How to delete all files in directory on remote server in python?

Question

I'd like to delete all the files in a given directory on a remote server that I'm already connected to using paramiko. I cannot explicitly give the file names, though, because these will vary depending on which version of file I had previously put there.

Here's what I'm trying to do... the line below the #TODO is the call I'm trying where remoteArtifactPath is something like "/opt/foo/*"

ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.load_host_keys(os.path.expanduser(os.path.join("~", ".ssh", "known_hosts")))
ssh.connect(server, username=username, pkey=mykey)
sftp = ssh.open_sftp()

# TODO: Need to somehow delete all files in remoteArtifactPath remotely
sftp.remove(remoteArtifactPath+"*")

# Close to end
sftp.close()
ssh.close()

Any idea how I can achieve this?

Thanks

Answer 1

I found a solution: Iterate over all the files in the remote location, then call remove on each of them:

ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.load_host_keys(os.path.expanduser(os.path.join("~", ".ssh", "known_hosts")))
ssh.connect(server, username=username, pkey=mykey)
sftp = ssh.open_sftp()

# Updated code below:
filesInRemoteArtifacts = sftp.listdir(path=remoteArtifactPath)
for file in filesInRemoteArtifacts:
    sftp.remove(remoteArtifactPath+file)

# Close to end
sftp.close()
ssh.close()

Answer 2

A Fabric routine could be as simple as this:

with cd(remoteArtifactPath):
    run("rm *")

Fabric is great for executing shell commands on remote servers. Fabric actually uses Paramiko underneath, so you can use both if you need to.