How to run the sftp command with a password from Bash script?

bash shell unix ssh sftp
anubhava picture anubhava · Mar 22, 2011 · Viewed 681.1k times · Source

I need to transfer a log file to a remote host using sftp from a Linux host. I have been provided credentials for the same from my operations group. However, since I don't have control over other host, I cannot generate and share RSA keys with the other host.

So is there a way to run the sftp command (with the username/password provided) from inside the Bash script through a cron job?

I found a similar Stack Overflow question, Specify password to sftp in a Bash script, but there was no satisfactory answer to my problem.

Answer

anubhava picture anubhava · Mar 22, 2011

You have a few options other than using public key authentication:

  1. Use keychain
  2. Use sshpass (less secured but probably that meets your requirement)
  3. Use expect (least secured and more coding needed)

If you decide to give sshpass a chance here is a working script snippet to do so:

export SSHPASS=your-password-here
sshpass -e sftp -oBatchMode=no -b - sftp-user@remote-host << !
   cd incoming
   put your-log-file.log
   bye
!

Related questions

How can I check if a directory exists in a Bash shell script?

What command can be used to check if a directory exists or not, within a Bash shell script?

Read More
In the shell, what does " 2>&1 " mean?

In a Unix shell, if I want to combine stderr and stdout into the stdout stream for further manipulation, I can append the following on the end of my command: 2>&1 So, if I want to use head on …

Read More
How do I pause my shell script for a second before continuing?

I have only found how to wait for user input. However, I only want to pause so that my while true doesn't crash my computer. I tried pause(1), but it says -bash: syntax error near unexpected token '1'. How …

Read More