sftp is an interactive 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.
sftp connects and logs into the specified
host, then enters an interactive command mode.
The second usage format will retrieve files automatically if a non-interactive authentication method is used; otherwise it will do so after successful interactive authentication.
The third usage format allows
sftp to start in a remote directory.
The final usage format allows for automated sessions using the
-b option. In such cases, it is necessary to configure non-interactive authentication to obviate the need to enter a password at connection time (see
sshd(8) and
ssh-keygen(1) for details). The options are as follows:
-1
Specify the use of protocol version 1.
-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 interaction it should be used in conjunction with non-interactive authentication. A batchfile of ‘-' may be used to indicate standard input. sftp will abort if any of the following commands fail: get, put, rename, ln, rm, mkdir, chdir, ls, lchdir, chmod, chown, chgrp, lpwd, df, 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*).
-C
Enables compression (via ssh's -C flag).
-F ssh_config
Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for
ssh(1). This option is directly passed to
ssh(1).
-o ssh_option
Can be used to pass options to
ssh in the format used in
ssh_config(5). This is useful for specifying options 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).
ChallengeResponseAuthentication
GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
-P sftp_server_path
Connect directly to a local sftp server (rather than via
ssh(1)). This option may be useful in debugging the client and server.
-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 256 outstanding requests providing for 8MB of outstanding data with a 32KB buffer.
-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 for using
sftp over protocol version 1, or when the remote
sshd(8) does not have an sftp subsystem configured.
-v
Raise logging level. This option is also passed to ssh.