Copy folder from server(Linux) to local machine(windows) in python

Question

How to copy a folder from Server (linux) to a local machine (windows) in python.

I tried with the given code but it did not work

from distutils.dir_util import copy_tree
copy_tree("source_path ","destination_path")

I used copy_tree command to copy a folder on my local machine but when I used the same command to copy a folder from server to local machine then it did not work.

Any other method is there? Or any changes needed?

Answer 1

You need to use SSH, SCP, or SFTP to transfer files from host to host.

I do this a lot and like to use SSH and SCP. You can run and SSH server on your windows machine using OpenSSH. Here is a good set of instructions from WinSCP: https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_windows_openssh_server.

I recommend using Paramiko for SSH with Python. Here is a good answer showing how this works with python: https://stackoverflow.com/a/38556344/634627.

If you set up OpenSSH, you could also do this with SFTP, sometimes I find this is more suitable that SCP. Here is a good answer showing how that works: https://stackoverflow.com/a/33752662/634627

The trick is getting OpenSSH running on your Windows host and setting up SSH keys so your server can authenticate to your localhost.