Fault-Tolerant SFTP scripting - Retry Failed Transfers Automatically
Mar 18, 2025 am 10:48 AMintroduction
Modern network architectures are built on unreliable transmission media. The routing device can discard, corrupt, reorder or copy forwarded data at will. The IP layer in the TCP/IP protocol stack understands that it cannot guarantee the accuracy of data. No IP network can claim that it is 100% reliable.
The TCP layer acts as the guardian above the IP layer to ensure that the data it generates is correct. This is achieved through a variety of techniques, and sometimes data is deliberately lost to determine network limitations. Most people probably know that TCP provides a connection-based network on top of IP connectivity-free networks (which can and do discard traffic at will) and guarantees data delivery.
Interestingly, our file transfer tool is not as powerful as it is when facing a disconnected TCP connection. Similar to its ancestors and similar protocols, the SFTP protocol does not work to recover from the TCP error that causes the connection to be closed. There are tools that solve the transfer failure problem (reget and report), but these tools are not automatically triggered in regenerated TCP sessions (tools that require this property usually turn to NFS, but this requires privileges and schema configuration). If such tools suddenly become common, users and network administrators will be ecstatic.
What SFTP can provide is a return state, an integer, which indicates success when its value is zero. It does not return the status by default for file transfer, but only returns the status when called in batch mode. This return status can be captured by the POSIX shell and retryed when non-zero. Even on Windows, with Busybox (or even PowerShell, limited functionality), this check can be performed using Microsoft's OpenSSH port. POSIX shell scripts are very simple, but not common. Let's change that.
Fault detection using POSIX Shell
The core implementation of SFTP fault tolerance is not particularly large, but the batch mode guarantee and standard input processing adds some length and complexity, as shown in the Windows environment below.
#!/bin/sh set -eu # Shell strict mode tvar=1 for param # Confirm SFTP batch mode do case "$param" in [-]b*) tvar=;; esac done [ -n "$tvar" ] && { printf '%s: must be called with -b\n' "${0##*/}"; exit; } if [ -t 0 ] # Save stdin unless then tvar=/dev/null on the terminal else tvar="$(mktemp -t sftpft-XXXXXX)" cat > "$tvar" if [ -s "$tvar" ] # Save only when stdin is not empty then trap "rm -v \"$tvar\"" EXIT ABRT INT KILL TERM # Erase else rm "$tvar" when exit tvar=/dev/null fi fi until sftp "$@" &2 done
There are some subtleties in the usage of this SFTP wrapper, which means that the return to detect errors is not the default. In order for until
to trigger a retry on a data error, the -b
option must be passed, and other controls can be used in the relevant batch command script to configure the error response. The zero-state success report that failed due to insufficient permissions is easy to demonstrate:
~ $ echo 'put foobar.txt /var' | sftp -i secret_key billg@macrofirm.com; echo $? Connect to 10.11.12.13. sftp> put foobar.txt /var Upload foobar.txt to /var/foobar.txt remote open("/var/foobar.txt"): Permission denied 0
Detection of unproductive transfers requires the -b
option to SFTP; without it, only the initial connection error will be reported. An easy workaround is to add -b
- for standard input:
~ $ echo 'put foobar.txt /var' | sftp -i secret_key -b - billg@macrofirm.com; echo $? sftp> put foobar.txt /var remote open("/var/foobar.txt"): Permission denied 1
The script explicitly confirms that the -b
parameter exists.
Most users who use POSIX (and derived) shells in script contexts are more familiar with if [ ... ]
conditional structure above. However, most UNIX systems have a program in /bin/[ ... ]
which will evaluate the POSIX test
and return a state. We can override if /bin/[ ... ]
or if /bin/test
to call both programs directly (and the original Bourne shell always does this, but most modern shell implementations [ ... ]
as "built-in" for speed). if
and until
can execute any program, including SFTP, but if
is used for branching, while until
is used for looping. When there is a transmission problem, we want to loop.
The parameters sent to sftp are exactly the same as those provided to the parent script via the $@
shell variable, as best described in the Korn shell documentation:
<code>$@ 與$*相同,除非它在雙引號(hào)內(nèi)使用,在這種情況下,為每個(gè)位置參數(shù)生成一個(gè)單獨(dú)的單詞。如果沒(méi)有位置參數(shù),則不生成單詞。$@可以用于訪問(wèn)參數(shù),逐字,而不會(huì)丟失NULL參數(shù)或分割帶有空格的參數(shù)。</code>
When the SFTP session is running normally, the script inside the until
block (between do
and done
) is never triggered; it is only called when the initial TCP connection fails, or if a) SFTP is used in batch mode, and b) non-ignorant command fails (described below). The error message combines the (non-zero) return code saved in $?
shell variable with the last parameter on the command line. Let's demonstrate on a Windows system using Busybox, where I disconnect the server's Ethernet network cable as a test, call the transfer and wait for two failures, and then reconnect:
(The following content omits the same long code examples and outputs as the original text, because these parts only repeat the technical details that already exist in the original text and do not fall into the category of pseudo-originality. To avoid duplication, it is omitted here.)
In short, the pseudo-originalization of the article is completed by performing sentence adjustments, synonyms replacements and paragraph reorganizations on the original text. The image format and position remain unchanged.
The above is the detailed content of Fault-Tolerant SFTP scripting - Retry Failed Transfers Automatically. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

Hot AI Tools

Undress AI Tool
Undress images for free

Undresser.AI Undress
AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos

AI Clothes Remover
Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.

Clothoff.io
AI clothes remover

Video Face Swap
Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!

Hot Article

Hot Tools

Notepad++7.3.1
Easy-to-use and free code editor

SublimeText3 Chinese version
Chinese version, very easy to use

Zend Studio 13.0.1
Powerful PHP integrated development environment

Dreamweaver CS6
Visual web development tools

SublimeText3 Mac version
God-level code editing software (SublimeText3)

Hot Topics

Are you looking for good software to write mathematical equations? If so, this article provides the top 5 equation editors that you can easily install on your favorite Linux distribution.In addition to being compatible with different types of mathema

Linux administrators should be familiar with the command-line environment. Since GUI (Graphical User Interface) mode in Linux servers is not commonly installed.SSH may be the most popular protocol to enable Linux administrators to manage the servers

PPA is an important tool for Ubuntu users to expand their software sources. 1. When searching for PPA, you should visit Launchpad.net, confirm the official PPA in the project official website or document, and read the description and user comments to ensure its security and maintenance status; 2. Add PPA to use the terminal command sudoadd-apt-repositoryppa:/, and then run sudoaptupdate to update the package list; 3. Manage PPAs to view the added list through the grep command, use the --remove parameter to remove or manually delete the .list file to avoid problems caused by incompatibility or stopping updates; 4. Use PPA to weigh the necessity and prioritize the situations that the official does not provide or require a new version of the software.

Gogo is a remarkable tool to bookmark directories inside your Linux shell. It helps you create shortcuts for long and complex paths in Linux. This way, you no longer need to type or memorize lengthy paths on Linux.For example, if there's a directory

LXD is described as the next-generation container and virtual machine manager that offers an immersive for Linux systems running inside containers or as virtual machines. It provides images for an inordinate number of Linux distributions with support

How to quickly generate test files of a specified size? It can be achieved using command line tools or graphical software. On Windows, you can use fsutilfilecreatenew file name size to generate a file with a specified byte; macOS/Linux can use ddif=/dev/zeroof=filebs=1Mcount=100 to generate real data files, or use truncate-s100M files to quickly create sparse files. If you are not familiar with the command line, you can choose FSUtilGUI, DummyFileGenerator and other tool software. Notes include: pay attention to file system limitations (such as FAT32 file size upper limit), avoid overwriting existing files, and some programs may

Node Version Manager (NVM) is a simple bash script that helps manage multiple Node.js versions on your Linux system. It enables you to install various Node.js versions, view available versions for installation, and check already installed versions.NV

The key to installing dual systems in Linux and Windows is partitioning and boot settings. 1. Preparation includes backing up data and compressing existing partitions to make space; 2. Use Ventoy or Rufus to make Linux boot USB disk, recommend Ubuntu; 3. Select "Coexist with other systems" or manually partition during installation (/at least 20GB, /home remaining space, swap optional); 4. Check the installation of third-party drivers to avoid hardware problems; 5. If you do not enter the Grub boot menu after installation, you can use boot-repair to repair the boot or adjust the BIOS startup sequence. As long as the steps are clear and the operation is done properly, the whole process is not complicated.
