How to upload file with curl on sftp server

Question

This code

$user = 'user';
$pass = 'password';
$filename = 'text.txt';
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
$ch = curl_init();
$localfile = 'text.txt';
$fp = fopen($localfile, 'r');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'sftp://$user:$pass@myserver.com/upload/$filename');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_UPLOAD, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROTOCOLS, CURLPROTO_SFTP);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, filesize($localfile));
curl_exec ($ch);
$error_no = curl_errno($ch);
curl_close ($ch);
if ($error_no == 0) {
        $error = 'File uploaded succesfully.';
} else {
        $error = 'File upload error.';
}
echo $error.' '.$error_no;

gives me this error:

File upload error. 7 ( Failed to write file to disk )

My requirement is simple, I just need to upload text.txt file on live server using curl.

Well, are you able to upload the file from the same server using the same credentials with the command line sftp utility? Because this looks like a server issue... — arkascha, Aug 12 '13 at 06:15
There are a lot of answers here, but I don't see a solution using ssh2 or cURL sFTP, an encrypted or unencrypted private key, and a solution that is tested and that works. It seems that no one who has accomplished a file upload in sFTP in PHP code has shared their code. Even the PHP Manual seems to have no working example that uploads a file securely. — David Spector, Jan 17 '21 at 18:44

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 13 '13 at 14:30

2

So for diagnosing SSH / SFTP problems I think phpseclib, a pure PHP SFTP implementation, is the best approach. Here's how:

<?php
include('Net/SFTP.php');

define('NET_SFTP_LOGGING', NET_SFTP_LOG_COMPLEX);

$sftp = new Net_SFTP('www.domain.tld');
if (!$sftp->login('username', 'password')) {
    exit('Login Failed');
}

$sftp->put('text.txt', 'text.txt', NET_SFTP_LOCAL_FILE);

echo $sftp->getSFTPLog();
?>

In particular, what's useful about phpseclib is it's ability to create log files so you can see what's going on.

I think it's easier to use, too, lol, but that's up to you.

answered Aug 13 '13 at 14:30

neubert

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any suggestions on how to install and use phpseclib. Ive tried multiple ways and cannot get it to function correctly – Beanno1116 Jun 15 '22 at 17:32
@Beanno1116 - you should post that as a new question. Use phpseclib, composer and php as the tags – neubert Jun 15 '22 at 18:31

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 04 '22 at 14:09

Maybe this link can help you,

There are some examples of different ways to upload files using CURL.

or try this

$localfile = 'sample.txt';
$user      = 'user';
$password  = 'pass';
$host      = 'ftp.remote.com';

$ch = curl_init();
$fp = fopen($localfile, 'r');

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "sftp://{$user}:{$password}@{$host}/{$localfile}");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_UPLOAD, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROTOCOLS, CURLPROTO_SFTP);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, filesize($localfile));
curl_exec ($ch);

$error_no = curl_errno($ch);
curl_close ($ch);

if ($error_no == 0) {
    $error = 'File uploaded succesfully.';
} else {
    $error = 'File upload error.';
}

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 12 '15 at 16:36

Answers to this question helped me today.

I just want to point out that your vars in 'sftp://$user:$pass@myserver.com/upload/$filename' will never get interpreted since you're using single quotes. You should either use double quotes or concatenate your vars to single quoted strings.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 08 '19 at 12:18

I also had the problem that your script, that I used as starting point, didn`t work. So I just set the CURLOPT_VERBOSE and added curl_error result to the output. This way, I realized, that curl had no ssh support enabled in my case, which I could solve by re-emerging (=re-building on other systems, I am on gentoo) with ssh support. Also the single-quotes in your code prevent correct variable substitution. After solving those problems, and few typos, my result with your function, using my test-credentials and host, looks like this now :

Trying ...
TCP_NODELAY set
Connected to () port 22 (#0)
SSH MD5 fingerprint: 4dbea14faf74ee128d5874017332f4ef
SSH authentication methods available: publickey,keyboard-interactive
Using SSH private key file '/root/.ssh/id_rsa'
SSH public key authentication failed: Username/PublicKey combination invalid
Failure connecting to agent
Initialized keyboard interactive authentication
Authentication complete
We are completely uploaded and fine
Connection #0 to host left intact
Closing connection 0

File uploaded successfully. 0

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 08 '23 at 00:32

I do not know if you ever got yours working but I used some of your code to get mine working.

I found I needed to use CURLOPT_USERPWD and take user and password out of the url. But in my search for an answer I also found someone that need to do the opposite, get rid of the CURLOPT_USERPWD, and put them in the url. That may be server dependent.

If I were at the point of your post I would add the curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);.
Then when I got it working I would remove it if you feel an absolute need for the finger print.
The last 4 curl_setopt's are only for trouble shooting.

This code has been tested on two different SFTP servers.
Once is a GoDaddy VPS, CentOS 7 box, the other a GoAnywhere server.

$host = 'xx.xxx.xxx.xxx/server/public_html';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';
$localfile = "/home/server/public_html/xxx/resultTest.txt";
$fp = fopen($localfile, 'r');
$url = "sftp://@$host";
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROTOCOLS, CURLPROTO_SFTP);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, filesize($localfile));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_UPLOAD, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT,2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR,true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, true);
$response = curl_exec($ch); 
$error = curl_error($ch);
curl_close($ch);

How to upload file with curl on sftp server

5 Answers5