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The AllegroCL Secure FTP (SFTP) client module for Windows

This document contains the following sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Setup
  3. The AllegroCL SFTP Client API
  4. Examples
  5. Notes

Introduction

The AllegroCL SFTP client module can be used to communicate with an SFTP server. This module is a wrapper around the program PSFTP which is part of the PuTTY program suite. Since psftp.exe is a 32 bit Windows program, this client module currently is only available for the Windows operating system (32 and 64 bit). This module has been tested with PuTTY's psftp.exe program version 0.60.

The AllegroCL SFTP client module can do the following:

  • Copy files to and from remote hosts
  • Walk remote file structures
  • Access the file modification time and size of remote files

Setup

Loading the SFTP module

Load the SFTP module by compiling and loading psftp.cl:

(load (compile-file "c:\path\to\psftp.cl"))

Symbols naming functionality in the sftp module are in the net.sftp.client package.

The AllegroCL SFTP Client API

The following operators and variables are supported.

All operators are functions unless otherwise indicated.

Operators that open and/or close an SFTP connection

  • connect-to-sftp-server
  • with-open-sftp-connection
  • close-sftp-stream

Operators that act on an open SFTP connection

  • sftp-stream-pwd
  • sftp-stream-cwd
  • sftp-stream-get
  • sftp-stream-put
  • sftp-stream-map-over-directory

Other operators

  • sftp-get
  • sftp-put
  • map-over-sftp-directory

Variables

  • default-user
  • default-password
  • default-private-key
  • sftp-debug

Classes

  • failed-connection
  • file-exists-error

connect-to-sftp-server

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: host &key user password private-key port debug verbose mode enable-compression-p trust-new-host error-timeout

connect-to-sftp-server creates and returns a command stream to a psftp.exe instance which is connected to SFTP server on /host/ and /port/ using /user/ and either /private-key/ or /password/ to authenticate the session. /user/ must be a string, /password/ is either a string or nil', /private-key/ is either a pathname, a string representing a pathname, or nil'. Their default values are default-user, default-password, and default-private-key respectively.

If /port/ is not given, it defaults to psftp.exe's default port. /debug/ and /verbose/ can be either t' or nil' and can help troubleshoot problems with connecting. (Note, however that use of /verbose/ can cause problems of it's own with the command i/o.) /enable-compression-p/ can be t' or 'nil' and will enable or disable compression in psftp.exe. /trust-new-host/, when set to t' is useful for connecting to a host for the first time. (This allows the client module to answer yes to the question of whether to trust a new host - a failed-connection error will be signalled if psftp.exe replies with this question and /trust-new-host/ is nil.) /error-timeout/ is an integer number of seconds that the client module should wait for an error response from psftp.exe. The default is 60 seconds. /mode/ does nothing and is included for compatibility with net.ftp.client ftp module.

The stream can be closed, and psftp.exe terminated with close-sftp-stream. Note that unlike the ftp module, the sftp stream cannot be closed by cl:close alone, since it also has an error stream and Windows process associated with it.

If an error occurs while establishing the connection, the stream is closed and an error of type failed-connection is signalled.


with-open-sftp-connection

Macro

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: (var host &key port user password private-key trust-new-host mode debug verbose) &body body

with-open-sftp-connection establish a command stream (bound to /var/) to a psftp.exe instance which is connected to an SFTP server using connect-to-sftp-server. See connect-to-sftp-server for an explanation of the arguments. /body/ is the code that is intended to run with the open connection bound to the symbol given as /var/. The value returned is the value returned by /body/.

The value of opening a connection to an SFTP server using this macro is that multiple commands can be sent to the same server without having to close and reopen the connection. When using a heavily used SFTP server it might be quite difficult to make a connection, so having to reestablish it might not be a good idea.

Functions in this package whose names start with ``sftp-stream-'' operate on open SFTP sessions.


close-sftp-stream

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: stream

close-sftp-stream will close an sftp stream. This function also terminates the psftp.exe process and closes the error stream. This function should be used instead of cl:close to end a connection opened with connect-to-sftp-server.


sftp-stream-pwd

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: stream &key debug

sftp-stream-pwd returns the working directory of a command stream (sftp connection). Use this to determine which directory is the current durectory according to psftp.exe's sftp connection.


sftp-stream-cwd

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: stream remote-path &key debug

sftp-stream-cwd changes the working directory of a command stream (sftp connection). Use this to traverse remote directories. /remote-path/ should be a string or pathname. Upon success sftp-stream-cwd returns a string representation of the current directory or else signals an error on failure.


sftp-stream-get

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: stream remote-path local-filespec &key if-exists mode debug

sftp-stream-get transfers a remote file to the local filesystem using an open command stream (sftp connection). /stream/ is an sftp connection such as that returned by connect-to-sftp-server. /remote-path/ is a string or pathname representation of the remote file to get. /local-filespec/ is a string representing a local filesystem pathname or an actual pathname. If /if-exists/ is :error (the default), then if the /local-filespec/ already exists, this function will signal a file-exists-error. /mode/ is ignored, and /debug/ prints useful information to debug the command. The return value, upon success is a pathname of the local-file.


sftp-stream-put

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: stream local-filespec remote-path &key mode debug

sftp-stream-put transfers a local-file to the remote sftp server using an open connection stream. /stream/ is an sftp connection such as that returned by connect-to-sftp-server. /local-filespec/ is a pathname or string representation of a pathname of an existing file on the local filesystem. An error is signalled if /local-filespec/ does not exist. remote-path is a string and represents the remote filename of where to put the file. The remote-path can be relative of absolute, so long as the location referred to by the absolute path actually exists. If the put command fails, lisp will signal an error. The return value is a string representing the path of the remote file as considered by the remote server. /mode/ is ignored.


sftp-stream-map-over-directory

Function

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: stream function remote-path &key (pass-connection-stream t) (recurse t) (include-directories nil) (debug nil) ignore-mtime

sftp-stream-map-over-directory is a workhorse function of the sftp client module. With this function, one can traverse directories or directory trees and operate on the remote files, transfering them to the client machine or uploading new versions of files. /stream/ is an sftp connection stream (aka psftp.exe command stream) such as that returned by connect-to-sftp-server. /function/ is a callback function. /function/ takes three variables if /pass-connection-stream/ is `nil' and /function/ takes four variables if /pass-connection-stream/ is non-nil. /remote-path/ is either a pathname of a directory or string representation of the pathname of a directory on the remote host.

/function/ is provided by the API user and has two signatures:

(remote-pathname file-size-bytes file-modification-time) [when pass-connection-stream is `nil']

or

(remote-pathname file-size-bytes file-modification-time sftp-connection-stream) [when pass-connection-stream is non-nil]

The first form is for compatibilty with net.ftp.client map-over-ftp-directory function.

The second form is a new form which allows the user to operate on the sftp-connection-stream in side their callback function.

When /recurse/ is non-nil, sftp-stream-map-over-directory will descend into subdirectories and map over them. When /include-directories/ is non-nil, directories themselves will be passed into the callback function. When a directory is passed into a callback function, it's file-size-bytes will be nil instead of an integer. If /include-directories/ is not nil then ensure your callback function does not depend on file-size-bytes being an integer. In the ftp client module file-modification-time is also nil in this circumstance, but for the sftp client module it was considered useful for the file-modification-time of a directory to be a non-nil actual lisp universal time. When /debug/ is non-nil, output from the psftp.exe commands and responses will be printed to sftp-debug, which is either a stream, t or nil. /ignore-mtime/ is ignored.

See examples below on how to use the map-over-directory functions.


sftp-get

Function:

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: host remote-path local-filespec &key port user password private-key if-exists mode debug

The function sftp-get retrieves a file from a remote host via SFTP into a file on the local filesystem. The connection arguments /host/, /port/, /user/, /password/, and /private-key/ are passed into connect-to-sftp-server and have the same datatypes and default values. /remote-path/, /local-filespec/ and /if-exists/ are passed to sftp-stream-get and similarly have the same datatypes as that function. /debug/ is passed into both connect-to-sftp-server and sftp-stream-get and has the same meaning as described for those functions. /mode/ is ignored and is there for compatibility reasons.

This function is the same as sftp-stream-get (described above) except that it doesn't require a stream.

On success the local pathname of the transferred file is returned or else an error is signalled.


sftp-put

Function:

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: host local-filespec remote-path &key port user password private-key mode debug

The function sftp-put uploads a file from the local host via SFTP to a file on the remote host. The connection arguments /host/, /port/, /user/, /password/, /private-key/ are passed into connect-to-sftp-server and have the same datatypes and default values as the similarly named arguments from connect-to-sftp-server. /local-filespec/ and /remote-path/ are passed into sftp-stream-put and have the same datatypes, default values and semantics as the similarly named arguments for sftp-stream-put. /debug/ is passed into both connect-to-sftp-server and sftp-stream-put and has the same meaning as described for those functions. /mode/ is ignored and is there for compatibility reasons.

This function is the same as sftp-stream-put (described above) except that it doesn't require a stream.

On success a string representation of the remote pathname is returned or else an error is signalled.


map-over-sftp-directory

Function:

Package: net.sftp.client

Arguments: function host remote-path &key port user password private-key pass-connection-stream recurse include-directories trust-new-host verbose ignore-mtime debug

The function map-over-sftp-directory traverses (possibly recursively) a remote directory and calls a user supplied function /function/ as a callback for each item (file or directory). Please note: the defaults are not the same for map-over-sftp-directory as for sftp-stream-map-over-directory. /pass-connection-stream/ and /recurse/ both have default values of `nil' in this version of the function. The reason for the former is compatibility with callback function signatures for the net.ftp.client module, and the reason for the second is to avoid possibly long or even recursively-linked directory structures on the SFTP server. /port/, /user/, /password/, /private-key/, /trust-new-host/ and /verbose/ have the same semantics, datatypes and default values as for connect-to-sftp-server. /function/, /remote-path/, /pass-connection-stream/, /recurse/ and /include-directories/ have the same semantics and datatypes (but different default values) as sftp-stream-map-over-directory. /debug/ is the same as described in connect-to-sftp-server and sftp-stream-map-over-directory. /ignore-mtime/ is ignored, and /verbose/ is available but not recommended.

See the examples below for explanation of how to use this function.


default-user

Variable

Package: net.sftp.client

The value of this variable will be used as the default value to functions which accept user as a keyword argument. It is suggested that it be bound for the duration of the interaction with a particular sftp server. It has no initial binding, it's value should be a string.


default-password

Variable

Package: net.sftp.client

The value of this variable will be used as the default value to functions which accept a password as a keyword argument. It is suggested that a default-private-key be used instead, else it could be bound for the duration of the interaction with a particular sftp server. It's initial value is `nil', it's value should be a string if non-null.


default-private-key

Variable

Package: net.sftp.client

The value of this variable will be the (local) pathname supplied to psftp.exe to the PuTTY private key. The private key is not transferred to the client, but it is used in authentication. Username and private-key are the preferred methods of authentication when using this SFTP module. default-private-key is initially unbound. The value should be bound to the symbol before using the module functions (or :private-key should be explicitly given to the functions).


sftp-debug

Variable

Package: net.sftp.client

The value of this variable should be either nil, t or a stream where to direct debug output. nil is the default value.


failed-connection

Class

Package: net.sftp.client

This is the condition signalled when connect-to-sftp-server fails.


file-exists-error

Class

Package: net.sftp.client

This is the condition signalled when attempting to get a file which already exists on the local filesystem.

Examples

Prerequisite:

psftp.exe must be installed and must be accessible via the %PATH% environment variable for this module to work.

Suggested practice: Use a public/private key pair instead of a password.

Use puttygen.exe to either convert an OpenSSH private key to PuTTY's format (recommended), or create a native PuTTY public/private key pair. If the server to be used is an OpenSSH server, then on the server you can append the public key to the authorized_keys file of the user's .ssh file of the user you intend to connect as. If this file is an OpenSSH key then this can be done directly (i.e. cat id_dsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys) or you can follow the PuTTY instructions for puttygen generated public keys.

It is suggested to put the private key in %HOME%.ssh\id_[dsa|rsa].ppk, this is the default location where the lisp client will look for the key. Note: the key is not transmitted to any clients, the psftp.exe program uses it for the authentication procedure only.

Alternate practice:

If you decide not to use a public/private key pair, you must use a password. This is not recommended since the password will be clear-text in your code!

;; run this once, with your login name:
(net.sftp.client::setup-defaults "<username>")

;; setup-defaults is provided as a convenience for testing and
;; demonstration purposes and should be replaced with your own default
;; setup function in your application

;; next define a test callback function to pass to map-over-sftp-directory:

(defun mapdir-test-fn1 (remote-pathname file-size file-mod-time &optional stream)
  (print (list remote-pathname file-size file-mod-time stream)))

;; execute this code at a lisp prompt replacing "gemini" with your
;; server name:

(net.sftp.client:map-over-sftp-directory
 #'mapdir-test-fn1 "<remote-host>" "." 
 :include-directories t :pass-connection-stream t)

;; it should print a number of lists:
;; ("/home/username/test" 534 3494044800 #<terminal-simple-stream  fd 9/8 @ #x101103a92>)

;; this is the printed representation of the arguments your callback
;; function recieves:
;; 1) remote-pathname (a string)
;; 2) file-size-bytes (an integer number of bytes)
;; 3) file-modification-date (a lisp universal time
;; representing modification time to the granularity provided by psftp.)
;; when you :include-directories t, you might get `nil' for the file size, 
;; this means the remote-pathname is a directory

Notes

psftp.exe must be located in a directory on the %PATH% environment variable.

Runs on Windows implementations of AllegroCL.

if you don't have a %HOME%.ssh\id_dsa.ppk then:

(net.sftp.client::setup-defaults "<username>" :key-file "c:\\path\\to\\private-key.ppk")

net.sftp.client:map-over-sftp-directory is different than net.ftp.client:map-over-ftp-directory in two major ways. First, the connection-stream is optionally passed to the callback function so that the callback function may make a decision about the arguments (such as "have the file-size-bytes and/or file-mod-time changed since last encountered?") and then decide to get [or put] that remote-pathname using sftp-stream-get [or sftp-stream-put] in one pass, with a single connection and authentication.

Second, remote-pathname is a string, not a pathname. The reason for this is that the SFTP client is designed to operate on Windows OS and certain pathname function, such as pathname' and pathname-to-directory' use parse-pathname' which on Windows will cause the forward slashes to be converted to backward slashes, which if passed back into the SFTP client may confuse Putty sFTP. Remote file pathname syntax should be preserved, although this implementation assumes the remote is a UNIX host. Furthermore, there can be characters in unix pathnames that cause the Windows implementation of parse-pathname' to error, these characters include but are not limited to the colon character `:'.

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SFTP API for Allegro Common Lisp

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