Copy file from remote dir to remote sub directory using paramiko

Question

How to copy a file in a remote server /maindir/fil1.txt to a sub directory /maindir/subdir/file1.txt i have the sftp created using paramiko. But it always check for the local path to copy from .

filename_full_path='/maindir/fil1.txt'
destfilename_full_path='/maindir/subdir/file1.txt'
sftp.put(filename_full_path, destfilename_full_path)

How to tell sftp that the local path is also in remote host?

Answer 1

You can try in the below way

   a=paramiko.SSHClient()
   a.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
   a.connect('ip',username='user',password='passw')
   stdin, stdout, stderr = a.exec_command("cp /sourc/file /target/file")

Answer 2

A core SFTP protocol does not support copying remote files. There's draft of copy-data/copy-file extension to the SFTP protocol.

But in the most widespread OpenSSH SFTP server the copy-data is supported by very recent version 9.0 only. Another servers that do support the extensions are ProFTPD mod_sftp and Bitvise SFTP server.

So even if Paramiko did support it (it does not), it would probably not be of any use to you.

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Alternatives:

• Download the folder and reupload it to a new location (a pure SFTP solution)
• Use cp command in a "exec" channel (not SFTP anymore, requires a shell access) – use SSHClient.exec_command.
• Many mistake copy and move. Moving a file to another folder is supported.

Answer 3

You can't copy or move files as we normally do in an operating system. You need to follow this to make a file transfer.

import paramiko
ssh_client =paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh_client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
ssh_client.connect(hostname=’hostname’,username=’something’,password=’something_unique’)

ftp_client=ssh_client.open_sftp()
ftp_client.put(‘localfilepath’,remotefilepath’)   #for Uploading file from local to remote machine
#ftp_client.get(‘remotefileth’,’localfilepath’)   for Downloading a file from remote machine

ftp_client.close()