How do I copy files stored in a remote SFTP server to another folder in the same remote server using Java?

Question

I have been trying to copy few selected files (after performing few checks), in a remote server to the same remote server using:

File localFile = new File(srcPath);
sftpChannel.put(localFile.getAbsolutePath(),localFile.getName());

I have even tried to copy those selected files to my local machine using the get() method.

Can somebody help?

Answer 1

A core SFTP protocol does not support duplicating a remote file.

There's draft of copy-file / copy-data extensions to the protocol . But those are supported by only few SFTP servers. In the most widespread OpenSSH SFTP server it is supported only by very recent version 9.0 . Other servers are for example ProFTPD mod_sftp and Bitvise SFTP server.

The JSch library does not support the extensions.

Alternatives:

• If you have a shell access, open an "exec" channel, and use shell cp command (or equivalent command for your server's OS).
  See Exec.java example .
• Otherwise, your only option is to download the file to a local temporary location and upload its copy back to a different/target remote directory. Or use streams , to avoid a temporary file.

See also How can I copy/duplicate a file to another directory using SFTP?