[Tutor] how can I compare a local directory or file with a remote one

[Richard Querin]

I'm interested in writing a quick script that would run a diff-type
command that would compare a local directory to a remote one to
identify the changes in the files within that directory.

I was initially thinking that I would maybe use the linux diff command
in conjunction with the wget command (or something similar) to create
a local copy but that involves downloading files. Is there any way in
python to do a similar thing but without having to download a copy of
the remote files/directories?

Any ideas?