Powershell and SFTP.exe

Question

Is it possible to pipe the contents of a folder on an SFTP site to a local file similar to window sinnate ftp.exe program where the syntax:

dir /MainDir/SubDir c:\test\ftp\CurrentContents.txt

but the same syntax does not work with SFTP.exe. I need to be able to process one file name at a time in a powershell script and I can see no way to pass file names from the SFTP.exe program to the powershell script and back without being able to parse a text file with directory contents.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please let me know. thanks rp

Answer 1

I use Rebex's .NET components for FTPS & SFTP in my C# programs & PowerShell scripts. I find it much easier than slinging around external programs that weren't really designed to interact smoothly with scripts & other applications.

Edit: Since money is an issue, have you tried using one of the utilities bundled with PuTTY?

Answer 2

The Push-FTP function from PowerShell Pipeworks does this, but not as perfectly as I would like. I will make the required edits to support seamless pipelining in a few days. It also provides a progress bar during uploads.

Here's an example:

Push-Ftp -Path c:\Example -Include *.aspx

Answer 3

I'm using putty psftp which works great with powershell.

Usage:

let's create $tempContentFile containing ftp commands in ASCII encoding

$tempContentFile = "$($workdir)\temp_get.txt"
$tempContent = "get -r /root/home/someuser/filestoDownload C:\temp\DownloadedFiles"
$out = out-file -filepath $tempContentFile -inputobject $tempContent -encoding ASCII;

First we need to ensure that remote server SSL certificate is accepted/storred locally

$out = echo Y|.\plink.exe -v -ssh $($attribute_IP) -l $($attribute_user) -pw $($attribute_password) -batch exit 2>&1

Than psftp command itself:

$out = .\psftp.exe $($attribute_IP) -l $($attribute_user) -pw $($attribute_password) -b $tempContentFile