Basic SFTP commands
(From http://www.tecmint.com/sftp-command-examples/)
1. Getting Help
Once, you in the sftp prompt, check the available commands by typing ‘?‘ or ‘help‘ at command prompt. This will print out a list of the available commands and give a short description of them. We'll cover the most common ones in this guide.
sftp> ? Available commands: cd path Change remote directory to 'path' ... ... ...
2. Check Present Working Directory
The command ‘lpwd‘ is used to check the Local present working directory, whereas ‘pwd‘ command is used to check Remote working directory.
sftp> lpwd Local working directory: / sftp> pwd Remote working directory: /tecmint/ lpwd – print the current directory on your system pwd – print the current directory on the ftp server
3. Listing Files
Listing files and directories in local as well as remote system.
On Remote
sftp> ls
On Local
sftp> lls
4. Upload File
Put single or multiple files in remote system.
sftp> put local.profile
Uploading local.profile to /tecmint/local.profile
5. Upload Mutiple Files
Putting multiple files on remote system.
sftp> mput *.xls
Another alternative to uploading many files is to tar and/or compress the files to a single file before uploading. The file transfer will stop in between every file, so the more file you have to upload the more stops it will make. This can have a dramatic impact on transfer speed if there are 1000s of files that you want to transfer. Running tar and/or zip on the files before transferring them will package all the files into a single file, so there will be no stops at all during the transfer.
6. Download Files
Getting single or multiple files in local system.
sftp> get SettlementReport_1-10th.xls
Fetching /tecmint/SettlementReport_1-10th.xls to SettlementReport_1-10th.xls Get multiple files on a local system.
sftp> mget *.xls
Note: As we can see by default the get command downloads the file to the local system with the same name. We can download remote file and store it with a different name by specifying the name at the end. (This applies only while downloading single file).
7. Switching Directories
Switching from one directory to another directory in local and remote locations.
On Remote
sftp> cd test
On Local
sftp> lcd Documents
8. Create Directories
Creating new directories on remote and local locations.
sftp> mkdir test sftp> lmkdir Documents
9. Remove Directory or File
Remove directory or file in remote system.
sftp> rm Report.xls sftp> rmdir sub1
Note: To remove/delete any directory from remote location, the directory must be empty.
10. Exit sFTP Shell
The ‘!‘ (exclamation mark) command drops us in local shell from where we can execute Linux commands. Type ‘exit‘ command where we can see sftp> prompt return.
sftp> ! [root@sftp ~]# exit Shell exited with status 1 sftp>