lftp-action

A simple action that allows you to use LFTP securely in a GitHub workflow. Useful to deploy code to a server over SFTP.

Inputs

Name	Description	Required	Default
ftp_host	The hostname to connect to	yes	N/A
ftp_user	FTP username	no	anonymous
ftp_pass	FTP password if required	no	N/A
ftp_port	FTP port	no	22
ssh_private_key	SSH private key which will be used when connecting over SFTP	no	N/A
ftp_protocol	What protocol to use; sftp, ftp	no	sftp
ftp_host_fingerprint	The SSH host fingerprint to verify when connecting	no	N/A
disable_strict_host_key_checking	Disable StrictHostKeyChecking (not recommended)	no	false
force_ssl	if true, refuse to send password in clear when server does not support SSL	no	true
ssl_verify_cert	when true, lftp checks if the host name used to connect to the server corresponds to the host name in its certificate	no	true
commands	All commands for lftp seperated with ;	no	''
debug	Turn on debug mode	no	false

Basic usage

name: Deploy via SFTP
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    name: Deploy website
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        
      # Build steps ...

      - name: Deploy files via SFTP
        uses: haukurh/lftp-action@v1
        with:
          ftp_host: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST }}
          ftp_user: ${{ vars.FTP_USER }}
          ftp_pass: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASS }}
          ftp_host_fingerprint: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST_FINGERPRINT }}
          commands: mirror --continue --reverse --delete --verbose app/ /remote/www/site/

Useful recipes

Only sync modified files

name: Deploy via SFTP
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    name: Deploy website
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        # We disable shallow fetch in order to have all the history for next step
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
        
        # Fix file modified date according to git commit history
      - name: Fix file modified date
        run: git ls-files | xargs -I{} git log -1 --date=format:%Y%m%d%H%M.%S --format='touch -t %ad "{}"' "{}" | $SHELL

        # Mirror all the files from app/ folder to the server
        # Warning: this will delete everything else on the server that's not included in the mirror
      - name: Deploy files via SFTP
        uses: haukurh/lftp-action@v1
        with:
          ftp_host: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST }}
          ftp_user: ${{ vars.FTP_USER }}
          ftp_pass: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASS }}
          ftp_host_fingerprint: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST_FINGERPRINT }}
          commands: mirror --continue --reverse --delete --verbose app/ /remote/www/site/

SSH Key-Based Authentication

Instead of using user + password to authenticate over SSH you should use SSH Key-Based Authentication.

name: Deploy via SFTP
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    name: Deploy website
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        
      # Build steps ...

      - name: Deploy files via SFTP
        uses: haukurh/lftp-action@v1
        with:
          ftp_host: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST }}
          ftp_user: ${{ vars.FTP_USER }}
          ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
          ftp_host_fingerprint: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST_FINGERPRINT }}
          commands: mirror --continue --reverse --delete --verbose app/ /remote/www/site/

Disable strict host key checking

Although not recommended this could be necessary in some cases.

name: Deploy via SFTP
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    name: Deploy website
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        
      # Build steps ...

      - name: Deploy files via SFTP
        uses: haukurh/lftp-action@v1
        with:
          ftp_host: ${{ vars.FTP_HOST }}
          ftp_user: ${{ vars.FTP_USER }}
          ftp_pass: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASS }}
          disable_strict_host_key_checking: "true"
          commands: mirror --continue --reverse --delete --verbose app/ /remote/www/site/

LFTP

LFTP is a sophisticated file transfer program supporting a number of network protocols (ftp, http, sftp, fish, torrent).

This action uses LFTP behind the scenes, LFTP is really powerful so it's best to check out the man pages for more in depth information about the available commands.

• LFTP website: lftp.yar.ru
• LFTP man page: lftp.yar.ru/lftp-man
• LFTP GitHub repo: github.com/lavv17/lftp

Issues

If you find any problems with this GitHub action, please open an issue.

License

The MIT License, check the LICENSE file.