kitten-transfer - Transfer files easily over the TTY device

       Kovid Goyal

       Normally, when you start a file transfer kitty will prompt you for confirmation.  This is to ensure  that
       hostile  programs  running  on  a  remote  machine  cannot read/write files on your computer without your
       permission. If the remote machine is trusted, then you can disable the confirmation prompt by:

       1. Setting the file_transfer_confirmation_bypass option to some password.

       2. When invoking the kitten use the --permissions-bypass to supply the password you set in step one.

       WARNING:
          Using a password to bypass confirmation means  any  software  running  on  the  remote  machine  could
          potentially learn that password and use it to gain full access to your computer.

       Simply ssh into a remote computer using the sshkitten and run the this  kitten  (which  the  ssh  kitten
       makes  available  for you on the remote computer automatically). Some illustrative examples are below. To
       copy a file from a remote computer:

          <local computer>  $ kitten ssh my-remote-computer
          <remote computer> $ kitten transfer some-file /path/on/local/computer

       This, will copy some-file from the computer  into  which  you  have  SSHed  to  your  local  computer  at
       /path/on/local/computer.  kitty  will  ask you for confirmation before allowing the transfer, so that the
       file transfer protocol cannot be abused to read/write files on your computer.

       To copy a file from your local computer to the remote computer:

          <local computer>  $ kitten ssh my-remote-computer
          <remote computer> $ kitten transfer --direction=upload /path/on/local/computer remote-file

       For more detailed usage examples, see the command line interface section below.

       NOTE:
          If you dont want to use the ssh kitten, you can install  the  kitten  binary  on  the  remote  machine
          yourself,  it  is  a standalone, statically compiled binary available from the kittyreleasespage. Or
          you can write your own script/program to use the underlying filetransferprotocol.

          kitten transfer [options] source_files_or_directories destination_path

       Transfer files over the TTY device. Can be used to send files between any two computers provided there is
       a  TTY  connection  between  them,  such as over SSH.  Supports copying files, directories (recursively),
       symlinks and hardlinks.  Can even use an rsync like protocol to copy only changes  between  files.   When
       copying  multiple  files,  use the --confirm-paths option to see what exactly will be copied. The easiest
       way to use this kitten is to first ssh into the remote computer with the ssh kitten:

          $ kitten ssh my-remote-computer

       Then, on the remote computer run the transfer kitten to do your copying.  To copy a file from the  remote
       computer to the local computer, run:

          $ kitten transfer remote-file /path/to/local-file

       This will copy remote-file from the remote computer to /path/to/local-file on the local computer.

       Similarly, to copy a file from the local computer to the remote one, run:

          $ kitten transfer --direction=upload /path/to/local-file remote-file

       This will copy /path/to/local-file from the local computer to remote-file on the remote computer.

       Multiple files can be copied:

          $ kitten transfer file1 file2 /path/to/dir/

       This will put file1 and file2 into the directory /path/to/dir/ on the local computer.

       Directories can also be copied, recursively:

          $ kitten transfer dir1 /path/to/dir/

       This will put dir1 and all its contents into /path/to/dir/ on the local computer.

       Note  that  when  copying multiple files or directories, the destination must be an existing directory on
       the receiving computer. Relative file paths are resolved with respect to the  current  directory  on  the
       computer  running  the  kitten and the home directory on the other computer. It is a good idea to use the
       --confirm-paths command line flag to verify the kitten will copy the files you expect it to.

   Options--direction<DIRECTION>,-d<DIRECTION>
              Whether to send or receive files. send or download copy files  from  the  computer  on  which  the
              kitten  is  running  (usually  the  remote computer) to the local computer. receive or upload copy
              files from the local computer to  the  remote  computer.   Default:  download  Choices:  download,
              receive, send, upload--mode<MODE>,-m<MODE>
              How to interpret command line arguments. In mirror mode all arguments are assumed to be files/dirs
              on  the  sending  computer and they are mirrored onto the receiving computer. Files under the HOME
              directory are copied to the HOME directory on the receiving computer even if the HOME directory is
              different. In normal mode the last argument is assumed to be a destination path on  the  receiving
              computer. The last argument must be an existing directory unless copying a single file. When it is
              a directory it should end with a trailing slash.  Default: normal Choices: mirror, normal--compress<COMPRESS>
              Whether  to  compress data being sent. By default compression is enabled based on the type of file
              being sent. For files recognized as being already compressed, compression is turned off as it just
              wastes CPU cycles.  Default: auto Choices: always, auto, never--permissions-bypass<PERMISSIONS_BYPASS>,-p<PERMISSIONS_BYPASS>
              The password to use to skip the transfer confirmation popup in kitty. Must match the password  set
              for  the  file_transfer_confirmation_bypass  option  in kitty.conf. Note that leading and trailing
              whitespace is removed from the password. A password starting with ., / or ~ characters is  assumed
              to  be  a  file name to read the password from. A value of - means read the password from STDIN. A
              password that is purely a number less than 256 is assumed to be the number of  a  file  descriptor
              from which to read the actual password.

       --confirm-paths,-c
              Before  actually  transferring  files, show a mapping of local file names to remote file names and
              ask for confirmation.

       --transmit-deltas,-x
              If a file on the receiving side already exists, use the rsync algorithm to update it to match  the
              file  on  the  sending  side, potentially saving lots of bandwidth and also automatically resuming
              partial transfers. Note that this will actually degrade performance on fast links  or  with  small
              files, so use with care.

       2025, Kovid Goyal

0.39.1                                            Feb 16, 2025                                kitten-transfer(1)

       This  kitten has the ability to use the rsync protocol to only transfer the differences between files. To
       turn it on use the --transmit-deltas option. Note that this will actually  be  slower  when  transferring
       small files or on a very fast network, because of round trip overhead, so use with care.

       kitten-transfer - Transfer files easily over the TTY device

       Added in version 0.30.0.

       Transfer  files  to  and from remote computers over the TTY device itself.  This means that file transfer
       works over nested SSH sessions, serial links, etc. Anywhere you have a terminal device, you can  transfer
       files.

       This  kitten  supports  transferring  entire  directory  trees,  preserving  soft  and  hard  links, file
       permissions, times, etc. It even supports the rsync protocol to transfer only changes to large files.

       SEEALSO:
          See the Remotefiles kitten

       The source code for this kitten is availableonGitHub.