Transferring Files with Python

Reference Walk-Throughs
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Most modern Linux distributions are shipped with Python 2 and/or Python 3 pre-installed. The following methods can be used to easily send files from a sender to a recipient system using Python.

Hosting an Ad-Hoc HTTP Server

One simple method for sharing a file across the network is by creating an ad-hoc HTTP server on the sender system, then downloading shared files to the recipient system using any number of HTTP clients, such as wget or curl.

Note

If you intend to host an HTTP server on port 80, as per common usage, you’ll need to run the following commands with root- or admin-level permissions. It is therefore advised, on Unix-like systems, to use the sudo utility to run these commands as root.

To host an ad-hoc HTTP server with Python 3, use the following command:

python3 -m http.server 80

With Python 2, use the following command instead:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 80

In either case, to stop the HTTP server, you can hit Ctrl-C.