Linux – SFTP encountering Bad Message

linuxsftp

I am uploading a file via sftp to a remote server. While on transfer, I got a message that says, "stalled". I killed the sftp running on my local.

The problem is, I cannot delete the partially uploaded file. when I try, rm filename.txt it returns an error:

Couldn't delete file: Bad message

Already fixed the stall and tried re-uploading the file and executed rm filename.txt but still getting the same error. Uploaded another file and tried deleting it and it was deleted. I am running debian 7 How do I delete filename.txt?

Best Answer

The problem is that when you killed the "stalled" session (assuming you forcefully killed the client) the file handle on the server remained open.

Unlike FTP(S), in fact, the SFTP protocol requires the client to explicitly close a file handle after using it. If the client fails to do that, the file on the server remains open and therefore you cannot delete it. Depending on which server software you're using, you may have to stop/restart the server process to release "zombie" handles.

Related Solutions

Linux – Setting up an sftp file dump site openssh or other sftpd

Never used it but ProFTPD has a sftp module. See http://www.proftpd.org/docs/contrib/mod_sftp.html#Usage which shows how you can limit it just like FTP (e.g., Limit DELE clauses to prevent deletions).

Bash – Detecting upload success/failure in a scripted command-line SFTP session

If you batch your SFTP session, the exit status $? will tell you if it's a failed transfer or not.

echo "put testfile1.txt" > batchfile.txt
sftp -b batchfile.txt user@host
if [[ $? != 0 ]]; then
  echo "Transfer failed!"
  exit 1
else
  echo "Transfer complete."
fi

Edited to add: This is something we use in a production script at work, so I'm sure it's valid. We can't use scp because some of our customers are on SCO Unix.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – Setting up an sftp file dump site openssh or other sftpd

Bash – Detecting upload success/failure in a scripted command-line SFTP session

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