Scenario:
I'm using ssh to connect to a remote machine. I use the command line and run ssh <pathname>, which connects me to the machine at . I want to edit and run code on that remote machine. So far the only way I know is to create, edit, and run the files in the command window in vi, because my only connection to that machine is that command window.
My Question is:
I'd love to be able to edit my code in VSCode on my own machine, and then use the command line to save that file to the remote machine. Does anyone know if this is possible? I'm using OS X and ssh'ing into a Linux Fedora machine.
Thanks!
Sounds like you're looking for a command like scp. SCP stands for secure copy protocol, and it builds on top of SSH to copy files from one machine to another. So to upload your code to your server, all you'd have to do is do
scp path/to/source.file username#host:path/to/destination.file
EDIT: As #Pam Stums mentioned in a comment below the question, rsync is also a valid solution, and is definitely less tedious if you would like to automatically sync client and server directories.
You could export the directory on the remote machine using nfs or samba and mount it as a share on your local machine and then edit the files locally.
If you're happy using vim, check out netrw (it comes with most vim distributions; :help netrw for details) to let you use macvim locally to edit the remote files.
Given:
Connection to the Uni's secure shell like this:
me#my_computer~$ ssh <my_name>#unixyz.cs.xy.com
Password:***********
Welcome to Unixyz. You now can access a terminal on system unixyz:
my_name#unixyz~$ ls
Desktop Documents Pictures Music desired_document.pdf
my_name#unixyz-$
Taks/Question:
Getting the desired_document.pdf to my own system. I have thought of some options so far:
1)Since i can access an editor like nano I could write a C/Java programm , compile it in the home directory and make that program send the pdf. Problem with that: Had to code a client on the Uni machine and a server on my own system. On top of that I only know how to transfer text given to the stdin and no pdf's. And its obviously too much work for the given task
2) I found some vague information about commands: scp and sftp. Unfortunately, I can not figure out how it is done exactly.
The latter is basicly my questions: Are the commands scp and sftp valid options for doing the desired and how are they used?
EDIT:
I received a first answer and the problem persists: As stated, i use:
scp me# server.cs.xyz.com:/path/topdf /some/local/dir
which gives me:
/some/local/dir: no such file or directory
I'm not sure in which environment you are.
Do you use Linux or Windows as your every-day operating system?
If you are using windows, there are some ui-based scp/ssh implementations that enable you to transfer these files using an explorer based ui.
For example there is https://winscp.net/
You can indeed use scp to do exacty that, and it's easier than it might look:
scp your_username# unixyz.cs.xy.com:path/to/desired_document.pdf /some/local/dir
The key is the colon after the servername where you add your path
Optionally you can pass in the password as well, but that's bad practice, for obvious reasons.
I actually got the answer myself and the error that I was having. Both, the guy with the answer and the commentor where right. BUT:
scp must be launched when you are in YOUR terminal, I always tried to do it while I was connected to the remote server.
2 hours wasted because of that.
I'm looking right at the file I want to download in my current directory. wget wants a FULL url, I don't know what the full url is. im in directory /usr/local/lib/ and want to download php.ini.
I am using putty to log into my web server, and when i say donwload i want to download it from the web server to my pc
Firstly, forget URLs, and forget wget - this file isn't going to be accessible over the world wide web (if it is, your security is seriously broken).
However, if you can see it on SSH, you can probably (depending on security policies on the server) access it by using the same credentials over SCP.
On the command-line, using the PSCP program which comes with PuTTY that would look something like:
pscp user#server.example.com:/usr/local/lib/php.ini .
Or you could use a graphical client like WinSCP or FileZilla (which supports SFTP, which is another SSH-based protocol; use sftp://server.example.com as the server to connect to), if you're on a Windows desktop.
Use pscp which is included with PuTTY
If you are on Linux:
scp user#server:/path2file/file path-on-localpc
I'm trying to edit files on a remote Amazon EC2 Linux instance. I'm currently just sshing in and using nano, but would really like a graphical text editor. I have two problems:
I have to use sudo to edit these server files when I ssh in.
I can only login with the key Amazon gave me. Ex: ssh -i Andrew.pem ec2-user#55.55.44.33
Please help! I'm not picky, just any graphical text editor since using nano is a huge pain.
For remote editing, there are lots of options here: This answer, like any other, is sure to become outdated as more options enter the field.
For vim, the netrw module meets this need, and is shipped with the editor by default.
For emacs, this is available with TRAMP.
For the ATOM editor, see the remote-files plugin.
For IntelliJ, editing files on remote hosts is supported in the commercial edition.
For Eclipse, see the Remote System Explorer from the Target Management project.
I'd suggest starting with the editor you prefer and evaluating options from there. If you set up your SSH session to be able to authenticate directly to root (password auth is best disabled for root, but if you have sudo you can install RSA keys), then you'll be able to specify root as a target user for any of the above.
By contrast, if you really do need sudo, you still have options:
See Using tramp to open files sudoed to root on the Emacs wiki. New versions also support a ssh+sudo transport, meaning this wiki entry may already be out-of-date.
To help anyone that just need a quick command line text editor:
you can use vi:
vi file-name.txt
or nano:
nano file-name.txt
optionally use sudo if editing the file, eg:
sudo nano file-name.txt
Just modify the appropriate files on your local machine and scp the file into the remote machine.
scp <local_machine_path_to_file> remoteUser#remoteHostName:<filePath>
amazon now acquire Cloud9, which is a browser-based IDE that can edit your EC2.
https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/
Today I found two products that can use sudo, they are
MobaXterm (free version) and SmarTTY
MobaXterm has a button in the file browser that enables sudo mode. You can view, create and edit files as a sudo user. Use this switch when necessary.
Unfortunately, this only works through the SCP protocol.
SmartTTY works differently. When you try to save a file that requires sudo, SmarTTY throws an error and immediately suggests trying to save the file with sudo
Of the two products, I recommend MobaXterm.
Sudo is for root privileges for that particular command. You will need to use root privileges to edit system files. Even on a local machine. If you don't like typing sudo every time, you can type sudo -s. You will change to root user and it will show you in terminal i.e. root#ip.... The $ sign will also change to #. Honestly, I prefer not going root, because it is easier to make irreversible mistakes with root privileges. I've made some mistakes and I'm talking from experience...
As far as the second part of your question goes, you can configure various text editors to sftp into your instance such as sublime.
You will have to use the .pem key file every time you ssh using terminal. This is because AWS takes security very seriously. You can put the key file in your home directory. That way you don't have to change directories every time you open up terminal.
You can also edit a local copy of files and then use FileZilla to transfer. Setting up FileZilla to work with your EC2 instance is straightforward. You can give vim a try since it colors your code and is more advanced than nano. Use the command vi or vim from terminal.
Happy SSH'ing ;).
ssh -X user#server.
You have to make appropriate setting for forwarding.
I use SFTP Net Drive SFTP, which let you create a virtual drive on your local computer that will map the remote file system accessible via SFTP protocol. After the map is created, you can use the editor of your preference.
You can use nano, vim, vi or many others. However if you want to edit with a graphical text editor you will have to create SFTP since Amazon does not support FTP. One way is to use filezilla to upload your files. Here is a video on using filezilla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VawBMj29g0o I suggest SSH though. Its fast and easy here is a video on that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2-3HoRjBH4
I found a weird workaround for a GUI based text editor on AWS, I used Jupyter Notebook. If you have Anaconda installed on you instance, you follow the following steps
ssh onto your instance using ssh -i <location of your private key> <username>#<public DNS>
Start jupyter notebook on your instance using jupyter notebook --no-browser --port=8888
Open a new terminal window and ssh onto your jupyter notebook using ssh -i <location of your private key> -L 8212:localhost:8888 <username>#<public DNS>
Now you can open jupyter notebook at localhost:8212
Using the jupyter notebook environment, you can not only launch and run Ipython notebooks but also create and edit any files like a text editor.
would really like a graphical text editor
You cannot have a graphic editor, you need to use any editors like nano as you said or vim,emacs. Sudo would be required when you have to edit configuration files with root as owner.
To assist others with this same question, I would suggest jEdit. It is very capable, and it has a very rich plugin environment, language parsing, etc.
http://www.jedit.org
It has "always" supported sftp read and write of files with the sshConsole plugin.
I use it now on my AWS EC2 instance with the key pair supplied by AWS.
Lastly, it is not a good idea to edit files owned by root in the "production" environment.
Do your dev work in the AWS user's home folder so that you have full control of the source files. Then use a symlink to the actual server's file tree so you can serve it to yourself for testing. There are lots of controls in nginx and apache to limit who can view your dev site.
EDIT/UPDATE:
The NppFtp plugin to Notepad++ profides sftp access to AWS. I just tested it with the .pem file that they provided for my login at AWS.
For this, i'd suggest one of:
Learn and use emacs; it's quite powerful as far as textmode editors go.
Install your favourite graphical editor on the server and use X forwarding, 'ssh -X server.com'. This will allow you to launch the editor remotely, but have it display locally.
Most elegant in my opinion, use sshfs (https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs) to mount the remote directory locally, so you can work on the files directly using your favourite text editor.
When using PSTools (sysinternals) via SSH, you may notice that it stalls when you try the command. If it does this, you probably have not agreed to the license terms for each pstools command.
Solution: Log directly into the Windows computer via Console or RDP as the user you wish to SSH in as and execute each command in pstools that you need to use. You will get the license confirmation and hit accept. Once this is done, you will now be able to use the commands via SSH :)
Note: pslist is a great alternative to TOP. I have open issues with TOP command in cygwin where it only lists current user (not very useful). pslist does not have this issue.
Cheers,
-JsD
Or use the -accepteula switch that is supported by all PSTools.