How to scp in python?

Question

What's the most pythonic way to scp a file in Python? The only route I'm aware of is

os.system('scp "%s" "%s:%s"' % (localfile, remotehost, remotefile) )

which is a hack, and which doesn't work outside linux-like systems, and which needs help from the Pexpect module to avoid password prompts unless you already have passwordless SSH set up to the remote host.

I'm aware of Twisted's conch, but I'd prefer to avoid implementing scp myself via low-level ssh modules.

I'm aware of paramiko, a Python module that supports ssh and sftp; but it doesn't support scp.

Background: I'm connecting to a router which doesn't support sftp but does support ssh/scp, so sftp isn't an option.

EDIT: This is a duplicate of How to copy a file to a remote server in Python using SCP or SSH?. However, that question doesn't give an scp-specific answer that deals with keys from within python. I'm hoping for a way to run code kind of like

import scp

client = scp.Client(host=host, user=user, keyfile=keyfile)
# or
client = scp.Client(host=host, user=user)
client.use_system_keys()
# or
client = scp.Client(host=host, user=user, password=password)

# and then
client.transfer('/etc/local/filename', '/etc/remote/filename')

Answer 1

Try the module paramiko_scp. It's very easy to use. See the following example:

def createSSHClient(server, port, user, password):
    client = paramiko.SSHClient()
    client.load_system_host_keys()
    client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
    client.connect(server, port, user, password)
    return client

ssh = createSSHClient(server, port, user, password)
scp = SCPClient(ssh.get_transport())

Then call scp.get() or scp.put() to do scp operations.

(SCPClient code)

Answer 2

Have a look at fabric. An example can be found here.

Answer 3

Hmmm, perhaps another option would be to use something like sshfs (there an sshfs for Mac too). Once your router is mounted you can just copy the files outright. I'm not sure if that works for your particular application but it's a nice solution to keep handy.

Answer 4

As of today, the best solution is probably AsyncSSH

https://asyncssh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#scp-client

async with asyncssh.connect('host.tld') as conn:
    await asyncssh.scp((conn, 'example.txt'), '.', recurse=True)

Answer 5

You can use the package subprocess and the command call to use the scp command from the shell.

from subprocess import call

cmd = "scp user1@host1:files user2@host2:files"
call(cmd.split(" "))

Answer 6

If you are on *nix you can use sshpass

sshpass -p password scp -o User=username -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no src dst:/path