check if file exists on remote host with ssh
one line, proper quoting
ssh remote_host test -f "/path/to/file" && echo found || echo not found
In addition to the answers above, there's the shorthand way to do it:
ssh -q $HOST [[ -f $FILE_PATH ]] && echo "File exists" || echo "File does not exist";
-q
is quiet mode, it will suppress warnings and messages.
As @Mat mentioned, one advantage of testing like this is that you can easily swap out the -f
for any test operator you like: -nt
, -d
, -s
etc...
Test Operators: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/fto.html
Here is a simple approach:
#!/bin/bash
USE_IP='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no [email protected]'
FILE_NAME=/home/user/file.txt
SSH_PASS='sshpass -p password-for-remote-machine'
if $SSH_PASS ssh $USE_IP stat $FILE_NAME \> /dev/null 2\>\&1
then
echo "File exists"
else
echo "File does not exist"
fi
You need to install sshpass on your machine to work it.
Can't get much simpler than this :)
ssh host "test -e /path/to/file"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
# your file exists
fi
As suggested by dimo414, this can be collapsed to:
if ssh host "test -e /path/to/file"; then
# your file exists
fi