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SFTP

class paramiko.sftp_client.SFTP(sock)

An alias for SFTPClient for backwards compatibility.

class paramiko.sftp_client.SFTPClient(sock)

SFTP client object.

Used to open an SFTP session across an open SSH Transport and perform remote file operations.

Instances of this class may be used as context managers.

__init__(sock)

Create an SFTP client from an existing Channel. The channel should already have requested the "sftp" subsystem.

An alternate way to create an SFTP client context is by using from_transport.

Parameters
sock (Channel) -- an open Channel using the "sftp" subsystem
Raises
SSHException -- if there's an exception while negotiating sftp
chdir(path=None)

Change the "current directory" of this SFTP session. Since SFTP doesn't really have the concept of a current working directory, this is emulated by Paramiko. Once you use this method to set a working directory, all operations on this SFTPClient object will be relative to that path. You can pass in None to stop using a current working directory.

Parameters
path (str) -- new current working directory
Raises
IOError -- if the requested path doesn't exist on the server

New in version 1.4.

chmod(path, mode)

Change the mode (permissions) of a file. The permissions are unix-style and identical to those used by Python's os.chmod function.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- path of the file to change the permissions of
  • mode (int) -- new permissions
chown(path, uid, gid)

Change the owner (uid) and group (gid) of a file. As with Python's os.chown function, you must pass both arguments, so if you only want to change one, use stat first to retrieve the current owner and group.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- path of the file to change the owner and group of
  • uid (int) -- new owner's uid
  • gid (int) -- new group id
close()

Close the SFTP session and its underlying channel.

New in version 1.4.

file(filename, mode='r', bufsize=-1)

Open a file on the remote server. The arguments are the same as for Python's built-in file (aka open). A file-like object is returned, which closely mimics the behavior of a normal Python file object, including the ability to be used as a context manager.

The mode indicates how the file is to be opened: 'r' for reading, 'w' for writing (truncating an existing file), 'a' for appending, 'r+' for reading/writing, 'w+' for reading/writing (truncating an existing file), 'a+' for reading/appending. The Python 'b' flag is ignored, since SSH treats all files as binary. The 'U' flag is supported in a compatible way.

Since 1.5.2, an 'x' flag indicates that the operation should only succeed if the file was created and did not previously exist. This has no direct mapping to Python's file flags, but is commonly known as the O_EXCL flag in posix.

The file will be buffered in standard Python style by default, but can be altered with the bufsize parameter. 0 turns off buffering, 1 uses line buffering, and any number greater than 1 (>1) uses that specific buffer size.

Parameters
  • filename (str) -- name of the file to open
  • mode (str) -- mode (Python-style) to open in
  • bufsize (int) -- desired buffering (-1 = default buffer size)
Returns
an SFTPFile object representing the open file
Raises
IOError -- if the file could not be opened.
classmethod from_transport(t, window_size=None, max_packet_size=None)

Create an SFTP client channel from an open Transport.

Setting the window and packet sizes might affect the transfer speed. The default settings in the Transport class are the same as in OpenSSH and should work adequately for both files transfers and interactive sessions.

Parameters
Returns
a new SFTPClient object, referring to an sftp session (channel) across the transport

Changed in version 1.15: Added the window_size and max_packet_size arguments.

get(remotepath, localpath, callback=None)

Copy a remote file (remotepath) from the SFTP server to the local host as localpath. Any exception raised by operations will be passed through. This method is primarily provided as a convenience.

Parameters
  • remotepath (str) -- the remote file to copy
  • localpath (str) -- the destination path on the local host
  • callback (callable) -- optional callback function (form: func(int, int)) that accepts the bytes transferred so far and the total bytes to be transferred

New in version 1.4.

Changed in version 1.7.4: Added the callback param

get_channel()

Return the underlying Channel object for this SFTP session. This might be useful for doing things like setting a timeout on the channel.

New in version 1.7.1.

getcwd()

Return the "current working directory" for this SFTP session, as emulated by Paramiko. If no directory has been set with chdir, this method will return None.

New in version 1.4.

getfo(remotepath, fl, callback=None)

Copy a remote file (remotepath) from the SFTP server and write to an open file or file-like object, fl. Any exception raised by operations will be passed through. This method is primarily provided as a convenience.

Parameters
  • remotepath (object) -- opened file or file-like object to copy to
  • fl (str) -- the destination path on the local host or open file object
  • callback (callable) -- optional callback function (form: func(int, int)) that accepts the bytes transferred so far and the total bytes to be transferred
Returns
the number of bytes written to the opened file object

New in version 1.10.

listdir(path='.')

Return a list containing the names of the entries in the given path.

The list is in arbitrary order. It does not include the special entries '.' and '..' even if they are present in the folder. This method is meant to mirror os.listdir as closely as possible. For a list of full SFTPAttributes objects, see listdir_attr.

Parameters
path (str) -- path to list (defaults to '.')
listdir_attr(path='.')

Return a list containing SFTPAttributes objects corresponding to files in the given path. The list is in arbitrary order. It does not include the special entries '.' and '..' even if they are present in the folder.

The returned SFTPAttributes objects will each have an additional field: longname, which may contain a formatted string of the file's attributes, in unix format. The content of this string will probably depend on the SFTP server implementation.

Parameters
path (str) -- path to list (defaults to '.')
Returns
list of SFTPAttributes objects

New in version 1.2.

listdir_iter(path='.', read_aheads=50)

Generator version of listdir_attr.

See the API docs for listdir_attr for overall details.

This function adds one more kwarg on top of listdir_attr: read_aheads, an integer controlling how many SSH_FXP_READDIR requests are made to the server. The default of 50 should suffice for most file listings as each request/response cycle may contain multiple files (dependent on server implementation.)

New in version 1.15.

lstat(path)

Retrieve information about a file on the remote system, without following symbolic links (shortcuts). This otherwise behaves exactly the same as stat.

Parameters
path (str) -- the filename to stat
Returns
an SFTPAttributes object containing attributes about the given file
mkdir(path, mode=511)

Create a folder (directory) named path with numeric mode mode. The default mode is 0777 (octal). On some systems, mode is ignored. Where it is used, the current umask value is first masked out.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- name of the folder to create
  • mode (int) -- permissions (posix-style) for the newly-created folder
normalize(path)

Return the normalized path (on the server) of a given path. This can be used to quickly resolve symbolic links or determine what the server is considering to be the "current folder" (by passing '.' as path).

Parameters
path (str) -- path to be normalized
Returns
normalized form of the given path (as a str)
Raises
IOError -- if the path can't be resolved on the server
open(filename, mode='r', bufsize=-1)

Open a file on the remote server. The arguments are the same as for Python's built-in file (aka open). A file-like object is returned, which closely mimics the behavior of a normal Python file object, including the ability to be used as a context manager.

The mode indicates how the file is to be opened: 'r' for reading, 'w' for writing (truncating an existing file), 'a' for appending, 'r+' for reading/writing, 'w+' for reading/writing (truncating an existing file), 'a+' for reading/appending. The Python 'b' flag is ignored, since SSH treats all files as binary. The 'U' flag is supported in a compatible way.

Since 1.5.2, an 'x' flag indicates that the operation should only succeed if the file was created and did not previously exist. This has no direct mapping to Python's file flags, but is commonly known as the O_EXCL flag in posix.

The file will be buffered in standard Python style by default, but can be altered with the bufsize parameter. 0 turns off buffering, 1 uses line buffering, and any number greater than 1 (>1) uses that specific buffer size.

Parameters
  • filename (str) -- name of the file to open
  • mode (str) -- mode (Python-style) to open in
  • bufsize (int) -- desired buffering (-1 = default buffer size)
Returns
an SFTPFile object representing the open file
Raises
IOError -- if the file could not be opened.
posix_rename(oldpath, newpath)

Rename a file or folder from oldpath to newpath, following posix conventions.

Parameters
  • oldpath (str) -- existing name of the file or folder
  • newpath (str) -- new name for the file or folder, will be overwritten if it already exists
Raises
IOError -- if newpath is a folder, posix-rename is not supported by the server or something else goes wrong
Versionadded
2.2
put(localpath, remotepath, callback=None, confirm=True)

Copy a local file (localpath) to the SFTP server as remotepath. Any exception raised by operations will be passed through. This method is primarily provided as a convenience.

The SFTP operations use pipelining for speed.

Parameters
  • localpath (str) -- the local file to copy
  • remotepath (str) -- the destination path on the SFTP server. Note that the filename should be included. Only specifying a directory may result in an error.
  • callback (callable) -- optional callback function (form: func(int, int)) that accepts the bytes transferred so far and the total bytes to be transferred
  • confirm (bool) -- whether to do a stat() on the file afterwards to confirm the file size
Returns
an SFTPAttributes object containing attributes about the given file

New in version 1.4.

Changed in version 1.7.4: callback and rich attribute return value added.

Changed in version 1.7.7: confirm param added.

putfo(fl, remotepath, file_size=0, callback=None, confirm=True)

Copy the contents of an open file object (fl) to the SFTP server as remotepath. Any exception raised by operations will be passed through.

The SFTP operations use pipelining for speed.

Parameters
  • fl -- opened file or file-like object to copy
  • remotepath (str) -- the destination path on the SFTP server
  • file_size (int) -- optional size parameter passed to callback. If none is specified, size defaults to 0
  • callback (callable) -- optional callback function (form: func(int, int)) that accepts the bytes transferred so far and the total bytes to be transferred (since 1.7.4)
  • confirm (bool) -- whether to do a stat() on the file afterwards to confirm the file size (since 1.7.7)
Returns
an SFTPAttributes object containing attributes about the given file.

New in version 1.10.

Return the target of a symbolic link (shortcut). You can use symlink to create these. The result may be either an absolute or relative pathname.

Parameters
path (str) -- path of the symbolic link file
Returns
target path, as a str
remove(path)

Remove the file at the given path. This only works on files; for removing folders (directories), use rmdir.

Parameters
path (str) -- path (absolute or relative) of the file to remove
Raises
IOError -- if the path refers to a folder (directory)
rename(oldpath, newpath)

Rename a file or folder from oldpath to newpath.

Parameters
  • oldpath (str) -- existing name of the file or folder
  • newpath (str) -- new name for the file or folder, must not exist already
Raises
IOError -- if newpath is a folder, or something else goes wrong
rmdir(path)

Remove the folder named path.

Parameters
path (str) -- name of the folder to remove
stat(path)

Retrieve information about a file on the remote system. The return value is an object whose attributes correspond to the attributes of Python's stat structure as returned by os.stat, except that it contains fewer fields. An SFTP server may return as much or as little info as it wants, so the results may vary from server to server.

Unlike a Python stat object, the result may not be accessed as a tuple. This is mostly due to the author's slack factor.

The fields supported are: st_mode, st_size, st_uid, st_gid, st_atime, and st_mtime.

Parameters
path (str) -- the filename to stat
Returns
an SFTPAttributes object containing attributes about the given file

Create a symbolic link to the source path at destination.

Parameters
  • source (str) -- path of the original file
  • dest (str) -- path of the newly created symlink
truncate(path, size)

Change the size of the file specified by path. This usually extends or shrinks the size of the file, just like the truncate method on Python file objects.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- path of the file to modify
  • size (int) -- the new size of the file

Remove the file at the given path. This only works on files; for removing folders (directories), use rmdir.

Parameters
path (str) -- path (absolute or relative) of the file to remove
Raises
IOError -- if the path refers to a folder (directory)
utime(path, times)

Set the access and modified times of the file specified by path. If times is None, then the file's access and modified times are set to the current time. Otherwise, times must be a 2-tuple of numbers, of the form (atime, mtime), which is used to set the access and modified times, respectively. This bizarre API is mimicked from Python for the sake of consistency -- I apologize.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- path of the file to modify
  • times (tuple) -- None or a tuple of (access time, modified time) in standard internet epoch time (seconds since 01 January 1970 GMT)

Server-mode SFTP support.

class paramiko.sftp_server.SFTPServer(channel, name, server, sftp_si=<class 'paramiko.sftp_si.SFTPServerInterface'>, *largs, **kwargs)

Server-side SFTP subsystem support. Since this is a SubsystemHandler, it can be (and is meant to be) set as the handler for "sftp" requests. Use Transport.set_subsystem_handler to activate this class.

__init__(channel, name, server, sftp_si=<class 'paramiko.sftp_si.SFTPServerInterface'>, *largs, **kwargs)

The constructor for SFTPServer is meant to be called from within the Transport as a subsystem handler. server and any additional parameters or keyword parameters are passed from the original call to Transport.set_subsystem_handler.

Parameters
  • channel (Channel) -- channel passed from the Transport.
  • name (str) -- name of the requested subsystem.
  • server (ServerInterface) -- the server object associated with this channel and subsystem
  • sftp_si -- a subclass of SFTPServerInterface to use for handling individual requests.
static convert_errno(e)

Convert an errno value (as from an OSError or IOError) into a standard SFTP result code. This is a convenience function for trapping exceptions in server code and returning an appropriate result.

Parameters
e (int) -- an errno code, as from OSError.errno.
Returns
an int SFTP error code like SFTP_NO_SUCH_FILE.
static set_file_attr(filename, attr)

Change a file's attributes on the local filesystem. The contents of attr are used to change the permissions, owner, group ownership, and/or modification & access time of the file, depending on which attributes are present in attr.

This is meant to be a handy helper function for translating SFTP file requests into local file operations.

Parameters
  • filename (str) -- name of the file to alter (should usually be an absolute path).
  • attr (SFTPAttributes) -- attributes to change.
class paramiko.sftp_attr.SFTPAttributes

Representation of the attributes of a file (or proxied file) for SFTP in client or server mode. It attemps to mirror the object returned by os.stat as closely as possible, so it may have the following fields, with the same meanings as those returned by an os.stat object:

  • st_size
  • st_uid
  • st_gid
  • st_mode
  • st_atime
  • st_mtime

Because SFTP allows flags to have other arbitrary named attributes, these are stored in a dict named attr. Occasionally, the filename is also stored, in filename.

__init__()

Create a new (empty) SFTPAttributes object. All fields will be empty.

__str__()

create a unix-style long description of the file (like ls -l)

__weakref__

list of weak references to the object (if defined)

classmethod from_stat(obj, filename=None)

Create an SFTPAttributes object from an existing stat object (an object returned by os.stat).

Parameters
  • obj (object) -- an object returned by os.stat (or equivalent).
  • filename (str) -- the filename associated with this file.
Returns
new SFTPAttributes object with the same attribute fields.

SFTP file object

class paramiko.sftp_file.SFTPFile(sftp, handle, mode='r', bufsize=-1)

Bases: paramiko.file.BufferedFile

Proxy object for a file on the remote server, in client mode SFTP.

Instances of this class may be used as context managers in the same way that built-in Python file objects are.

check(hash_algorithm, offset=0, length=0, block_size=0)

Ask the server for a hash of a section of this file. This can be used to verify a successful upload or download, or for various rsync-like operations.

The file is hashed from offset, for length bytes. If length is 0, the remainder of the file is hashed. Thus, if both offset and length are zero, the entire file is hashed.

Normally, block_size will be 0 (the default), and this method will return a byte string representing the requested hash (for example, a string of length 16 for MD5, or 20 for SHA-1). If a non-zero block_size is given, each chunk of the file (from offset to offset + length) of block_size bytes is computed as a separate hash. The hash results are all concatenated and returned as a single string.

For example, check('sha1', 0, 1024, 512) will return a string of length 40. The first 20 bytes will be the SHA-1 of the first 512 bytes of the file, and the last 20 bytes will be the SHA-1 of the next 512 bytes.

Parameters
  • hash_algorithm (str) -- the name of the hash algorithm to use (normally "sha1" or "md5")
  • offset -- offset into the file to begin hashing (0 means to start from the beginning)
  • length -- number of bytes to hash (0 means continue to the end of the file)
  • block_size (int) -- number of bytes to hash per result (must not be less than 256; 0 means to compute only one hash of the entire segment)
Returns
str of bytes representing the hash of each block, concatenated together
Raises
IOError -- if the server doesn't support the "check-file" extension, or possibly doesn't support the hash algorithm requested

New in version 1.4.

chmod(mode)

Change the mode (permissions) of this file. The permissions are unix-style and identical to those used by Python's os.chmod function.

Parameters
mode (int) -- new permissions
chown(uid, gid)

Change the owner (uid) and group (gid) of this file. As with Python's os.chown function, you must pass both arguments, so if you only want to change one, use stat first to retrieve the current owner and group.

Parameters
  • uid (int) -- new owner's uid
  • gid (int) -- new group id
close()

Close the file.

flush()

Write out any data in the write buffer. This may do nothing if write buffering is not turned on.

gettimeout()

Returns the timeout in seconds (as a float) associated with the socket or ssh Channel used for this file.

next()

Returns the next line from the input, or raises StopIteration when EOF is hit. Unlike Python file objects, it's okay to mix calls to next and readline.

Raises
StopIteration -- when the end of the file is reached.
Returns
a line (str) read from the file.
prefetch(file_size=None)

Pre-fetch the remaining contents of this file in anticipation of future read calls. If reading the entire file, pre-fetching can dramatically improve the download speed by avoiding roundtrip latency. The file's contents are incrementally buffered in a background thread.

The prefetched data is stored in a buffer until read via the read method. Once data has been read, it's removed from the buffer. The data may be read in a random order (using seek); chunks of the buffer that haven't been read will continue to be buffered.

Parameters
file_size (int) -- When this is None (the default), this method calls stat to determine the remote file size. In some situations, doing so can cause exceptions or hangs (see #562); as a workaround, one may call stat explicitly and pass its value in via this parameter.

New in version 1.5.1.

Changed in version 1.16.0: The file_size parameter was added (with no default value).

Changed in version 1.16.1: The file_size parameter was made optional for backwards compatibility.

read(size=None)

Read at most size bytes from the file (less if we hit the end of the file first). If the size argument is negative or omitted, read all the remaining data in the file.

Parameters
size (int) -- maximum number of bytes to read
Returns
data read from the file (as bytes), or an empty string if EOF was encountered immediately
readable()

Check if the file can be read from.

Returns
True if the file can be read from. If False, read will raise an exception.
readinto(buff)

Read up to len(buff) bytes into bytearray buff and return the number of bytes read.

Returns
The number of bytes read.
readline(size=None)

Read one entire line from the file. A trailing newline character is kept in the string (but may be absent when a file ends with an incomplete line). If the size argument is present and non-negative, it is a maximum byte count (including the trailing newline) and an incomplete line may be returned. An empty string is returned only when EOF is encountered immediately.

Parameters
size (int) -- maximum length of returned string.
Returns

next line of the file, or an empty string if the end of the file has been reached.

If the file was opened in binary ('b') mode: bytes are returned Else: the encoding of the file is assumed to be UTF-8 and character strings (str) are returned

readlines(sizehint=None)

Read all remaining lines using readline and return them as a list. If the optional sizehint argument is present, instead of reading up to EOF, whole lines totalling approximately sizehint bytes (possibly after rounding up to an internal buffer size) are read.

Parameters
sizehint (int) -- desired maximum number of bytes to read.
Returns
list of lines read from the file.
readv(chunks)

Read a set of blocks from the file by (offset, length). This is more efficient than doing a series of seek and read calls, since the prefetch machinery is used to retrieve all the requested blocks at once.

Parameters
chunks -- a list of (offset, length) tuples indicating which sections of the file to read
Returns
a list of blocks read, in the same order as in chunks

New in version 1.5.4.

seek(offset, whence=0)

Set the file's current position.

See file.seek for details.

seekable()

Check if the file supports random access.

Returns
True if the file supports random access. If False, seek() will raise an exception
set_pipelined(pipelined=True)

Turn on/off the pipelining of write operations to this file. When pipelining is on, paramiko won't wait for the server response after each write operation. Instead, they're collected as they come in. At the first non-write operation (including close), all remaining server responses are collected. This means that if there was an error with one of your later writes, an exception might be thrown from within close instead of write.

By default, files are not pipelined.

Parameters
pipelined (bool) -- True if pipelining should be turned on for this file; False otherwise

New in version 1.5.

setblocking(blocking)

Set blocking or non-blocking mode on the underiying socket or ssh Channel.

Parameters
blocking (int) -- 0 to set non-blocking mode; non-0 to set blocking mode.
settimeout(timeout)

Set a timeout on read/write operations on the underlying socket or ssh Channel.

Parameters
timeout (float) -- seconds to wait for a pending read/write operation before raising socket.timeout, or None for no timeout
stat()

Retrieve information about this file from the remote system. This is exactly like SFTPClient.stat, except that it operates on an already-open file.

Returns
an SFTPAttributes object containing attributes about this file.
tell()

Return the file's current position. This may not be accurate or useful if the underlying file doesn't support random access, or was opened in append mode.

Returns
file position (number of bytes).
truncate(size)

Change the size of this file. This usually extends or shrinks the size of the file, just like the truncate() method on Python file objects.

Parameters
size -- the new size of the file
utime(times)

Set the access and modified times of this file. If times is None, then the file's access and modified times are set to the current time. Otherwise, times must be a 2-tuple of numbers, of the form (atime, mtime), which is used to set the access and modified times, respectively. This bizarre API is mimicked from Python for the sake of consistency -- I apologize.

Parameters
times (tuple) -- None or a tuple of (access time, modified time) in standard internet epoch time (seconds since 01 January 1970 GMT)
writable()

Check if the file can be written to.

Returns
True if the file can be written to. If False, write will raise an exception.
write(data)

Write data to the file. If write buffering is on (bufsize was specified and non-zero), some or all of the data may not actually be written yet. (Use flush or close to force buffered data to be written out.)

Parameters
data -- str/bytes data to write
writelines(sequence)

Write a sequence of strings to the file. The sequence can be any iterable object producing strings, typically a list of strings. (The name is intended to match readlines; writelines does not add line separators.)

Parameters
sequence -- an iterable sequence of strings.
xreadlines()

Identical to iter(f). This is a deprecated file interface that predates Python iterator support.

Abstraction of an SFTP file handle (for server mode).

class paramiko.sftp_handle.SFTPHandle(flags=0)

Abstract object representing a handle to an open file (or folder) in an SFTP server implementation. Each handle has a string representation used by the client to refer to the underlying file.

Server implementations can (and should) subclass SFTPHandle to implement features of a file handle, like stat or chattr.

Instances of this class may be used as context managers.

__init__(flags=0)

Create a new file handle representing a local file being served over SFTP. If flags is passed in, it's used to determine if the file is open in append mode.

Parameters
flags (int) -- optional flags as passed to SFTPServerInterface.open
chattr(attr)

Change the attributes of this file. The attr object will contain only those fields provided by the client in its request, so you should check for the presence of fields before using them.

Parameters
attr (SFTPAttributes) -- the attributes to change on this file.
Returns
an int error code like SFTP_OK.
close()

When a client closes a file, this method is called on the handle. Normally you would use this method to close the underlying OS level file object(s).

The default implementation checks for attributes on self named readfile and/or writefile, and if either or both are present, their close() methods are called. This means that if you are using the default implementations of read and write, this method's default implementation should be fine also.

read(offset, length)

Read up to length bytes from this file, starting at position offset. The offset may be a Python long, since SFTP allows it to be 64 bits.

If the end of the file has been reached, this method may return an empty string to signify EOF, or it may also return SFTP_EOF.

The default implementation checks for an attribute on self named readfile, and if present, performs the read operation on the Python file-like object found there. (This is meant as a time saver for the common case where you are wrapping a Python file object.)

Parameters
  • offset -- position in the file to start reading from.
  • length (int) -- number of bytes to attempt to read.
Returns
data read from the file, or an SFTP error code, as a str.
stat()

Return an SFTPAttributes object referring to this open file, or an error code. This is equivalent to SFTPServerInterface.stat, except it's called on an open file instead of a path.

Returns
an attributes object for the given file, or an SFTP error code (like SFTP_PERMISSION_DENIED).
Return type
SFTPAttributes or error code
write(offset, data)

Write data into this file at position offset. Extending the file past its original end is expected. Unlike Python's normal write() methods, this method cannot do a partial write: it must write all of data or else return an error.

The default implementation checks for an attribute on self named writefile, and if present, performs the write operation on the Python file-like object found there. The attribute is named differently from readfile to make it easy to implement read-only (or write-only) files, but if both attributes are present, they should refer to the same file.

Parameters
  • offset -- position in the file to start reading from.
  • data (str) -- data to write into the file.
Returns
an SFTP error code like SFTP_OK.

An interface to override for SFTP server support.

class paramiko.sftp_si.SFTPServerInterface(server, *largs, **kwargs)

This class defines an interface for controlling the behavior of paramiko when using the SFTPServer subsystem to provide an SFTP server.

Methods on this class are called from the SFTP session's thread, so you can block as long as necessary without affecting other sessions (even other SFTP sessions). However, raising an exception will usually cause the SFTP session to abruptly end, so you will usually want to catch exceptions and return an appropriate error code.

All paths are in string form instead of unicode because not all SFTP clients & servers obey the requirement that paths be encoded in UTF-8.

__init__(server, *largs, **kwargs)

Create a new SFTPServerInterface object. This method does nothing by default and is meant to be overridden by subclasses.

Parameters
server (ServerInterface) -- the server object associated with this channel and SFTP subsystem
__weakref__

list of weak references to the object (if defined)

canonicalize(path)

Return the canonical form of a path on the server. For example, if the server's home folder is /home/foo, the path "../betty" would be canonicalized to "/home/betty". Note the obvious security issues: if you're serving files only from a specific folder, you probably don't want this method to reveal path names outside that folder.

You may find the Python methods in os.path useful, especially os.path.normpath and os.path.realpath.

The default implementation returns os.path.normpath('/' + path).

chattr(path, attr)

Change the attributes of a file. The attr object will contain only those fields provided by the client in its request, so you should check for the presence of fields before using them.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- requested path (relative or absolute) of the file to change.
  • attr -- requested attributes to change on the file (an SFTPAttributes object)
Returns
an error code int like SFTP_OK.
list_folder(path)

Return a list of files within a given folder. The path will use posix notation ("/" separates folder names) and may be an absolute or relative path.

The list of files is expected to be a list of SFTPAttributes objects, which are similar in structure to the objects returned by os.stat. In addition, each object should have its filename field filled in, since this is important to a directory listing and not normally present in os.stat results. The method SFTPAttributes.from_stat will usually do what you want.

In case of an error, you should return one of the SFTP_* error codes, such as SFTP_PERMISSION_DENIED.

Parameters
path (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) to be listed.
Returns
a list of the files in the given folder, using SFTPAttributes objects.
lstat(path)

Return an SFTPAttributes object for a path on the server, or an error code. If your server supports symbolic links (also known as "aliases"), you should not follow them -- instead, you should return data on the symlink or alias itself. (stat is the corresponding call that follows symlinks/aliases.)

Parameters
path (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) to fetch file statistics for.
Returns
an SFTPAttributes object for the given file, or an SFTP error code (like SFTP_PERMISSION_DENIED).
mkdir(path, attr)

Create a new directory with the given attributes. The attr object may be considered a "hint" and ignored.

The attr object will contain only those fields provided by the client in its request, so you should use hasattr to check for the presence of fields before using them. In some cases, the attr object may be completely empty.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- requested path (relative or absolute) of the new folder.
  • attr (SFTPAttributes) -- requested attributes of the new folder.
Returns
an SFTP error code int like SFTP_OK.
open(path, flags, attr)

Open a file on the server and create a handle for future operations on that file. On success, a new object subclassed from SFTPHandle should be returned. This handle will be used for future operations on the file (read, write, etc). On failure, an error code such as SFTP_PERMISSION_DENIED should be returned.

flags contains the requested mode for opening (read-only, write-append, etc) as a bitset of flags from the os module:

  • os.O_RDONLY
  • os.O_WRONLY
  • os.O_RDWR
  • os.O_APPEND
  • os.O_CREAT
  • os.O_TRUNC
  • os.O_EXCL

(One of os.O_RDONLY, os.O_WRONLY, or os.O_RDWR will always be set.)

The attr object contains requested attributes of the file if it has to be created. Some or all attribute fields may be missing if the client didn't specify them.

Parameters
  • path (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) of the file to be opened.
  • flags (int) -- flags or'd together from the os module indicating the requested mode for opening the file.
  • attr (SFTPAttributes) -- requested attributes of the file if it is newly created.
Returns
a new SFTPHandle or error code.
posix_rename(oldpath, newpath)

Rename (or move) a file, following posix conventions. If newpath already exists, it will be overwritten.

Parameters
  • oldpath (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) of the existing file.
  • newpath (str) -- the requested new path of the file.
Returns
an SFTP error code int like SFTP_OK.
Versionadded
2.2

Return the target of a symbolic link (or shortcut) on the server. If the specified path doesn't refer to a symbolic link, an error should be returned.

Parameters
path (str) -- path (relative or absolute) of the symbolic link.
Returns
the target str path of the symbolic link, or an error code like SFTP_NO_SUCH_FILE.
remove(path)

Delete a file, if possible.

Parameters
path (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) of the file to delete.
Returns
an SFTP error code int like SFTP_OK.
rename(oldpath, newpath)

Rename (or move) a file. The SFTP specification implies that this method can be used to move an existing file into a different folder, and since there's no other (easy) way to move files via SFTP, it's probably a good idea to implement "move" in this method too, even for files that cross disk partition boundaries, if at all possible.

Parameters
  • oldpath (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) of the existing file.
  • newpath (str) -- the requested new path of the file.
Returns
an SFTP error code int like SFTP_OK.
rmdir(path)

Remove a directory if it exists. The path should refer to an existing, empty folder -- otherwise this method should return an error.

Parameters
path (str) -- requested path (relative or absolute) of the folder to remove.
Returns
an SFTP error code int like SFTP_OK.
session_ended()

The SFTP server session has just ended, either cleanly or via an exception. This method is meant to be overridden to perform any necessary cleanup before this SFTPServerInterface object is destroyed.

session_started()

The SFTP server session has just started. This method is meant to be overridden to perform any necessary setup before handling callbacks from SFTP operations.

stat(path)

Return an SFTPAttributes object for a path on the server, or an error code. If your server supports symbolic links (also known as "aliases"), you should follow them. (lstat is the corresponding call that doesn't follow symlinks/aliases.)

Parameters
path (str) -- the requested path (relative or absolute) to fetch file statistics for.
Returns
an SFTPAttributes object for the given file, or an SFTP error code (like SFTP_PERMISSION_DENIED).

Create a symbolic link on the server, as new pathname path, with target_path as the target of the link.

Parameters
  • target_path (str) -- path (relative or absolute) of the target for this new symbolic link.
  • path (str) -- path (relative or absolute) of the symbolic link to create.
Returns
an error code int like SFTP_OK.