Unable to upload using ncftpput

ZAMO · 02-03-2009, 04:47 AM

Hi all,

I got a new issue to discuss and fix it.
When i try to upload a file by manually login to mysftp and
put the files , they are getting uploaded.

When I do the same by writing a script, its showing me Connection refused.

Code:

/usr/local/bin/ncftpput -f  mysftppasswd.conf $source_dir $destination_dir

I tried the same in the shell also, using the absolute path of source and designation, but its not working.

Am I doing the right thing here. Did anyone come across this before.

Cheers

colucix · 02-03-2009, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZAMO

When i try to upload a file by manually login to mysftp

What is mysftp? If your server uses the secure shell ftp (sftp - default port 22) you cannot use the ncftp client to upload files, since it implements the normal ftp protocol (port 21).

In other words: which command did you use to successfully upload the file?

ZAMO · 02-03-2009, 05:33 AM

To manually upload the file to sftp am using the following :

Code:

sftp myuser@sftp
passwd:xxxxxx
cd desination_dir
put files_to_upload
exit

As ncftpput will work on sftp , Is there any similar way to upload the file in sftp?

repo · 02-03-2009, 05:47 AM

Hi,

Take a look at scp
http://kb.iu.edu/data/agye.html

colucix · 02-03-2009, 05:48 AM

Yes. You can try the option -b of sftp to put your commands in a batchfile. The only limitation (which is actually an improvement of the security of your systems) is that you cannot provide username and password, but you have to setup Public Key Authentication or eventually Host Based Authentication, that is either one of the two available non-interactive authentication methods. Here is an excerpt from man sftp:

Code:

-b batchfile
             Batch mode reads a series of commands from an input batchfile instead of stdin.  Since it lacks
             user interaction it should be used in conjunction with non-interactive authentication.  A
             batchfile of ‘-’ may be used to indicate standard input.  sftp will abort if any of the follow-
             ing commands fail: get, put, rename, ln, rm, mkdir, chdir, ls, lchdir, chmod, chown, chgrp,
             lpwd and lmkdir.  Termination on error can be suppressed on a command by command basis by pre-
             fixing the command with a ‘-’ character (for example, -rm /tmp/blah*).

ZAMO · 02-03-2009, 06:32 AM

CoLucix,

I tried to do this using a batch file and failed. The format i used is

user_passwd
put filenames

Its showing me "Invalid buffer size "

colucix · 02-03-2009, 07:21 AM

You cannot put user and password in the batch file. You can use it with Public Key Authentication, only. Anyway, the error message is really strange in this case. Can you post the exact command line you used?

ZAMO · 02-03-2009, 07:29 AM

Its

Code:

sftp -b path-to-my/mybatch.conf

Colucix,

Its not easy for me to do Public Key Authentication as it dependencies (mean ,lot of ftp servers) goes beyond.

Am almost shocked by that we cannot upload files from the shell to our sftp using ncftpput. May be gaining this knowledge too late is mine

Got struck again

colucix · 02-03-2009, 08:26 AM

The problem is intrinsic of the secure shell: you cannot pass username and password in clear text so you cannot write them in a script or in the command line, otherwise the advantages of using the secure shell are lost. Anyway, you can try expect a Tcl extension to take actions when an interactive response is expected. You have to write an expect script and tell the script to negotiate the password when the server on the other side requires it.

Again, the security concern of the secure shell is lost, but if you don't have any other alternative, at least be sure your script is not world readable. Here is an example of a script which uses expect to perform a sftp section. If you google for expect + sftp you will find plenty of them.