"Expecting / to follow the hostname in URI" exception when password contains @

Question

I am trying to copy local system file to server

package classes;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.Properties;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileObject;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.FileSystemOptions;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.Selectors;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.impl.StandardFileSystemManager;
import org.apache.commons.vfs.provider.sftp.SftpFileSystemConfigBuilder;
public class SendMyFiles {
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  SendMyFiles sendMyFiles = new SendMyFiles();
  String fileToFTP = "zcol_30092013.xls";
  sendMyFiles.startFTP(fileToFTP);
 }
 public boolean startFTP(String fileToFTP){
  Properties prop = new Properties();
  InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/config.properties");
  StandardFileSystemManager manager = new StandardFileSystemManager();
  try {
   prop.load(in);
   String serverAddress = prop.getProperty("serverAddress").trim();
   String userId = prop.getProperty("userId").trim();
   String password = prop.getProperty("password").trim();
   String remoteDirectory = prop.getProperty("remoteDirectory").trim();
   String localDirectory = prop.getProperty("localDirectory").trim();
   System.out.println("Cheking values "+serverAddress+" "+userId+" "+password+" "+remoteDirectory+" "+localDirectory);
   //check if the file exists
   String filepath = localDirectory;
   System.out.println("filepath "+filepath);
   File file = new File(filepath);
   System.out.println(file+" "+file.exists());
   if (!file.exists())
    throw new RuntimeException("Error. Local file not found");
   //Initializes the file manager
   manager.init();
   //Setup our SFTP configuration
   FileSystemOptions opts = new FileSystemOptions();
   SftpFileSystemConfigBuilder.getInstance().setStrictHostKeyChecking(
     opts, "no");
   SftpFileSystemConfigBuilder.getInstance().setUserDirIsRoot(opts, true);
   SftpFileSystemConfigBuilder.getInstance().setTimeout(opts, 10000);
   //Create the SFTP URI using the host name, userid, password,  remote path and file name
    String sftpUri= "sftp://" + userId + ":" + password + "@" + serverAddress + "/"
    + remoteDirectory+ fileToFTP;
   // Create local file object
    System.out.println("sftp uri "+sftpUri);
   System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());
   FileObject localFile = manager.resolveFile(file.getAbsolutePath());
   // Create remote file object
   FileObject remoteFile = manager.resolveFile(sftpUri, opts);
   // Copy local file to sftp server
   remoteFile.copyFrom(localFile, Selectors.SELECT_SELF);
   System.out.println("File upload successful");
  }
  catch (Exception ex) {
   ex.printStackTrace();
   return false;
  }
  finally {
   manager.close();
  }
  return true;
 } 
}

While executing the code getting below exception:

org.apache.commons.vfs.FileSystemException: Invalid absolute URI "sftp://vmsorbit:***@172.16.16.148/universe/files/zcol_30092013.xls".
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.provider.AbstractOriginatingFileProvider.findFile(AbstractOriginatingFileProvider.java:62)
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.impl.DefaultFileSystemManager.resolveFile(DefaultFileSystemManager.java:692)
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.impl.DefaultFileSystemManager.resolveFile(DefaultFileSystemManager.java:620)
    at classes.SendMyFiles.startFTP(SendMyFiles.java:67)
    at classes.SendMyFiles.main(SendMyFiles.java:23)
Caused by: org.apache.commons.vfs.FileSystemException: Expecting / to follow the hostname in URI "sftp://vmsorbit:***@172.16.16.148/universe/files/zcol_30092013.xls".
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.provider.HostFileNameParser.extractToPath(HostFileNameParser.java:155)
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.provider.URLFileNameParser.parseUri(URLFileNameParser.java:49)
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.provider.AbstractFileProvider.parseUri(AbstractFileProvider.java:188)
    at org.apache.commons.vfs.provider.AbstractOriginatingFileProvider.findFile(AbstractOriginatingFileProvider.java:58)
    ... 4 more

getting error at line

FileObject localFile = manager.resolveFile(file.getAbsolutePath());

The password contains special character @.

Answer 1

If your password contains @, the URL parser considers it a userinfo/hostname separator. It then scans for a hostname, stopping on the next @, which separates the actual hostname. Next it checks that the first character after the hostname is /, what it is not, as it is @. The logic does not make much sense to me, but explains the confusing error message

Expecting / to follow the hostname in URI

But in any case, even if the logic was better, you cannot have a literal @ in your password or username. You have to URL-encode it to %40.

If your username/password is variable, you should better encode it generically using the UriParser.encode:

public static String encode(String decodedStr)

Note that the comment in the documentation is wrong. It says the method "Removes %nn encodings from a string.", while it actually adds them.