Manual: sftp
SFTP(1) General Commands Manual SFTP(1)
NAME
sftp — OpenSSH secure file transfer
SYNOPSIS
sftp [-46AaCfNpqrv] [-B buffer_size] [-b batchfile] [-c cipher] [-D sftp_server_command] [-F ssh_config]
[-i identity_file] [-J destination] [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port] [-R num_requests] [-S program]
[-s subsystem | sftp_server] [-X sftp_option] destination
DESCRIPTION
sftp is a file transfer program, similar to ftp(1), which performs all operations over an encrypted ssh(1) transport.
It may also use many features of ssh, such as public key authentication and compression.
The destination may be specified either as [user@]host[:path] or as a URI in the form
sftp://[user@]host[:port][/path].
If the destination includes a path and it is not a directory, sftp will retrieve files automatically if a non-inter‐
active authentication method is used; otherwise it will do so after successful interactive authentication.
If no path is specified, or if the path is a directory, sftp will log in to the specified 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 path to be interpreted as a directory.
Since the destination formats use colon characters to delimit host names from path names or port numbers, IPv6 ad‐
dresses must be enclosed in square brackets to avoid ambiguity.
The options are as follows:
-4 Forces sftp to use IPv4 addresses only.
-6 Forces sftp to use IPv6 addresses only.
-A Allows forwarding of ssh-agent(1) to the remote system. The default is not to forward an authentication
agent.
-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.
-B buffer_size
Specify the size of the buffer that sftp uses when transferring files. Larger buffers require fewer round
trips at the cost of higher memory consumption. The default is 32768 bytes.
-b batchfile
Batch mode reads a series of commands from an input batchfile instead of stdin. Since it lacks user interac‐
tion, it should be used in conjunction with non-interactive authentication to obviate the need to enter a
password at connection time (see sshd(8) and ssh-keygen(1) for details).
A batchfile of ‘-’ may be used to indicate standard input. sftp will abort if any of the following commands
fail: get, put, reget, reput, rename, ln, rm, mkdir, chdir, ls, lchdir, copy, cp, chmod, chown, chgrp, lpwd,
df, symlink, and lmkdir.
Termination on error can be suppressed on a command by command basis by prefixing the command with a ‘-’
character (for example, -rm /tmp/blah*). Echo of the command may be suppressed by prefixing the command with
a ‘@’ character. These two prefixes may be combined in any order, for example -@ls /bsd.
-C Enables compression (via ssh's -C flag).
-c cipher
Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the data transfers. This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
-D sftp_server_command
Connect directly to a local sftp server (rather than via ssh(1)). A command and arguments may be specified,
for example "/path/sftp-server -el debug3". This option may be useful in debugging the client and server.
-F ssh_config
Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for ssh(1). This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
-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.
-i identity_file
Selects the file from which the identity (private key) for public key authentication is read. This option is
directly passed to ssh(1).
-J destination
Connect to the target host by first making an sftp connection to the jump host described by destination and
then establishing a TCP forwarding to the ultimate destination from there. Multiple jump hops may be speci‐
fied separated by comma characters. This is a shortcut to specify a ProxyJump configuration directive. This
option is directly passed to ssh(1).
-l limit
Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s.
-N Disables quiet mode, e.g. to override the implicit quiet mode set by the -b flag.
-o ssh_option
Can be used to pass options to ssh in the format used in ssh_config(5). This is useful for specifying op‐
tions for which there is no separate sftp command-line flag. For example, to specify an alternate port use:
sftp -oPort=24. For full details of the options listed below, and their possible values, see ssh_config(5).
AddKeysToAgent
AddressFamily
BatchMode
BindAddress
BindInterface
CASignatureAlgorithms
CanonicalDomains
CanonicalizeFallbackLocal
CanonicalizeHostname
CanonicalizeMaxDots
CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
CertificateFile
ChannelTimeout
CheckHostIP
Ciphers
ClearAllForwardings
Compression
ConnectTimeout
ConnectionAttempts
ControlMaster
ControlPath
ControlPersist
DynamicForward
EnableEscapeCommandline
EnableSSHKeysign
EscapeChar
ExitOnForwardFailure
FingerprintHash
ForkAfterAuthentication
ForwardAgent
ForwardX11
ForwardX11Timeout
ForwardX11Trusted
GSSAPIAuthentication
GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
GatewayPorts
GlobalKnownHostsFile
HashKnownHosts
Host
HostKeyAlgorithms
HostKeyAlias
HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms
HostbasedAuthentication
Hostname
IPQoS
IdentitiesOnly
IdentityAgent
IdentityFile
IgnoreUnknown
Include
KbdInteractiveAuthentication
KbdInteractiveDevices
KexAlgorithms
KnownHostsCommand
LocalCommand
LocalForward
LogLevel
LogVerbose
MACs
NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
NumberOfPasswordPrompts
ObscureKeystrokeTiming
PKCS11Provider
PasswordAuthentication
PermitLocalCommand
PermitRemoteOpen
Port
PreferredAuthentications
ProxyCommand
ProxyJump
ProxyUseFdpass
PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms
PubkeyAuthentication
RekeyLimit
RemoteCommand
RemoteForward
RequestTTY
RequiredRSASize
RevokedHostKeys
SecurityKeyProvider
SendEnv
ServerAliveCountMax
ServerAliveInterval
SessionType
SetEnv
StdinNull
StreamLocalBindMask
StreamLocalBindUnlink
StrictHostKeyChecking
SyslogFacility
TCPKeepAlive
Tag
Tunnel
TunnelDevice
UpdateHostKeys
User
UserKnownHostsFile
VerifyHostKeyDNS
VisualHostKey
XAuthLocation
-P port
Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host.
-p Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original files transferred.
-q Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and diagnostic messages from ssh(1).
-R 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 64 outstanding requests.
-r Recursively copy entire directories when uploading and downloading. Note that sftp does not follow symbolic
links encountered in the tree traversal.
-S program
Name of the program to use for the encrypted connection. The program must understand ssh(1) options.
-s 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 sshd(8) does not have an sftp subsystem configured.
-v Raise logging level. This option is also passed to ssh.
-X sftp_option
Specify an option that controls aspects of SFTP protocol behaviour. The valid options are:
nrequests=value
Controls how many concurrent SFTP read or write requests may be in progress at any point in time dur‐
ing a download or upload. By default 64 requests may be active concurrently.
buffer=value
Controls the maximum buffer size for a single SFTP read/write operation used during download or up‐
load. By default a 32KB buffer is used.
INTERACTIVE COMMANDS
Once in interactive mode, sftp understands a set of commands similar to those of ftp(1). Commands are case insensi‐
tive. Pathnames that contain spaces must be enclosed in quotes. Any special characters contained within pathnames
that are recognized by glob(3) must be escaped with backslashes (‘\’).
bye Quit sftp.
cd [path]
Change remote directory to path. If path is not specified, then change directory to the one the session
started in.
chgrp [-h] grp path
Change group of file path to grp. path may contain glob(7) characters and may match multiple files. grp
must be a numeric GID.
If the -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.
chmod [-h] mode path
Change permissions of file path to mode. path may contain glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
If the -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.
chown [-h] own path
Change owner of file path to own. path may contain glob(7) characters and may match multiple files. own
must be a numeric UID.
If the -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.
copy oldpath newpath
Copy remote file from oldpath to newpath.
Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "copy-data" extension.
cp oldpath newpath
Alias to copy command.
df [-hi] [path]
Display usage information for the filesystem holding the current directory (or path if specified). If the -h
flag is specified, the capacity information will be displayed using "human-readable" suffixes. The -i flag
requests display of inode information in addition to capacity information. This command is only supported on
servers that implement the “statvfs@openssh.com” extension.
exit Quit sftp.
get [-afpR] remote-path [local-path]
Retrieve the 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. remote-path may contain glob(7) characters and may match
multiple files. If it does and local-path is specified, then local-path must specify a directory.
If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial transfers of existing files. Note that resump‐
tion 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.
If the -f flag is specified, then fsync(2) will be called after the file transfer has completed to flush the
file to disk.
If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and access times are copied too.
If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied recursively. Note that sftp does not follow sym‐
bolic links when performing recursive transfers.
help Display help text.
lcd [path]
Change local directory to path. If path is not specified, then change directory to the local user's home di‐
rectory.
lls [ls-options [path]]
Display local directory listing of either path or current directory if path is not specified. ls-options may
contain any flags supported by the local system's ls(1) command. path may contain glob(7) characters and may
match multiple files.
lmkdir path
Create local directory specified by path.
ln [-s] oldpath newpath
Create a link from oldpath to newpath. If the -s flag is specified the created link is a symbolic link, oth‐
erwise it is a hard link.
lpwd Print local working directory.
ls [-1afhlnrSt] [path]
Display a remote directory listing of either path or the current directory if path is not specified. path
may contain glob(7) characters and may match multiple files.
The following flags are recognized and alter the behaviour of ls accordingly:
-1 Produce single columnar output.
-a List files beginning with a dot (‘.’).
-f Do not sort the listing. The default sort order is lexicographical.
-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.).
-l Display additional details including permissions and ownership information.
-n Produce a long listing with user and group information presented numerically.
-r Reverse the sort order of the listing.
-S Sort the listing by file size.
-t Sort the listing by last modification time.
lumask umask
Set local umask to umask.
mkdir path
Create remote directory specified by path.
progress
Toggle display of progress meter.
put [-afpR] local-path [remote-path]
Upload 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. local-path may contain glob(7) characters and may match multiple
files. If it does and remote-path is specified, then remote-path must specify a directory.
If the -a flag is specified, then attempt to resume partial transfers of existing files. Note that resump‐
tion 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.
If the -f flag is specified, then a request will be sent to the server to call fsync(2) after the file has
been transferred. Note that this is only supported by servers that implement the "fsync@openssh.com" exten‐
sion.
If the -p flag is specified, then full file permissions and access times are copied too.
If the -R flag is specified then directories will be copied recursively. Note that sftp does not follow sym‐
bolic links when performing recursive transfers.
pwd Display remote working directory.
quit Quit sftp.
reget [-fpR] remote-path [local-path]
Resume download of remote-path. Equivalent to get with the -a flag set.
reput [-fpR] local-path [remote-path]
Resume upload of local-path. Equivalent to put with the -a flag set.
rename oldpath newpath
Rename remote file from oldpath to newpath.
rm path
Delete remote file specified by path.
rmdir path
Remove remote directory specified by path.
symlink oldpath newpath
Create a symbolic link from oldpath to newpath.
version
Display the sftp protocol version.
!command
Execute command in local shell.
! Escape to local shell.
? Synonym for help.
SEE ALSO
ftp(1), ls(1), scp(1), ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5), glob(7), sftp-server(8), sshd(8)
T. Ylonen and S. Lehtinen, SSH File Transfer Protocol, draft-ietf-secsh-filexfer-00.txt, January 2001, work in
progress material.
Debian December 6, 2024 SFTP(1)