Table of Contents
- SSH2 SFTP Client
- Installation
- Basic Usage
- Breaking Changes in Version 4.x
- Enhancements in Version 4.2.x
- Enhancements in Version 4.1.x
- Documentation
- Specifying Paths
- Methods
- new SftpClient(name) ===> SFTP client object
- connect(config) ===> SFTPstream
- list(path, pattern) ==> Array[object]
- exists(path) ==> boolean
- stat(path) ==> object
- get(path, dst, options) ==> String|Stream|Buffer
- fastGet(remotePath, localPath, options) ===> string
- put(src, remotePath, options) ==> string
- fastPut(localPath, remotePath, options) ==> string
- append(input, remotePath, options) ==> string
- mkdir(path, recursive) ==> string
- rmdir(path, recursive) ==> string
- delete(path) ==> string
- rename(fromPath, toPath) ==> string
- chmod(path, mode) ==> string
- realPath(path) ===> string
- cwd() ==> string
- end() ==> boolean
- Add and Remove Listeners
- FAQ
- Remote server drops connections with only an end event
- How can you pass writable stream as dst for get method?
- How can I upload files without having to specify a password?
- How can I connect through a Socks Proxy
- Timeout while waiting for handshake or handshake errors
- Change Log
- v4.3.1 (Prod Version)
- v4.3.0 (Prod Version)
- v4.2.4
- v4.2.3
- v4.2.2
- v4.2.1
- v4.2.0
- v4.1.0
- v4.0.4
- v4.0.3
- v4.0.2
- v4.0.0
- v2.5.2
- v2.5.1
- v2.5.0
- v2.4.3
- v2.4.2
- v2.4.1
- v2.4.0
- v2.3.0
- v3.0.0 – deprecate this version
- v2.1.1
- v2.0.1
- v1.1.0
- v1.0.5:
- Troubleshooting
- Logging Issues
- Pull Requests
- Contributors
SSH2 SFTP Client
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 v4.3.1.
Code has been tested against Node versions 10.17.0 and 12.13.1
Node versions < 10.x are not supported.
Installation
npm install ssh2-sftp-client
Basic Usage
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');
});
Breaking Changes in Version 4.x
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.
Enhancements in Version 4.2.x
- Added ability to set a client name in
Client()
constructor. This can be
useful when creating multiple clients as the client name will be displayed
in error messages, providing a clue as to which client has failed. - Added a work-around for the SSH2 bug which results in only an
end
event
being raised when the remote server drops the connection during the connect
process. (see FAQ section below). - Added additional error checking to prevent attempts to call
connect()
on
an already connected client. While a client can be used to make multiple
connections, you must call end()
before calling connect()
again. Each
client object can only represent a single connection to an SFTP
server. However, some methods, such as fastPut()
and fastGet()
will use
concurrency to speed up the transfer of data. - Added some more examples in the example directory of the repository
Enhancements in Version 4.1.x
- Some of the data upload/download methods would create an empty destination
file when the source file did not exist. This has now been fixed.
- Handling of relative path names was weak and inconsistent. This has now been
made more consistent and reliable. Two new methods
realPath()
and cwd()
have been added - More error checking and provision of error messages with more meaningful
information. Expansion and enhancements of test cases.
Documentation
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.
Specifying Paths
Both ./
and ../
are supported in path specifiers. Tilde (~
) expansion is
not supported. Relative paths i.e. paths which do not start with a /
, will be
considered to be relative to whatever the remote server considers to be the
root
directory of the login. Depending on how the remote SFTP server is
configured, this may not always be what you expect. The module also does some
very basic tests on results returned from the remote server to try and determine
platform type and will replace path separators with whatever the remote systems
uses (e.g. replace /
with \
on MS Windows).
There is a small performance hit for using ./
and ../
as the module must
query the remote server to determine what the root path is and derive the
absolute path. Using absolute paths are therefore more efficient and likely more
robust.
When specifying file paths, ensure to include a full path i.e. include the
remote filename. Don't expect the module to append the local file name to the
path you provide. For example, the following will not work
client.put('/home/fred/test.txt', '/remote/dir');
will not result in the file test.txt
being copied to
/remote/dir/test.txt
. You need to specify the target filename as well e.g.
client.put('/home/fred/test.txt', '/remote/dir/test.txt');
Note that the remote file name does not have to be the same as the local file
name. The following works fine;
client.put('/home/fred/test.txt', '/remote/dir/test-copy.txt');
This will copy the local file test.txt
to the remote file test-copy.txt
in
the directory /remote/dir
.
Methods
new SftpClient(name) ===> SFTP client object
Constructor to create a new ssh2-sftp-client
object. An optional name
string
can be provided, which will be used in error messages to help identify which
client has thrown the error.
-
Constructor Arguments
- name: string. An optional name string used in error messages
-
Example Use
'use strict';
const Client = require('ssh2-sftp-client');
const config = {
host: 'example.com',
username: 'donald',
password: 'my-secret'
};
const sftp = new Client('example-client');
sftp.connect(config)
.then(() => {
return sftp.cwd();
})
.then(p => {
console.log(`Remote working directory is ${p}`);
return sftp.end();
})
.catch(err => {
console.log(`Error: ${err.message}`); // error message will include 'example-client'
});
connect(config) ===> SFTPstream
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'
});
list(path, pattern) ==> Array[object]
Retrieves a directory listing. This method returns a Promise, which once
realised, returns an array of objects representing items in the remote
directory.
- path: {String} Remote directory path
- pattern: (optional) {string|RegExp} A pattern used to filter the items included in the returned
array. Pattern can be a simple glob-style string or a regular
expression. Defaults to
/.*/
.
-
Example Use
const Client = require('ssh2-sftp-client');
const config = {
host: 'example.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.
exists(path) ==> boolean
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: 'example.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);
});
stat(path) ==> object
Returns the attributes associated with the object pointed to by path
.
- path: String. Remote path to directory or file on remote server
-
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
isCharacterDevice: 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);
});
get(path, dst, options) ==> String|Stream|Buffer
Retrieve a file from a remote SFTP server. The dst
argument defines the
destination and can be either a string, a stream object 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 stream object, the remote data
is passed to it via a call to pipe(). 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
better off using the fastGet()
method.
- path: String. Path to the remote file to download
- dst: String|Stream. Destination for the data. If a string, it
should be a local file path.
- options: Options for the
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);
});
- Tip: See examples file in the Git repository for more examples. You can pass
any writeable stream in as the destination. For example, if you pass in
zlib.createGunzip()
writeable stream, you can both download and
decompress a gzip file 'on the fly'.
fastGet(remotePath, localPath, options) ===> string
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.
- remotePath: String. Path to the remote file to download
- localPath: String. Path on local file system for the downloaded file. The
local path should include the filename to use for saving the
file.
- options: Options for
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
}
- Warning: Some servers do not respond correctly to requests to alter chunk
size. This can result in lost or corrupted data.
-
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);
});
put(src, remotePath, options) ==> string
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.
- src: string | buffer | readable stream. Data source for data to copy to the
remote server.
- remotePath: string. Path to the remote file to be created on the server.
- options: object. Options which can be passed to adjust the write stream used
in sending the data to the remote server (see below).
-
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);
});
- Tip: If the src argument is a path string, consider just using
fastPut()
.
fastPut(localPath, remotePath, options) ==> string
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.
- localPath: string. Path to local file to upload
- remotePath: string. Path to remote file to create
- options: object. Options passed to createWriteStream (see below)
-
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
}
- Warning: There have been reports that some SFTP servers will not honour
requests for non-default chunk sizes. This can result in data loss
or corruption.
-
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(input, remotePath, options) ==> string
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.
- input: buffer | readStream. Data to append to remote file
- remotePath: string. Path to remote file
- options: object. Options to pass to writeStream (see below)
-
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);
});
mkdir(path, recursive) ==> string
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.
- path: string. Path to remote directory to create
- recursive: boolean. If true, create any missing directories in the path as
well
-
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);
});
rmdir(path, recursive) ==> string
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.
- path: string. Path to remote directory
- recursive: boolean. If true, remove all files and directories in target
directory. Defaults to false
-
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(path) ==> string
Delete a file on the remote server.
- path: string. Path to remote file to be deleted.
-
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(fromPath, toPath) ==> string
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);
});
chmod(path, mode) ==> string
Change the mode (read, write or execute permissions) of a remote file or
directory.
- path: string. Path to the remote file or directory
- mode: octal. New mode to set for the 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);
});
realPath(path) ===> string
Converts a relative path to an absolute path on the remote server. This method
is mainly used internally to resolve remote path names.
- path: A file path, either relative or absolute
cwd() ==> string
Returns what the server believes is the current remote working directory.
end() ==> boolean
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);
});
Add and Remove Listeners
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
- error: An error occurred. Calls listener with an error argument.
- end: The socket has been disconnected. No argument.
- close: The socket was closed. Boolean argument which is true when the socket
was closed due to errors.
-
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.
FAQ
Remote server drops connections with only an end event
Many SFTP servers have rate limiting protection which will drop connections once
a limit has been reached. In particular, openSSH has the setting MaxStartups
,
which can be a tuple of the form max:drop:full
where max
is the maximum
allowed unauthenticated connections, drop
is a percentage value which
specifies percentage of connections to be dropped once max
connections has
been reached and full
is the number of connections at which point all
subsequent connections will be dropped. e.g. 10:30:60
means allow up to 10
unauthenticated connections after which drop 30% of connection attempts until
reaching 60 unauthenticated connections, at which time, drop all attempts.
Clients first make an unauthenticated connection to the SFTP server to begin
negotiation of protocol settings (cipher, authentication method etc). If you are
creating multiple connections in a script, it is easy to exceed the limit,
resulting in some connections being dropped. As SSH2 only raises an 'end' event
for these dropped connections, no error is detected. The ssh2-sftp-client
now
listens for end
events during the connection process and if one is detected,
will reject the connection promise.
One way to avoid this type of issue is to add a delay between connection
attempts. It does not need to be a very long delay - just sufficient to permit
the previous connection to be authenticated. In fact, the default setting for
openSSH is 10:30:60
, so you really just need to have enough delay to ensure
that the 1st connection has completed authentication before the 11th connection
is attempted.
How can you pass writable stream as dst for get method?
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 writeable 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 them 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);
});
How can I upload files without having to specify a password?
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/key')
}).then(() => {
sftp.fastPut(/* ... */)
}
How can I connect through a Socks Proxy
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
Timeout while waiting for handshake or handshake errors
Some users have encountered the error 'Timeout while waiting for handshake' or
'Handshake failed, no matching client->server ciphers. This is often due to the
client not having the correct configuration for the transport layer algorithms
used by ssh2. One of the connect options provided by the ssh2 module is
algorithm
, which is an object that allows you to explicitly set the key
exchange, ciphers, hmac and compression algorithms as well as server
host key used to establish the initial secure connection. See the SSH2
documentation for details. Getting these parameters correct usually resolves the
issue.
Change Log
v4.3.1 (Prod Version)
- Updated end() method to resolve once close event fires
- Added errorListener to error event in each promise to catch error events
and reject the promise. This should resolve the issue of some error events
causing uncaughtException erros and causing the process to exit.
v4.3.0 (Prod Version)
- Ensure errors include an err.code property and pass through the error code
from the originating error
- Change tests for error type to use
error.code
instead of matching on
error.message
.
v4.2.4
- Bumped ssh2 to v0.8.6
- Added exists() usage example to examples directory
- Clarify documentation on get() method
v4.2.3
- Fix bug in
exist()
where tests on root directory returned false - Minor documentation fixes
- Clean up mkdir example
v4.2.2
- Minor documentation fixes
- Added additional examples in the
example
directory
v4.2.1
- Remove default close listener. changes in ssh2 API removed the utility of a
default close listener
- Fix path handling. Under mixed environments (where client platform and
server platform were different i.e. one windows the other unix), path
handling was broken due tot he use of path.join().
- Ensure error messages include path details. Instead of errors such as "No
such file" now report "No such file /path/to/missing/file" to help with
debugging
v4.2.0
- Work-around for SSH2
end
event bug - Added ability to set client name in constructor method
- Added additional error checking to prevent
connect()
being called on
already connected client - Added additional examples in
example
directory
v4.1.0
- move
end()
call to resolve into close hook - Prevent
put()
and get()
from creating empty files in destination when
unable to read source - Expand tests for operations when lacking required permissions
- Add additional data checks for
append()
- Verify file exists
- Verify file is writeable
- Verify file is a regular file
- Fix handling of relative paths
- Add
realPath()
method - Add
cwd()
method
v4.0.4
- Minor documentation fix
- Fix return value from
get()
v4.0.3
- Fix bug in mkdir() relating to handling of relative paths
- Modify exists() to always return 'd' if path is '.'
v4.0.2
- Fix some minor packaging issues
v4.0.0
- Remove support for node < 8.x
- Fix connection retry feature
- sftp connection object set to null when 'end' signal is raised
- Removed 'connectMethod' argument from connect method.
- Refined adding/removing of listeners in connect() and end() methods to enable
errors to be adequately caught and reported.
- Deprecate auxList() and add pattern/regexp filter option to list()
- Refactored handling of event signals to provide better feedback to clients
- Removed pointless 'permissions' property from objects returned by
stat()
(same as mode property). Added additional properties describing the type of
object. - Added the
removeListener()
method to compliment the existing on()
method.
v2.5.2
- Repository transferred to theophilusx
- Fix error in package.json pointing to wrong repository
v2.5.1
- Apply 4 pull requests to address minor issues prior to transfer
v2.5.0
v2.4.3
- merge #108, #110
- fix connect promise if connection ends
v2.4.2
v2.4.1
v2.4.0
- Requires node.js v7.5.0 or above.
- merge pr #97, thanks for @theophilusx
- Remove emitter.maxListener warnings
- Upgraded ssh2 dependency from 0.5.5 to 0.6.1
- Enhanced error messages to provide more context and to be more consistent
- re-factored test
- Added new 'exists' method and re-factored mkdir/rmdir
v2.3.0
- add:
stat
method - add
fastGet
and fastPut
method. - fix:
mkdir
file exists decision logic
v3.0.0 – deprecate this version
- change:
sftp.get
will return chunk not stream anymore - fix: get readable not emitting data events in node 10.0.0
v2.1.1
- add: event listener. doc
- add:
get
or put
method add extra options pr#52
v2.0.1
- add:
chmod
method pr#33 - update: upgrade ssh2 to V0.5.0 pr#30
- fix: get method stream error reject unwork #22
- fix: return Error object on promise rejection pr#20
v1.1.0
- fix: add encoding control support for binary stream
v1.0.5:
- fix: multi image upload
- change: remove
this.client.sftp
to connect
function
Troubleshooting
The ssh2-sftp-client
module is essentially a wrapper around the ssh2
and
ssh2-streams
modules, providing a higher level promise
based API. When you
run into issues, it is important to try and determine where the issue lies -
either in the ssh2-sftp-client module or the underlying ssh2
and
ssh2-streams
modules. One way to do this is to first identify a minimal
reproducible example which reproduces the issue. Once you have that, try to
replicate the functionality just using the ssh2
and ssh2-streams
modules. If
the issue still occurs, then you can be fairly confident it is something related
to those later 2 modules and therefore and issue which should be referred to the
maintainer of that module.
The ssh2
and ssh2-streams
modules are very solid, high quality modules with
a large user base. Most of the time, issues with those modules are due to client
misconfiguration. It is therefore very important when trying to diagnose an
issue to also check the documentation for both ssh2
and ssh2-streams
. While
these modules have good defaults, the flexibility of the ssh2 protocol means
that not all options are available by default. You may need to tweak the
connection options, ssh2 algorithms and ciphers etc for some remote servers. The
documentation for both the ssh2
and ssh2-streams
module is quite
comprehensive and there is lots of valuable information in the issue logs.
If you run into an issue which is not repeatable with just the ssh2
and
ssh2-streams
modules, then please log an issue against the ssh2-sftp-client
module and I will investigate. Please note the next section on logging issues.
Note also that in the repository there are two useful directories. The first is
the examples directory, which contain some examples of using ssh2-sftp-client
to perform common tasks. A few minutes reviewing these examples can provide that
additional bit of detail to help fix any problems you are encountering.
The second directory is the tools directory. I have some very basic simple
scripts in this directory which perform basic tasks using only the ssh2
and
ssh2-streams
modules (no ssh2-sftp-client module). These can be useful when
trying to determine if the issue is with the underlying ssh2
and
ssh2-streams
modules.
Logging Issues
Please log an issue for all bugs, questions, feature and enhancement
requests. Please ensure you include the module version, node version and
platform.
I am happy to try and help diagnose and fix any issues you encounter while using
the ssh2-sftp-client
module. However, I will only put in effort if you are
prepared to put in the effort to provide the information necessary to reproduce
the issue. Things which will help
- Node version you are using
- Version of ssh2-sftp-client you are using
- Platform your client is running on (Linux, macOS, Windows)
- Platform and software for the remote SFTP server when possible
- Example of your code. By far, the most common issue is incorrect use of the
module API. Example code can usually result in such issues being resolved very
quickly.
Perhaps the best assistance is a minimal reproducible example of the issue. Once
the issue can be readily reproduced, it can usually be fixed very quickly.
Pull Requests
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.
- Major: Change to API or major change in functionality which will require an
increase in major version number.
- Minor: Minor change, enhancement or new feature which does not change
existing API and will not break existing client code.
- Bug Fix: No change to functionality or features. Simple fix of an existing
bug.
Contributors
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.
- jyu213: Original author
- theophilusx: Current maintainer
- henrytk: Documentation fix
- waldyrious: Documentation fixes