Easy to use SFTP ([SSH File Transfer Protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_File_Transfer_Protocol)) server with [OpenSSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSH).
User "foo" with password "pass" can login with sftp and upload files to a folder called "upload". No mounted directories or custom UID/GID. Later you can inspect the files and use `--volumes-from` to mount them somewhere else (or see next example).
The OpenSSH server runs by default on port 22, and in this example, we are forwarding the container's port 22 to the host's port 2222. To log in with the OpenSSH client, run: `sftp -P 2222 foo@<host-ip>`
Mount public keys in the user's `.ssh/keys/` directory. All keys are automatically appended to `.ssh/authorized_keys` (you can't mount this file directly, because OpenSSH requires limited file permissions). In this example, we do not provide any password, so the user `foo` can only login with his SSH key.
This container will generate new SSH host keys at first run. To avoid that your users get a MITM warning when you recreate your container (and the host keys changes), you can mount your own host keys.
If you are using `--volumes-from` or just want to make a custom directory available in user's home directory, you can add a script to `/etc/sftp.d/` that bindmounts after container starts.
**NOTE:** Using `mount` requires that your container runs with the `CAP_SYS_ADMIN` capability turned on. [See this answer for more information](https://github.com/atmoz/sftp/issues/60#issuecomment-332909232).
The biggest differences are in size and OpenSSH version. [Alpine](https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine/) is 10 times smaller than [Debian](https://hub.docker.com/_/debian/). OpenSSH version can also differ, as it's two different teams maintaining the packages. Debian is generally considered more stable and only bugfixes and security fixes are added after each Debian release (about 2 years). Alpine has a faster release cycle (about 6 months) and therefore newer versions of OpenSSH. As I'm writing this, Debian has version 7.4 while Alpine has version 7.5. Recommended reading: [Comparing Debian vs Alpine for container & Docker apps](https://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/alpine-vs-debian)
It depends on which linux distro and version you choose (see available images at the top). You can see what version you get by checking the distro's packages online. I have provided direct links below for easy access.
- [List of `openssh` packages on Alpine releases](https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=openssh&branch=&repo=main&arch=x86_64)
- [List of `openssh-server` packages on Debian releases](https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=openssh-server&searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all§ion=main)