Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

SFTP (Secure FTP)

SFTP is a file transfer system that runs on the top of an SSH connection and emulates an FTP interface. It requires an SSH server on the remote system instead of an FTP server. It provides an interactive session with an sftp prompt.

Sftp supports the same commands as ftp and lftp.

To start an sftp session, use the following command:

$ sftp user@domainname 

Similar to lftp, an sftp session can be terminated by typing the quit command.

Sometimes, the SSH server will not be running at the default port 22. If it is running at a different port, we can specify the port along with sftp as -oPort=PORTNO. Consider this example:

$ sftp -oPort=422 [e-mail] 

-oPort should be the first argument of the sftp command.