ssh2-sftp-client
Advanced tools
The ssh2-sftp-client npm package is a promise-based SFTP client for Node.js, built on top of the ssh2 module. It provides a simple and easy-to-use interface for performing various SFTP operations such as uploading, downloading, listing, and deleting files on a remote server.
Connecting to an SFTP server
This feature allows you to establish a connection to an SFTP server using the provided host, port, username, and password.
const Client = require('ssh2-sftp-client');
const sftp = new Client();
sftp.connect({
host: 'example.com',
port: '22',
username: 'username',
password: 'password'
}).then(() => {
console.log('Connected');
}).catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});Uploading a file
This feature allows you to upload a file from your local system to the remote SFTP server.
sftp.put('local/path/to/file.txt', 'remote/path/to/file.txt').then(() => {
console.log('File uploaded');
}).catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});Downloading a file
This feature allows you to download a file from the remote SFTP server to your local system.
sftp.get('remote/path/to/file.txt', 'local/path/to/file.txt').then(() => {
console.log('File downloaded');
}).catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});Listing files in a directory
This feature allows you to list all files and directories in a specified remote directory.
sftp.list('remote/path/to/directory').then(data => {
console.log(data);
}).catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});Deleting a file
This feature allows you to delete a specified file from the remote SFTP server.
sftp.delete('remote/path/to/file.txt').then(() => {
console.log('File deleted');
}).catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});The ssh2 package is a general-purpose SSH2 client and server module for Node.js. It provides a lower-level API compared to ssh2-sftp-client, allowing for more granular control over SSH and SFTP operations. However, it requires more boilerplate code to accomplish the same tasks.
The node-sftp package is another SFTP client for Node.js. It offers similar functionalities to ssh2-sftp-client but is less popular and has fewer features. It is also not as actively maintained as ssh2-sftp-client.
The scp2 package is a client for SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) in Node.js. While it provides functionalities for transferring files over SSH, it is limited to SCP and does not support the full range of SFTP operations that ssh2-sftp-client does.
an SFTP client for node.js, a wrapper around SSH2 which provides a high level convenience abstraction as well as a Promise based API.
Documentation on the methods and available options in the underlying modules can be found on the SSH2 and SSH2-STREAMS project pages.
Current stable release is v4.0.3.
Code has been tested against Node versions 8.16.1, 10.16.3 and 12.9.1
Node versions < 8.x are not supported.
npm install ssh2-sftp-client
let Client = require('ssh2-sftp-client');
let sftp = new Client();
sftp.connect({
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: '8080',
username: 'username',
password: '******'
}).then(() => {
return sftp.list('/pathname');
}).then(data => {
console.log(data, 'the data info');
}).catch(err => {
console.log(err, 'catch error');
});
There has been minor changes to the API signatures
The connect() method no longer accepts a 'connectMethod' argument. It was
not clear what this argument was for or what it did.
Additional options are now available in the configure object passed to the
connect() method to control the connection retry functionality.
Node versions before 8.x are no longer supported.
Error message formats have changed. While they are now more consistent, if you have code which parses the messages, it will need to be updated.
The auxList() method is deprecated. An additional optional pattern
argument has been added to the list() method to facilitate filtering of
results returned by list(). Both 'glob' and regexp pattern styles are
supported.
The properties returned by the stat() method have changed. The permissions
property has been removed as it contained the same information as the mode
property. New properties isDirectory, isFile, isBlockDevice,
isCharacterDevice, isSymbolicLink, isFIFO and isSocket have been added.
The connection options are the same as those offered by the underlying SSH2 module. For full details, please see SSH2 client methods
All the methods will return a Promise, except for on() and
removeListener(), which are typically only used in special use cases.
Connect to an sftp server. Full documentation for connection options is available here
Connection Options
This module is based on the excellent SSH2 module. That module is a general SSH2
client and server library and provides much more functionality than just SFTP
connectivity. Many of the connect options provided by that module are less
relevant for SFTP connections. It is recommended you keep the config options to
the minimum needed and stick to the options listed in the commonOpts below.
The retries, retry_factor and retry_minTimeout options are not part of the
SSH2 module. These are part of the configuration for the retry package and what
is used to enable retrying of sftp connection attempts. See the documentation
for that package for an explanation of these values.
// common options
let commonOpts {
host: 'localhost', // string Hostname or IP of server.
port: 22, // Port number of the server.
forceIPv4: false, // boolean (optional) Only connect via IPv4 address
forceIPv6: false, // boolean (optional) Only connect via IPv6 address
username: 'donald', // string Username for authentication.
password: 'borsch', // string Password for password-based user authentication
agent: process.env.SSH_AGENT, // string - Path to ssh-agent's UNIX socket
privateKey: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/key'), // Buffer or string that contains
passphrase; 'a pass phrase', // string - For an encrypted private key
readyTimeout: 20000, // integer How long (in ms) to wait for the SSH handshake
strictVendor: true // boolean - Performs a strict server vendor check
debug: myDebug // function - Set this to a function that receives a single
// string argument to get detailed (local) debug information.
retries: 2 // integer. Number of times to retry connecting
retry_factor: 2 // integer. Time factor used to calculate time between retries
retry_minTimeout: 2000 // integer. Minimum timeout between attempts
};
// rarely used options
let advancedOpts {
localAddress,
localPort,
hostHash,
hostVerifier,
agentForward,
localHostname,
localUsername,
tryKeyboard,
authHandler,
keepaliveInterval,
keepaliveCountMax,
sock,
algorithms,
compress
};
Example Use
sftp.connect({
host: example.com,
port: 22,
username: 'donald',
password: 'youarefired'
});
Retrieves a directory listing. This method returns a Promise, which once realised, returns an array of objects representing items in the remote directory.
/.*/.Example Use
const Client = require('ssh2-sftp-client');
const config = {
host: 'exmaple.com',
port: 22,
username: 'red-don',
password: 'my-secret'
};
let sftp = new Client;
sftp.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return sftp.list('/path/to/remote/dir');
})
.then(data => {
console.log(data);
})
.then(() => {
sftp.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Return Objects
The objects in the array returned by list() have the following properties;
{
type: // file type(-, d, l)
name: // file name
size: // file size
modifyTime: // file timestamp of modified time
accessTime: // file timestamp of access time
rights: {
user:
group:
other:
},
owner: // user ID
group: // group ID
}
Pattern Filter
The filter options can be a regular expression (most powerful option) or a simple glob like string where * will match any number of characters e.g
foo* => foo, foobar, foobaz
*bar => bar, foobar, tabbar
*oo* => foo, foobar, look, book
The glob style matching is very simple. In most cases, you are best off using a real regular expression which will allow you to do more powerful matching and anchor matches to the beginning/end of the string etc.
Tests to see if remote file or directory exists. Returns type of remote object if it exists or false if it does not.
Example Use
const Client = require('ssh2-sftp-client');
const config = {
host: 'exmaple.com',
port: 22,
username: 'red-don',
password: 'my-secret'
};
let sftp = new Client;
sftp.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return sftp.exists('/path/to/remote/dir');
})
.then(data => {
console.log(data); // will be false or d, -, l (dir, file or link)
})
.then(() => {
sftp.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Returns the attributes associated with the object pointed to by path.
Attributes
The stat() method returns an object with the following properties;
let stats = {
mode: 33279, // integer representing type and permissions
uid: 1000, // user ID
gid: 985, // group ID
size: 5, // file size
accessTime: 1566868566000, // Last access time. milliseconds
modifyTime: 1566868566000, // last modify time. milliseconds
isDirectory: false, // true if object is a directory
isFile: true, // true if object is a file
isBlockDevice: false, // true if object is a block device
isCharcterDevice: false, // true if object is a character device
isSymbolicLink: false, // true if object is a symbolic link
isFIFO: false, // true if object is a FIFO
isSocket: false // true if object is a socket
};
Example Use
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.stat('/path/to/remote/file');
})
.then(data => {
// do something with data
})
.then(() => {
client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Retrieve a file from a remote SFTP server. The dst argument defines the
destination and can be either a string, a writeable stream or undefined. If it
is a string, it is interpreted as the path to a location on the local file
system (path should include the file name). If it is a writeable stream, the
remote data is piped into that stream. If dst is undefined, the method will
put the data into a buffer and return that buffer when the Promise is
resolved. If dst is defined, it is returned when the Promise is resolved.
In general, if your going to pass in a string as the destination, you are
probably better off using the fastGet() method.
get() command (see below).Options
The options object can be used to pass options to the underlying readStream used to read the data from the remote server.
{ flags: 'r',
encoding: null,
handle: null,
mode: 0o666,
autoClose: true
}
Most of the time, you won't want to use any options. Sometimes, it may be useful to set the encoding. For example, to 'utf-8'. However, it is important not to do this for binary files to avoid data corruption.
Example Use
let client = new Client();
let remotePath = '/remote/server/path/file.txt';
let dst = fs.createWriteStream('/local/file/path/copy.txt');
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.get(remotePath, dst);
})
.then(() => {
client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
zlib.createGunzip() writeable stream, you can both download and
decompress a gzip file 'on the fly'.Downloads a file at remotePath to localPath using parallel reads for faster throughput. This is the simplest method if you just want to download a file.
fastGet() (see below)OPtions
{
concurrency: 64, // integer. Number of concurrent reads to use
chunkSize: 32768, // integer. Size of each read in bytes
step: function(total_transferred, chunk, total) // callback called each time a
// chunk is transferred
}
Sample Use
let client = new Client();
let remotePath = '/server/path/file.txt';
let localPath = '/local/path/file.txt';
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
client.fastGet(remotePath, localPath);
})
.then(() => {
client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Upload data from local system to remote server. If the src argument is a
string, it is interpreted as a local file path to be used for the data to
transfer. If the src argument is a buffer, the contents of the buffer are
copied to the remote file and if it is a readable stream, the contents of that
stream are piped to the remotePath on the server.
Options
The following options are supported;
{
flags: 'w', // w - write and a - append
encoding: null, // use null for binary files
mode: 0o666, // mode to use for created file (rwx)
autoClose: true // automatically close the write stream when finished
}
The most common options to use are mode and encoding. The values shown above are the defaults. You do not have to set encoding to utf-8 for text files, null is fine for all file types. However, using utf-8 encoding for binary files will often result in data corruption.
Example Use
let client = new Client();
let data = fs.createReadStream('/path/to/local/file.txt');
let remote = '/path/to/remote/file.txt';
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.put(data, remote);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
fastPut().Uploads the data in file at localPath to a new file on remote server at
remotePath using concurrency. The options object allows tweaking of the fast put process.
Options
{
concurrency: 64, // integer. Number of concurrent reads
chunkSize: 32768, // integer. Size of each read in bytes
mode: 0o755, // mixed. Integer or string representing the file mode to set
step: function(total_transferred, chunk, total) // function. Called every time
// a part of a file was transferred
}
Example Use
let localFile = '/path/to/file.txt';
let remoteFile = '/path/to/remote/file.txt';
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
client.fastPut(localFile, remoteFile);
})
.then(() => {
client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Append the input data to an existing remote file. There is no integrity
checking performed apart from normal writeStream checks. This function simply
opens a writeStream on the remote file in append mode and writes the data passed
in to the file.
Options
The following options are supported;
{
flags: 'a', // w - write and a - append
encoding: null, // use null for binary files
mode: 0o666, // mode to use for created file (rwx)
autoClose: true // automatically close the write stream when finished
}
The most common options to use are mode and encoding. The values shown above are the defaults. You do not have to set encoding to utf-8 for text files, null is fine for all file types. Generally, I would not attempt to append binary files.
Example Use
let remotePath = '/path/to/remote/file.txt';
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.append(Buffer.from('Hello world'), remotePath);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Create a new directory. If the recursive flag is set to true, the method will create any directories in the path which do not already exist. Recursive flag defaults to false.
Example Use
let remoteDir = '/path/to/new/dir';
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.mkdir(remoteDir, true);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Remove a directory. If removing a directory and recursive flag is set to
true, the specified directory and all sub-directories and files will be
deleted. If set to false and the directory has sub-directories or files, the
action will fail.
Example Use
let remoteDir = '/path/to/remote/dir';
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.rmdir(remoteDir, true);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Delete a file on the remote server.
Example Use
let remoteFile = '/path/to/remote/file.txt';
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.delete(remoteFile);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Rename a file or directory from fromPath to toPath. You must have the
necessary permissions to modify the remote file.
Example Use
let from = '/remote/path/to/old.txt';
let to = '/remote/path/to/new.txt';
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.rename(from, to);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Change the mode (read, write or execute permissions) of a remote file or directory.
Example Use
let path = '/path/to/remote/file.txt';
let ndwMode = 0o644; // rw-r-r
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return client.chmod(path, newMode);
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Ends the current client session, releasing the client socket and associated resources. This function also removes all listeners associated with the client.
Example Use
let client = new Client();
client.connect(config)
.then(() => {
// do some sftp stuff
})
.then(() => {
return client.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
Although normally not required, you can add and remove custom listeners on the ssh2 client object. This object supports a number of events, but only a few of them have any meaning in the context of SFTP. These are
on(eventType, listener)
Adds the specified listener to the specified event type. It the event type is
error, the listener should accept 1 argument, which will be an Error object. If
the event type is close, the listener should accept one argument of a boolean
type, which will be true when the client connection was closed due to errors.
removeListener(eventType, listener)
Removes the specified listener from the event specified in eventType. Note that
the end() method automatically removes all listeners from the client object.
If the dst argument passed to the get method is a writeable stream, the remote
file will be piped into that writeable. If the writeable you pass in is a
writeable stream created with fs.createWriteStream(), the data will be written
to the file specified in the constructor call to createWriteStream().
The wrteable stream can be any type of write stream. For example, the below code
will convert all the characters in the remote file to upper case before it is
saved to the local file system. This could just as easily be something like a
gunzip stream from zlib, enabling you to decompress remote zipped files as you
bring thenm across before saving to local file system.
'use strict';
// Example of using a writeable with get to retrieve a file.
// This code will read the remote file, convert all characters to upper case
// and then save it to a local file
const Client = require('../src/index.js');
const path = require('path');
const fs = require('fs');
const through = require('through2');
const config = {
host: 'arch-vbox',
port: 22,
username: 'tim',
password: 'xxxx'
};
const sftp = new Client();
const remoteDir = '/home/tim/testServer';
function toupper() {
return through(function(buf, enc, next) {
next(null, buf.toString().toUpperCase());
});
}
sftp
.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return sftp.list(remoteDir);
})
.then(data => {
// list of files in testServer
console.dir(data);
let remoteFile = path.join(remoteDir, 'test.txt');
let upperWtr = toupper();
let fileWtr = fs.createWriteStream(path.join(__dirname, 'loud-text.txt'));
upperWtr.pipe(fileWtr);
return sftp.get(remoteFile, upperWtr);
})
.then(() => {
return sftp.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.error(err.message);
});
There are a couple of ways to do this. Essentially, you want to setup SSH keys and use these for authentication to the remote server.
One solution, provided by @KalleVuorjoki is to use the SSH agent process. Note: SSHAUTHSOCK is normally created by your OS when you load the ssh-agent as part of the login session.
let sftp = new Client();
sftp.connect({
host: 'YOUR-HOST',
port: 'YOUR-PORT',
username: 'YOUR-USERNAME',
agent: process.env.SSH_AUTH_SOCK
}).then(() => {
sftp.fastPut(....)
}
Another alternative is to just pass in the SSH key directly as part of the configuration.
let sftp = new Client();
sftp.connect({
host: 'YOUR-HOST',
port: 'YOUR-PORT',
username: 'YOUR-USERNAME',
privateKey: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/ssh/ke')
}).then(() => {
sftp.fastPut(.....)
}
This solution was provided by @jmorino.
import { SocksClient } from 'socks';
import SFTPClient from 'ssh2-sftp-client';
const host = 'my-sftp-server.net';
const port = 22; // default SSH/SFTP port on remote server
// connect to SOCKS 5 proxy
const { socket } = await SocksClient.createConnection({
proxy: {
host: 'my.proxy', // proxy hostname
port: 1080, // proxy port
type: 5, // for SOCKS v5
},
command: 'connect',
destination: { host, port } // the remote SFTP server
});
const client = new SFTPClient();
client.connect({
host,
sock: socket, // pass the socket to proxy here (see ssh2 doc)
username: '.....',
privateKey: '.....'
})
// client is connected
get()stat()
(same as mode property). Added additional properties describing the type of
object.removeListener() method to compliment the existing on() method.Please log an issue for all bugs, questions, feature and enhancement requests. Please ensure you include the module version, node version and platform.
Pull requests are always welcomed. However, please ensure your changes pass all tests and if your adding a new feature, that tests for that feature are included. Likewise, for new features or enhancements, please include any relevant documentation updates.
This module will adopt a standard semantic versioning policy. Please indicate in your pull request what level of change it represents i.e.
This module was initially written by jyu213. On August 23rd, 2019, theophilusx took over responsibility for maintaining this module. A number of other people have contributed to this module, but until now, this was not tracked. My intention is to credit anyone who contributes going forward.
FAQs
ssh2 sftp client for node
The npm package ssh2-sftp-client receives a total of 507,923 weekly downloads. As such, ssh2-sftp-client popularity was classified as popular.
We found that ssh2-sftp-client demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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