How to SCP from Linux server to Windows client

I'm SSHing into a Linux machine using PuTTY and trying to copy a file down somewhere (anywhere) to my local machine. I figure SCP is the best candidate for the job but don't really care, so long as the solution works!

I cd to the directory containing the file I want (app.war) and type the following:

scp app.war ./

I've tried both to no avail:

scp app.war ./C:/Users/myUser/
scp app.war ./Users/myUser/

It got me thinking that perhaps SCP is a client/server tool and requires a client on my Windows machine, which isn't there.

Am I just using the wrong syntax? Or am I way off-base? If so, what options do I have? Thanks in advance!

10 Answers

in order for you to copy files back to your Windows you need SSH daemon/service to be running on your Windows, it's much easier to use this tool instead, it has an ability to import sessions from Putty, very plain forward client you'll love it!

WinSCP :: Free SFTP and FTP client for Windows

Windows 10 now has OpenSSH built in.

Get an admin command prompt

Open PowerShell as an Administrator.

Check available versions

Get-WindowsCapability -Online | ? Name -like 'OpenSSH*'

Install client

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0

Install server

Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0

Start server and enable at boot

Start-Service sshd
Set-Service -Name sshd -StartupType 'Automatic'

Find your Windows IP address

ipconfig

On your remote (Linux) machine, find your IP address.

ifconfig

Create a public SSH key

ssh-keygen.exe

Copy public key from local (Windows) to remote (Linux) machine so you don't have to type in a password all the time.

Note that ssh-copy-id is not currently available on Windows.

cat C:\Users\YOU/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh USER@REMOTE_IP 'mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'

Do the same on your Linux machine (Note, ssh-copy-id does not work)

ssh-keygen # if needed
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh USER@WINDOWS_IP 'mkdir -p ~/.ssh && type con >> C:/Users/YOU/.ssh/authorized_keys'

The method above did not work for me, so I ended up manually SCPing the public key over and pasting it into the C:/Users/YOU/.ssh/authorized_keys file.
That still did not work, so I had to modify the sshd_config file.
- Open Notepad as Administrator
- Open %programdata%\ssh\sshd_config
- Add the following lines:

 Match User YOU AuthorizedKeysFile C:/Users/YOU/.ssh/authorized_keys

Reboot

Create a password on Windows if you don't already have one

System Settings...Sign-in options

-- Note, you can still disable the Windows login screen by a) Setting the 'Require sign-in' option to never and b) Using the 'netplwiz' command and unticking the 'Users must enter password...' checkbox.

Now you should be able to SSH or SCP from your Linux machine

scp FILE WINDOWS_IP:C:/Users/YOU/Desktop

You are correct. SSHD is the SSH server services that runs on the host. It accepts connections from SSH clients (like PuTTy), SCP clients, and SFTP clients.

You can download pscp from the same website where PuTTY is hosted.

From the windows machine, you would execute a command similar to

pscp.exe :/path/to/app.war c:\tmp

You can do this by using the Linux Ubuntu subsystem for Windows (you need to enable this as a Windows feature). Then you can use a Linux terminal client that runs on Windows by getting it from the Microsoft Store (e.g. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS). Then, if you have ssh security set up to remote into your Linux machine, you can scp from your local Windows Ubuntu terminal (when logged in as the username that you set for your Linux instance) something like this:

scp -i ~/.ssh/my_rsa username@11.11.11.11:~/myfile ~/... enter RSA passphrase

The remote file will be copied into your local Ubuntu filesystem used by Windows e.g.

C:\Users\my.username\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu16.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs\home\my_linux_username

To SCP a file to a Windows machine, you need an SSH/SCP server on the Windows.

Since Windows 10, Microsoft build of OpenSSH for Windows is included. It can also be manually installed on older versions of Windows.

I have prepared a guide for setting up SSH/SFTP server on Windows using this Microsoft build of OpenSSH.

Though as you SSH into the Linux server from the Windows machine, you actually can download a file from the Linux server to the Windows server, instead of trying to upload the file from the Linux server to Windows server.

In you have an SSH access from Windows to Linux, you have an SCP access too (or even better an SFTP access).

Use any SCP/SFTP client available.

You can use WinSCP SFTP/SCP client, which has both GUI and command-line interface.

Another alternative is PuTTY toolset, which includes the pscp command-line tool with a syntax similar to the OpenSSH scp command. Also the latest versions of Windows 10 comes with OpenSSH scp built-in and it can be installed on older versions too.

(I'm the author of WinSCP)

If anyone else is in a very locked-down environment, and you can't even install PuTTY, here's what I do:

Transferring files from Windows to Linux (CentOS 7)

On my Windows computer, open a command prompt

scp [local file to send to Linux] [Linux username]@[Linux computer]:[Linux path to save to]

examples:

scp log.txt :/home/ryanLinuxUser
scp log.txt ryanLinuxUser@192.168.1.2:/home/ryanLinuxUser

Transferring files from Linux to Windows

Again on my Windows computer, open a command prompt

scp [Linux username]@[Linux computer]:[Linux path to existing file] [local Windows path to save to]

examples:

scp :/home/ryanLinuxUser/log.txt log.txt
scp ryanLinuxUser@192.168.1.2:/home/ryanLinuxUser/log.txt log.txt

on windows,scp file to my server:

C:\Users\admin\Documents>scp Aaaa.docx tingfeng@192.168.1.223:/tmp

on my server,scp from windows

scp admin@192.168.1.66:C:/Users/admin/Documents/Aaaa.docx /tmp
scp admin@192.168.1.66:"C:/Users/admin/Documents/Aaaa.docx" /tmp

you can skip default prefix C:

scp admin@192.168.1.66:/Users/admin/Documents/Aaaa.docx /tmp

To copy a file from Linux to Windows, use the following command from Windows (no Windows SSH server required):

scp user@ip:/dir1/dir2/file "D:\dir1\dir2"

Assuming you have access to the windows machine, open a CMD and enter the following:

scp linuxUsername@ip_address_of_linux_machine:~/Documents/testFile.txt ./

This way you don't need to "send" anything to your windows machine, instead you can "grab" the file from your linux machine.

The ./ specifies your current windows directory - you can change this if you want to copy to a specific directory, see below:

(Using made up values for better real life example)

scp ubuntuDesktop@192.168.1.25:~/Documents/testFile.txt /C:/Users/Max/Documents

Step 1: Download pscp
(Based on your machine download the respective version)

Step 2: Get familiar with the pscp commands
To do so, open command prompt in your windows machine, go to directory where you have downloaded pscp.exe and type "pscp"

Step 3: Transfer file from your Linux machine to Windows machine
open your command prompt, and run below command providing your details:

pscp usernameofyourlinuxmachine@10.40.000.000:/path/of/your/File/nameofyourfile.txt ./

and this command will transfer the file from your Linux machine to the current directory of your windows machine

Step 4: Transfer file from your Windows machine to Linux machine
open your command prompt, and run below command providing your details:

pscp nameofyourfile.txt usernameofyourlinuxmachine@10.40.000.000:/path/where/youwantyourfile

I hope this is clear and works for you all!