GSSAPIDelegateCredentials .It HashKnownHosts .It Host .It HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms .It HostbasedAuthentication .It HostKeyAlgorithms .It HostKeyAlias .It Hostname .It IdentitiesOnly .It IdentityAgent .It IdentityFile .It IPQoS .It IPv6PreferTemporary .It KbdInteractiveAuthentication .It KbdInteractiveDevices .It KexAlgorithms .It KnownHostsCommand .It LogLevel .It MACs .It NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost .It NumberOfPasswordPrompts .It PasswordAuthentication .It PKCS11Provider .It Port .It PreferredAuthentications .It ProxyCommand .It ProxyJump .It PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms .It PubkeyAuthentication .It RekeyLimit .It RequiredRSASize .It SendEnv .It ServerAliveInterval .It ServerAliveCountMax .It SetEnv .It StrictHostKeyChecking .It TCPKeepAlive .It UpdateHostKeys .It User .It UserKnownHostsFile .It VerifyHostKeyDNS .El .It Fl P Ar port Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host. .It Fl p Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original files transferred. .It Fl q Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and diagnostic messages from .Xr ssh 1 . .It Fl R Ar num_requests Specify how many requests may be outstanding at any one time. Increasing this may slightly improve file transfer speed but will increase memory usage. The default is 256 outstanding requests providing for 8MB of outstanding data with a 32KB buffer. .It Fl r Recursively copy entire directories when uploading and downloading. Note that .Nm does not follow symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal. .It Fl S Ar program Name of the .Ar program to use for the encrypted connection. The program must understand .Xr ssh 1 options. .It Fl s Ar subsystem | sftp_server Specifies the SSH2 subsystem or the path for an sftp server on the remote host. A path is useful when the remote .Xr sshd 8 does not have an sftp subsystem configured. .It Fl v Raise logging level. This option is also passed to ssh. .It Fl X Ar sftp_option Specify an option that controls aspects of SFTP protocol behaviour. The valid options are: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Cm nrequests Ns = Ns Ar value Controls how many concurrent SFTP read or write requests may be in progress at any point in time during a download or upload. By default 64 requests may be active concurrently. .It Cm buffer Ns = Ns Ar value Controls the maximum buffer size for a single SFTP read/write operation used during download or upload. By default a 32KB buffer is used. .El .El .Sh INTERACTIVE COMMANDS Once in interactive mode, .Nm understands a set of commands similar to those of .Xr ftp 1 . Commands are case insensitive. Pathnames that contain spaces must be enclosed in quotes. Any special characters contained within pathnames that are recognized by .Xr glob 3 must be escaped with backslashes .Pq Sq \e . .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Ic bye Quit .Nm sftp . .It Ic cd Op Ar path Change remote directory to .Ar path . If .Ar path is not specified, then change directory to the one the session started in. .It Xo Ic chgrp .Op Fl h .Ar grp .Ar path .Xc Change group of file .Ar path to .Ar grp . .Ar path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. .Ar grp must be a numeric GID. .Pp If the .Fl h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed. Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension. .It Xo Ic chmod .Op Fl h .Ar mode .Ar path .Xc Change permissions of file .Ar path to .Ar mode . .Ar path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. .Pp If the .Fl h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed. Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension. .It Xo Ic chown .Op Fl h .Ar own .Ar path .Xc Change owner of file .Ar path to .Ar own . .Ar path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. .Ar own must be a numeric UID. .Pp If the .Fl h flag is specified, then symlinks will not be followed. Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "lsetstat@openssh.com" extension. .It Ic copy Ar oldpath Ar newpath Copy remote file from .Ar oldpath to .Ar newpath . .Pp Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "copy-data" extension. .It Ic cp Ar oldpath Ar newpath Alias to .Ic copy command. .It Xo Ic df .Op Fl hi .Op Ar path .Xc Display usage information for the filesystem holding the current directory (or .Ar path if specified). If the .Fl h flag is specified, the capacity information will be displayed using "human-readable" suffixes. The .Fl i flag requests display of inode information in addition to capacity information. This command is only supported on servers that implement the .Dq statvfs@openssh.com extension. .It Ic exit Quit .Nm sftp . .It Xo Ic get .Op Fl afpR .Ar remote-path .Op Ar local-path .Xc Retrieve the .Ar remote-path and store it on the local machine. If the local path name is not specified, it is given the same name it has on the remote machine. .Ar remote-path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. If it does and .Ar local-path is specified, then .Ar local-path must specify a directory. .Pp If the .Fl a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that any partial copy of the local file matches the remote copy. If the remote file contents differ from the partial local copy then the resultant file is likely to be corrupt. .Pp If the .Fl f flag is specified, then .Xr fsync 2 will be called after the file transfer has completed to flush the file to disk. .Pp If the .Fl p .\" undocumented redundant alias .\" or .\" .Fl P flag is specified, then full file permissions and access times are copied too. .Pp If the .Fl R .\" undocumented redundant alias .\" or .\" .Fl r flag is specified then directories will be copied recursively. Note that .Nm does not follow symbolic links when performing recursive transfers. .It Ic help Display help text. .It Ic lcd Op Ar path Change local directory to .Ar path . If .Ar path is not specified, then change directory to the local user's home directory. .It Ic lls Op Ar ls-options Op Ar path Display local directory listing of either .Ar path or current directory if .Ar path is not specified. .Ar ls-options may contain any flags supported by the local system's .Xr ls 1 command. .Ar path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. .It Ic lmkdir Ar path Create local directory specified by .Ar path . .It Xo Ic ln .Op Fl s .Ar oldpath .Ar newpath .Xc Create a link from .Ar oldpath to .Ar newpath . If the .Fl s flag is specified the created link is a symbolic link, otherwise it is a hard link. .It Ic lpwd Print local working directory. .It Ic ls Oo Fl 1afhlnrSt Oc Oo Ar path Oc Display a remote directory listing of either .Ar path or the current directory if .Ar path is not specified. .Ar path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. .Pp The following flags are recognized and alter the behaviour of .Ic ls accordingly: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl 1 Produce single columnar output. .It Fl a List files beginning with a dot .Pq Sq \&. . .It Fl f Do not sort the listing. The default sort order is lexicographical. .It Fl h When used with a long format option, use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte, Petabyte, and Exabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to four or fewer using powers of 2 for sizes (K=1024, M=1048576, etc.). .It Fl l Display additional details including permissions and ownership information. .It Fl n Produce a long listing with user and group information presented numerically. .It Fl r Reverse the sort order of the listing. .It Fl S Sort the listing by file size. .It Fl t Sort the listing by last modification time. .El .It Ic lumask Ar umask Set local umask to .Ar umask . .It Ic mkdir Ar path Create remote directory specified by .Ar path . .It Ic progress Toggle display of progress meter. .It Xo Ic put .Op Fl afpR .Ar local-path .Op Ar remote-path .Xc Upload .Ar local-path and store it on the remote machine. If the remote path name is not specified, it is given the same name it has on the local machine. .Ar local-path may contain .Xr glob 7 characters and may match multiple files. If it does and .Ar remote-path is specified, then .Ar remote-path must specify a directory. .Pp If the .Fl a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial transfers of existing files. Note that resumption assumes that any partial copy of the remote file matches the local copy. If the local file contents differ from the remote local copy then the resultant file is likely to be corrupt. .Pp If the .Fl f flag is specified, then a request will be sent to the server to call .Xr fsync 2 after the file has been transferred. Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "fsync@openssh.com" extension. .Pp If the .Fl p .\" undocumented redundant alias .\" or .\" .Fl P flag is specified, then full file permissions and access times are copied too. .Pp If the .Fl R .\" undocumented redundant alias .\" or .\" .Fl r flag is specified then directories will be copied recursively. Note that .Nm does not follow symbolic links when performing recursive transfers. .It Ic pwd Display remote working directory. .It Ic quit Quit .Nm sftp . .It Xo Ic reget .Op Fl fpR .Ar remote-path .Op Ar local-path .Xc Resume download of .Ar remote-path . Equivalent to .Ic get with the .Fl a flag set. .It Xo Ic reput .Op Fl fpR .Ar local-path .Op Ar remote-path .Xc Resume upload of .Ar local-path . Equivalent to .Ic put with the .Fl a flag set. .It Ic rename Ar oldpath newpath Rename remote file from .Ar oldpath to .Ar newpath . .It Ic rm Ar path Delete remote file specified by .Ar path . .It Ic rmdir Ar path Remove remote directory specified by .Ar path . .It Ic symlink Ar oldpath newpath Create a symbolic link from .Ar oldpath to .Ar newpath . .It Ic version Display the .Nm protocol version. .It Ic \&! Ns Ar command Execute .Ar command in local shell. .It Ic \&! Escape to local shell. .It Ic \&? Synonym for help. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr ftp 1 , .Xr ls 1 , .Xr scp 1 , .Xr ssh 1 , .Xr ssh-add 1 , .Xr ssh-keygen 1 , .Xr ssh_config 5 , .Xr glob 7 , .Xr sftp-server 8 , .Xr sshd 8 .Rs .%A T. Ylonen .%A S. Lehtinen .%T "SSH File Transfer Protocol" .%N draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-00.txt .%D January 2001 .%O work in progress material .Re