> This module uses the Net::FTP module under the hood to handle the FTP chores.

If you don't find a ready made tool, you might try to replace Net::FTP with something else, e.g. Net::SFTP or Net::SFTP::Foreign (I had success with the latter in the past).

If you look at the source of the module, though, there's not much there. It should be fairly easy to write a new one for SFTP.

Unfortunately, the API between Net::FTP and Net::SFTP are not quite the same. In case it helps, here is some code I have that hides the difference between the two modules with my own API (though this only covers ls and get, not put)

*NOTE* Actually wait, looking closer at the original code I see what looks like a custom FTP command? https://metacpan.org/dist/MVS-JESFTP/source/JESFTP.pm#L106. Are you sure that job control is possible over SFTP?

sub _fetch_uri {
   my ($self, $uri)= @_;
   my $conn= $self->_cached_connection($uri);
   if ($uri->scheme eq 'ftp') {
      my $buf= '';
      open my $fh, '>', \$buf or die;
      $conn->get($uri->path, $fh)
         or die 'file could not be downloaded: ' . $conn->message;
      close $fh;
      return $buf;
   }
   elsif ($uri->scheme eq 'sftp') {
      return scalar $conn->get($uri->path);
   }
   elsif ($uri->scheme eq 'file') {
      return $conn->slurp_raw;
   }
   else { die "BUG: Unhandled scheme ".$uri->scheme; }
}

# Return arrayref of file names under the URI path
#
sub _readdir_uri {
   my ($self, $uri)= @_;
   my $conn= $self->_cached_connection($uri);
   if ($uri->scheme eq 'ftp') {
      # connection refers to root filesystem.  path can be multiple co
+mponents
      # deep reaching into the file tree.  Then, need to remove all di
+rectory portions
      # of the response.
      return [ map { $_ =~ s|.*/||; $_ } $conn->ls($uri->path) ];
   }
   elsif ($uri->scheme eq 'sftp') {
      return [ map $_->{filename}, $conn->ls($uri->path) ];
   }
   elsif ($uri->scheme eq 'file') {
      return [ $conn->children ];
   }
   else { die "BUG: Unhandled scheme ".$uri->scheme; }
}

sub _cached_connection {
   my ($self, $uri)= @_;
   if ($uri->scheme eq 'ftp') {
      return ($self->_conn_cache->{'ftp:'.$uri->user.'@'.$uri->host} /
+/= $self->_connect_ftp($uri));
   }
   elsif ($uri->scheme eq 'sftp') {
      return ($self->_conn_cache->{'sftp:'.$uri->user.'@'.$uri->host} 
+//= $self->_connect_sftp($uri));
   }
   elsif ($uri->scheme eq 'file') {
      _logcroak('Refusing to access local file URL')
         unless $ENV{DATA_SERVICE_ACCESS_LOCAL}; # for debugging
      return Path::Tiny::path($uri->file);
   }
   else {
      _logcroak("Don't know how to access ".$self->_redacted_uri($uri)
+);
   }
}

sub _connect_ftp {
   my ($self, $uri)= @_;
   my $host= $uri->host;
   my $ftp = Net::FTP->new($host, Passive => 1)
      or die "Cannot connect to '$host': $@";

   $ftp->login($uri->user, $uri->password)
      or die 'Cannot login: ', $ftp->message;
   $ftp->binary
      or die "Can't start binary mode";
   
   return $ftp
}

sub _connect_sftp {
   my ($self, $uri)= @_;
   my $host= $uri->host;
   Net::SFTP->new(
      $host, user => $uri->user, password => $uri->password,
      ssh_args => [
         # See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41964908/netsftp-pe
+rl-rsa-authentification/51863332#51863332
         identity_files => [],
         # deprecated, but needed for ancient servers
         options => [ "MACs +hmac-sha1" ],
      ],
   );
}
[download]