Recursive directory download with Paramiko?

Question

I want to download a directory with unknown contents recursively via SSH and have been trying Paramiko. I have seen several examples how to upload directories but none that covers recursive download.

I can list all items in a directory but haven't been able to find a way of knowing if the item is a file (to download) or a directory (to call recursively).

transport = paramiko.Transport((MY_IP, 22))
transport.connect(username=MY_NAME, password=MY_PASS)
sftp = paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(transport)

file_list = sftp.listdir(path='/home/MY_HOME_DIR')
    for item in file_list:
        # Here is an item name... but is it a file or directory?
        print(item)
sftp.close()
transport.close()

So how do I know if an item is a file or if it is a directory?

Answer 1

Paramiko does not support recursive operations.

But it's easy to implement:

import os
from stat import S_ISDIR, S_ISREG

def get_r_portable(sftp, remotedir, localdir):
    for entry in sftp.listdir_attr(remotedir):
        remotepath = remotedir + "/" + entry.filename
        localpath = os.path.join(localdir, entry.filename)
        mode = entry.st_mode
        if S_ISDIR(mode):
            try:
                os.mkdir(localpath)
            except OSError:     
                pass
            get_r_portable(sftp, remotepath, localpath)
        elif S_ISREG(mode):
            sftp.get(remotepath, localpath)

---

You also can use pysftp. It's a wrapper around Paramiko that has more Python-ish look and feel and supports recursive operations. See

• pysftp.Connection.put_r()
• pysftp.Connection.get_r()

Or see my answer to Python pysftp get_r from Linux works fine on Linux but not on Windows.

But pysftp seems to be an abandoned project, so you better stick with Paramiko.