Transferring files between computers

If your primary workstation is a Windows computer and if you are doing some analysis on a remote UNIX computer you will need to transfer files back and forth between the computers. If you need a method of transferring files, XLiveCD provides a secure transfer agent. The client behaves like an old-fashioned ftp program, but it uses the secure shell protocol for transferring files. It is called sftp, and it is part of the openssh package.

You can run sftp from the command prompt in an X terminal window. Do so before you use the command prompt to log in to a remote UNIX machine. (You can always launch a new X terminal by double clicking on the new X term icon.) At the prompt type a command like:

	sftp myid@remote.computer.edu

where you replace myid with your own user id and remote.computer.edu with the network address of the computer to which you want to connect. For example, if user bb has an account on a machine named bigunix.biguni.edu, the command would be

	sftp bb@bigunix.biguni.edu

. Once you have connected you can browse the file system on the other end and transfer files by issuing commands.

• dir - lists the names of files in the current directory on the remote computer.
• ls - lists the names of files in the current directory on the remote computer.
• cd directory_name - changes the current directory on the remote computer to that named.
• put filename - sends the named file to the remote computer.
• get filename - retrieves the named file from the remote computer.
• help - prints a list of available commands.
• quit - breaks the connection with the remote computer.

Documentation copyright and license

Copyright (C) 2004 by The Trustees of Indiana University. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.