Download a file

Using the terminal, learn how to download a file via SFTP Console and SFTP batch scripting. The SFTP Console is suitable for manual use but not for automation. For automation, use SFTP batch scripting, which requires the creation of a script where each line represents an SFTP command.

Using the code below as an example, follow the steps to download a file using the SFTP console.

UY0FVFGW103Q05P:~ user$ cd $HOME/demo
UY0FVFGW103Q05P:~ user$ ls
UY0FVFGW103Q05P:~ user$ sftp pg_sap@sftp-qa.mercadolibre.io
Connected to sftp-qa.mercadolibre.io.
sftp> ls
selfserviceinput	selfserviceoutput
sftp> cd selfserviceoutput
sftp> ls
report_589_216_20230804.zip	result_589_6_20230804.zip
sftp> get result_589_216_20230804.zip
Fetching /selfserviceoutput/result_589_6_20230804.zip to result_589_6_20230804.zip
/selfserviceoutput/result_589_6_20230804.zip
/Users/user/debt_589_6_20230804.zip
sftp> bye
UY0FVFGW103Q05P:~ demo user$ ls
report_589_216_20230804.zip result_589_6_20230804.zip

1. Navigate to the folder where you want to download the file using the command "cd $HOME/${downloadfolder}", where “downloadfolder” corresponds to the folder name. In the first line of the code, you can see an example of how to do this.
2. Log in to the SFTP, which will open the SFTP console, as shown in line 3. In this example, the default name and directory are used when generating the ssh-rsa key. Otherwise, the -i parameter should be used.
3. Navigate to the "selfserviceoutput" folder, as indicated in line 7 of the code.
4. List the contents with the ls command, as shown in line 8 of the code (optional, just to verify which file to download).
5. Fetch the result file from the SFTP using the get ${resultfile} command, as indicated in line 10.
6. Exit the SFTP console, as shown in line 13 of the code.
7. List the "$HOME/${downloadfolder}" directory to verify that the files have been downloaded, as indicated in line 14 of the code.

Similarly, to download a file via SFTP batch scripting, create a file download_sftp_script in "$HOME/demo" with the following content:

cd selfserviceinitiativeout
get result_589_6_20230804.csv
bye

1. Navigate to the folder from which you want to download the file using the command cd selfserviceinitiativeout.
2. Fetch the result file from the SFTP using the get ${resultfile} command, as indicated in line 2.

This is the result of the batch execution:

UY0FVFGW103Q05P: demo user$ sftp -b download_sftp_script pg_sap@sftp-qa.mercadolibre.io
sftp> cd selfserviceoutput
sftp> get result_589_6_20230804.zip
sftp> get report_589_216_20230804.zip
sftp> bye
UY0FVFGW103Q05P:demo user$ ls
report_589_216_20230804.zip	result_589_6_20230804.zip