SFTP Basic Commands

SSH File Transfer Protocol (also Secure File Transfer Protocol, or SFTP) is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management over a secure channel, such as SSH.

Connect

Enter the username and remote hostname or IP address at the command prompt. Once authentication successful, you will see a shell with an sftp> prompt.

[user@computer1 ~]$ sftp demo@192.168.1.2
demo@192.168.1.2's password:
Connected to demo@192.168.1.2.
sftp>

When using a SSH identity file (private key) for public key authentication:

sftp -i keypair.pem demo@192.168.1.2

Check current directory

lpwd – print the current directory on your local system

sftp> lpwd
Local working directory: /home/livia
sftp>

pwd – print the current directory on the remote server

sftp> pwd
Remote working directory: /home/demo
sftp>

List files

lls – list the files in the current directory on your local system

sftp> lls
 Desktop      lab           py3-venv
 Documents    mail           R
 dotfiles     myserverfile       snap
 Downloads    node_modules       Videos
sftp>

ls – list the files in the current directory on the remote server

sftp> ls
Desktop    Documents  Downloads  Music
Pictures   Videos
sftp>

Download files

get – download one file from remote server

sftp> get remote_file.pem
Fetching /home/demo/remote_file.pem to remote_file.pem
/home/demo 100% 1696   906.8KB/s   00:00
sftp>

mget – download multiple files from remote server

sftp> mget *.csv
Fetching /home/demo/user1_accessKeys.csv to user1_accessKeys.csv
/home/demo 100%   96    73.1KB/s   00:00
Fetching /home/demo/user2_accessKeys.csv to user2_accessKeys.csv
/home/demo 100%   96    67.0KB/s   00:00
sftp>

Upload files

put – upload one file from local computer to the remote server

sftp> put local_file.pem
Uploading local_file.pem to /home/demo/local_file.pem
local_fil 100% 1696    75.2KB/s   00:00
sftp>

mput – upload multiple files from local computer to the remote server

sftp> mput *.csv
Uploading user1_accessKeys.csv to /home/demo/user1_accessKeys.csv
user1_acce 100%   96   129.7KB/s   00:00
Uploading user2_accessKeys.csv to /home/demo/user2_accessKeys.csv
user2_acce 100%   96   132.1KB/s   00:00
sftp>

Change directory

lcd – change the current directory on your local system

sftp> lpwd
Local working directory: /home/livia
sftp> lcd lab/
sftp> lpwd
Local working directory: /home/livia/lab
sftp>

cd – change the current directory on the remote server

sftp> pwd
Remote working directory: /home/demo
sftp> cd Documents/
sftp> pwd
Remote working directory: /home/demo/Documents
sftp>

Exit

exit – exit the remote server sftp session

sftp>
sftp> exit
[user@computer1 ~]$

More about SFTP can be found at the manual page.