sftpfolder.md

Source: Folder via SFTP

Backs up a remote directory over SFTP by recursively walking and packing files into a tar archive.

Module: backups.sources.sftpfolder

Example

{
  "id": "remote-data",
  "type": "sftp-folder",
  "name": "Remote server data",
  "sshhost": "server.example.com",
  "sshuser": "backups",
  "path": "/var/www",
  "password": "your-sftp-password",
  "excludes": ["*.log", "cache/"],
  "passphrase": "your-encryption-passphrase"
}

Parameters

Key	Required	Purpose
id	Yes	Unique identifier for this source.
name	No	Description for reporting (defaults to id).
sshhost	Yes	Remote hostname to connect to.
sshuser	Yes	SFTP username.
path	Yes	Remote directory to back up.
sshport	No	SSH port (defaults to 22).
password	No	Password for password-based authentication.
key_filename	No	Path to a private key file for key-based authentication.
known_hosts_file	No	Path to an additional known_hosts file to load alongside the system known_hosts.
excludes	No	Array of glob patterns (fnmatch) to exclude from the backup. File patterns (e.g. *.log) are matched against the filename and archive path. Directory patterns (e.g. cache/) prune the entire subtree from the walk.
passphrase	No	Passphrase for symmetric GPG encryption.
recipients	No	Array of GPG key recipients for asymmetric encryption.
compress_only	No	Set to 1 to skip encryption and only compress.

Notes

The backup host must have network access to the remote host on the configured port. Authentication can use either a password or an SSH private key.

The remote host's key must be present in the system known_hosts file (~/.ssh/known_hosts) before running a backup. Use ssh-keyscan to add it first, or specify an alternative file via known_hosts_file. Connections to hosts with unknown keys are rejected.