simple-ssh-copy 0.1.8

Transfer files to/from a minimal machine with SSH access.

simple_ssh_copy

Transfer files to and from small or old POSIX-like devices over SSH.

This package intentionally avoids SFTP/SCP subsystems. It only needs a working SSH login and a few basic POSIX shell commands, so it is useful for minimal Linux systems, embedded devices, rescue environments, and older SSH servers.

Features

• Upload a local file to a remote host.
• Download a remote file to the local machine.
• Download a remote directory recursively.
• Password, empty-password, SSH agent, ~/.ssh key, and explicit private-key authentication.
• Legacy SSH compatibility enabled by default:
  • HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa
  • RSA public-key signing with ssh-rsa
  • MACs=+hmac-sha1-96,hmac-sha1,hmac-md5

For implementation notes, transfer flow, block sizes, and compatibility details, see Technical Details.

Install

pip install simple_ssh_copy

For local development:

pip install -e .

Command Line

Upload a file:

python -m simple_ssh_copy ./test-file.txt root@192.168.1.10:/home/root/test-file.txt

Download a file:

python -m simple_ssh_copy root@192.168.1.10:/home/root/test-file.txt ./test-file.txt

Use a non-default port:

python -m simple_ssh_copy ./test-file.txt root@192.168.1.10:2222:/home/root/test-file.txt

Use an explicit private key:

python -m simple_ssh_copy -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa ./test-file.txt root@192.168.1.10:/home/root/test-file.txt

On Windows:

python -m simple_ssh_copy -i C:\Users\neko\.ssh\id_rsa .\test-file.txt root@169.254.115.127:/home/root/test-file.txt

Increase the SSH timeout:

python -m simple_ssh_copy --timeout 60 ./test-file.txt root@192.168.1.10:/home/root/test-file.txt

When prompted for a password, press Enter for empty-password or key-only login. In that case the client also tries SSH agent and keys discoverable in ~/.ssh.

Python API

import simple_ssh_copy

hostname = "192.168.1.10"
username = "root"
password = ""

simple_ssh_copy.upload(
    hostname=hostname,
    username=username,
    password=password,
    files=[("./test-file.txt", "/home/root/test-file.txt")],
    key_filename="~/.ssh/id_rsa",
)

simple_ssh_copy.download(
    hostname=hostname,
    username=username,
    password=password,
    files=[("/home/root/test-file.txt", "./test-file.txt")],
    key_filename="~/.ssh/id_rsa",
)

simple_ssh_copy.download_dir(
    hostname=hostname,
    username=username,
    password=password,
    remote_dir="/home/root/logs",
    local_dir="./logs",
    key_filename="~/.ssh/id_rsa",
)

Run a remote command with the low-level client:

from simple_ssh_copy import SimpleSSHClient

with SimpleSSHClient(
    hostname="192.168.1.10",
    username="root",
    password="",
    key_filename="~/.ssh/id_rsa",
) as ssh:
    code, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_cmd("uname -a")

Legacy SSH Notes

Some old devices require options like:

ssh -o HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa \
    -o MACs=+hmac-sha1-96,hmac-sha1,hmac-md5 \
    -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa root@192.168.1.10

simple_ssh_copy enables the Paramiko equivalents by default, so the matching file-transfer command is usually:

python -m simple_ssh_copy -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa ./file root@192.168.1.10:/tmp/file

If you need stricter modern SSH behavior, pass allow_ssh_rsa_host_key=False from the Python API.

Path Format

Remote paths use one of these formats:

user@host:/remote/path
user@host:port:/remote/path

Only local-to-remote and remote-to-local transfers are supported. Remote-to- remote transfers are not supported.

Limitations

• The remote host must provide a POSIX-like shell.
• Non-POSIX SSH servers, such as Windows command-shell SSH sessions, are not supported and fail with a clear error.
• Upload uses mkdir and base64 on the remote host.
• Upload sends base64 fragments through bounded remote commands, then decodes the assembled temporary file on the remote host.
• Download uses stat, dd, and find for directory downloads.
• Directory upload is not implemented.
• Very large uploads may be slower than real SCP/SFTP because data is written through remote shell commands.