SFTP Connection

Description

This metadata type registers a named SFTP server in your project. Hop exposes each connection under the connection name as a VFS scheme, so you reference files with:

myConnectionName:///path/on/the/server

That works in every transform, action and file dialog which accepts a file name: Text file input and output, Get file names, Copy files, and so on. The SFTP Put transform and the Put a file with SFTP and Get a file with SFTP actions can point at a connection by name instead of carrying their own copy of the server settings.

The server, the credentials and the session settings live in this metadata object and are applied through VFS - they are not part of the file paths you write.

Every field supports variables. Passwords and passphrases are stored encrypted in the metadata.

Rename a connection and Hop offers to update the pipelines and workflows referring to it.

Options

Server

Option Description

Option	Description
Connection name	Name of this connection. It doubles as the URI scheme in paths (`name:///...`), so it can only hold the characters a URI scheme allows: start with a letter, followed by letters, digits, `+`, `-` or `.`
Description	Optional longer description
Server name or IP address	The host running the SSH server
Server port	The TCP port of the SSH server, usually 22
User name	The user to log in as
Password	The password to log in with. Leave it empty when you authenticate with a private key only

Connection name

Name of this connection. It doubles as the URI scheme in paths (name:///...), so it can only hold the characters a URI scheme allows: start with a letter, followed by letters, digits, +, - or .

Description

Optional longer description

Server name or IP address

The host running the SSH server

Server port

The TCP port of the SSH server, usually 22

User name

The user to log in as

Password

The password to log in with. Leave it empty when you authenticate with a private key only

Authentication

Option Description

Option	Description
Use a private key	Authenticate with a private key instead of (or on top of) a password
Private key file	The private key, in PEM format. The file is read through VFS, so it doesn’t have to sit on the local file system. For PuTTY based keys, use PuTTYgen to convert the file into OpenSSH format
Key passphrase	The passphrase of the private key, when it has one
Strict host key checking	`no` (the default), `yes` or `ask`. With `yes` the host key of the server has to be in the known hosts file below
Known hosts file	The `known_hosts` file to check the host key against
Load the OpenSSH configuration	Read the OpenSSH configuration of the user running Hop (`~/.ssh/config`)
Preferred authentications	The authentication methods to offer, in order. For example `publickey,keyboard-interactive,password`
Key exchange algorithms	The key exchange algorithms to offer, for example `diffie-hellman-group14-sha256`. Leave it empty for the defaults of the SSH library

Use a private key

Authenticate with a private key instead of (or on top of) a password

Private key file

The private key, in PEM format. The file is read through VFS, so it doesn’t have to sit on the local file system. For PuTTY based keys, use PuTTYgen to convert the file into OpenSSH format

Key passphrase

The passphrase of the private key, when it has one

Strict host key checking

no (the default), yes or ask. With yes the host key of the server has to be in the known hosts file below

Known hosts file

The known_hosts file to check the host key against

Load the OpenSSH configuration

Read the OpenSSH configuration of the user running Hop (~/.ssh/config)

Preferred authentications

The authentication methods to offer, in order. For example publickey,keyboard-interactive,password

Key exchange algorithms

The key exchange algorithms to offer, for example diffie-hellman-group14-sha256. Leave it empty for the defaults of the SSH library

Advanced

Option Description

Option	Description
Compression	`none` (the default) or `zlib`
Paths are relative to the home directory	When enabled, a path is resolved against the home directory of the user. When disabled (the default), a path is an absolute path on the server, which is what the remote folder fields of the SFTP transform and actions expect
File name encoding	The encoding of the file names on the server. Empty means UTF-8
Don’t open an exec channel	Skip the exec channel Hop opens to read POSIX permissions. Servers which only allow the sftp subsystem need this
Connection timeout (ms)	How long to wait for the connection to be established. Empty means wait forever
Session timeout (ms)	How long to wait on an idle session. Empty means wait forever
Proxy type	`HTTP`, `SOCKS5` or `STREAM`, empty for a direct connection
Proxy command	The command a `STREAM` proxy runs, for example `nc %h %p`
Proxy host	The host name or IP address of the proxy server
Proxy port	The port of the proxy server
Proxy user name	The user to log into the proxy server as
Proxy password	The password of the proxy user

Compression

none (the default) or zlib

Paths are relative to the home directory

When enabled, a path is resolved against the home directory of the user. When disabled (the default), a path is an absolute path on the server, which is what the remote folder fields of the SFTP transform and actions expect

File name encoding

The encoding of the file names on the server. Empty means UTF-8

Don’t open an exec channel

Skip the exec channel Hop opens to read POSIX permissions. Servers which only allow the sftp subsystem need this

Connection timeout (ms)

How long to wait for the connection to be established. Empty means wait forever

Session timeout (ms)

How long to wait on an idle session. Empty means wait forever

Proxy type

HTTP, SOCKS5 or STREAM, empty for a direct connection

Proxy command

The command a STREAM proxy runs, for example nc %h %p

Proxy host

The host name or IP address of the proxy server

Proxy port

The port of the proxy server

Proxy user name

The user to log into the proxy server as

Proxy password

The password of the proxy user

Use Test connection to log in with the settings on screen, without saving first.

Tips

Give timeouts a value in production. Without them a stalled connection makes a pipeline wait forever.
To check a connection, open any file dialog and browse YourConnectionName:///.
Pick a Connection name which doesn’t clash with the built-in VFS schemes (file, ftp, sftp, http, …) or with other registered connections (s3, azure, gs, …). Hop logs an error and skips a connection whose name is already taken.
The plain sftp://user:password@server/path syntax keeps working. A named connection keeps the credentials out of your pipelines and lets you point at another server per environment.