WinSCP Tutorial 01/28/09: Y. Liow

Transcription

1 WinSCP Tutorial 01/28/09: What is WinSCP? WinSCP is an open source SFTP client for Windows. Its main function is the secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers basic file manager functionality. It uses Secure Shell (SSH) and supports, in addition to Secure FTP, also legacy SCP protocol. (from ) Installation If you re comfortable with installing software, this is all you need: google for winscp and install the latest stable version of WinSCP. For this tutorial the version is Again you should install the latest stable version. Otherwise please read on. First we will download the installation program. Open your web browser and point it to For this tutorial, I m using the Firefox browser. Look for this (again, for this tutorial the version is you should look for the latest stable version to download and install): and click on the Download. On the next web page, look for WinSCP and click on Installation package : and you will see this: Save it the installation program onto your Desktop. When this is done you will see this: 1 of 18

2 The next thing to do is to run the installation program to install WinSCP. Double-click on the above icon to begin installing WinSCP and you will see this: Click on OK. Click on Next > a couple of times and then Install. Then your installation is completed, click on Finish. You should see these on your Desktop: You can delete winscp418s..., i.e., the installation program. To run WinSCP, you double-click on the WinSCP icon. 2 of 18

3 Logging In Now we will login to a server. Run WinSCP and you will see this: Click on Preferences on the left and select Norton Commander. Now click on Session on left and you see this again: 3 of 18

4 Fill in Host name, User name and Password. This will be provided by your instructor. Unless otherwise stated the Host name is gandalf.ccis.edu (without the double-quotes). I will be using the user yliow. Do not change other options. Do not click on Save... if you're using a public machine as that will save your password onto the machine. Click on Login and you will see something like this: Click on Yes and you will see this: 4 of 18

5 You are now logged in to the server. My home directory on the server is /home/yliow. If you are user jdoe, your home directory is /home/jdoe. What you see above are the files in my account on the machine gandalf.ccis.edu. 5 of 18

6 Navigation The left window pane shows the files on your local machine (i.e. the machine you're working on) while the right pane shows your files in your home directory on the server. On the left window pane, you will see your folder My Documents. Navigating the file system using the GUI of WinSCP is very similar to for instance the Windows Explorer of Windows XP. I will only mention a few points here. Of course you can go into a different folder by clicking on the folder. You can also go to the parent folder Double-click on folder to go into the folder. Click to go to the parent folder You can also pull down the following to go to your Desktop, etc.: Note that in the above picture, the right pane is selected (because /home/yliow is highlighted): To select the left pane simply click on any area of the left pane. To select the right pane simply click on any area of the right pane. You can maximize the window to see more buttons. 6 of 18

7 Manage Files and Folders on the Server Just like on your personal Windows machine, you can create and delete files and folders. (Except that on a UNIX system folders are called directories.) The GUI of WinSCP is very similar to the GUI of Windows XP. Instead of explaining every feature of the GUI of WinSCP, I will do a demo on how to create the ciss240 directory in your home directory at the server, go into the directory to view the contents, go back to your home directory, and then remove the ciss240 directory. First select the right pane. Next either press F7 or click on F7 Create Directory : You will be prompted for the name of your directory. Enter ciss240 : and press OK. You will see this: 7 of 18

8 You have just created a ciss240 directory in your home directory. If you double-click on ciss240 you will see the contents of this folder: You can go back to your home directory by click on yliow : You will see your home directory again: 8 of 18

9 To delete the ciss240 directory, you can either right click on ciss240 and then click on Delete or you can right click on ciss240 and press F8. Exercise. Create the ciss240 directory in your home directory again. Go into ciss240 and create a directory called a01. This will be used in the next section. There are many other features I did not mention. For instance you can rename a directory. 9 of 18

10 Transferring Files Transferring a file between your local machine and the server is just a matter of dragging and dropping the file between the left and right pane. But before you do that you should set some default permissions. From the main window, select Preferences on the left: and then click on the Preferences button to get this window: 10 of 18

11 Select Transfer on the left and you see this: 11 of 18

12 Click on the... button just below Set permission and make sure you check or uncheck the options in the popup window: 12 of 18

13 Now we are ready to do some file transfer. The following steps will transfer a file called test.txt from the local machine to the server at the directory /home/yliow/ciss240/a01. First suppose you have a file called test.txt in your Desktop. First make sure you can see your Desktop on the left pane. Next make sure you can see the /home/yliow/ciss240/a01 directory on the right pane: Now drag-and-drop test.txt from the left pane to the right and you will see this: Click on Copy and you will see this: 13 of 18

14 You have just made a copy of test.txt (in your Desktop folder) from your local machine to the server (in ciss240/a01 from your home directory.). Exercise. Transferring a file from the server to your local machine is just as easy. Remove test.txt from your local machine and then transfer test.txt from the server to your local machine. 14 of 18

15 Organization of Your Class Work The following instructions are specific to the classes taught by Dr Liow. In the following I assume that you're a student in CISS240. In your home directory at gandalf.ccis.edu, you must have a ciss240 directory. In the ciss240 directory you must have an a directory for storing all the assignments. In the a directory you have directories for each assignment a01, a02, a03, etc. Suppose that for assignment a01, there are two questions. In that case in directory a01 you have two directories a01q01 and a01q02. Suppose that for question 1 of a01, you have to write a C++ program with source file name a01q01.cpp. The file a01q01.cpp must be stored in directory a01q01. Likewise if a01q02.cpp is the program for question 2, then a02q02.cpp must be stored in directory a01q02. The directory structure starting at your home directory (assuming your login name is jdoe) looks like this: jdoe +---ciss a +--- a a01q a01q01.cpp +--- a01q a01q02.cpp NOTE TO CISS240 STUDENTS: You only upload the cpp and h files. Do NOT upload anything else. 15 of 18

16 Modifying the Environment For your personal machine, you can make the following modifications. Note that when you login to the server, the default folder shown for the local machine is the My Documents folder and the default directory shown for the server is your home directory. The following will change the default local directory to Desktop and the default directory on the server to ciss240. First close the WinSCP program and start it again. You will see this: Click on Directories and you see this: Enter ciss240 (without quotes) in Remote directory and click on... for Local directory and select the Desktop : 16 of 18

17 When you click on Save you will be prompted for a name for the session. Enter ciss240 and press OK and you will see this: If you double-click on the above ciss240 and login, you will see that the left pane is your Desktop and the right pane is the ciss240 folder in your home directory. Although you can save your password into the ciss240, for security reason, you should not do so, even for your personal machine. Exercise. Modify the ciss240 session by adding the server name and your user name to it. Do NOT add your password. Now test the ciss240 session. You only need to enter the password to login to the server. 17 of 18

18 Important Note You should know that all Columbia College policies apply to our department servers. In particular you should only use the server for work related to your classes. If in doubt, you should always consult with the instructor. Violation of policies will result in suspension of your account for a period of time determined by the Computer Science faculty. 18 of 18