What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows
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None, use Linux where SFTP is native and built in and configured for you right out of the box, ready to go, for free. This is a silly question. People need to stop asking it.
Edit: In the years since, SFTP is now built into Windows!
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If you really, really need this functionality, install OpenSSH-Win32 which is the real OpenSSH package but maintained for Windows by Microsoft themselves.
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Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
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@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Don't do it at all.
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Don't do it at all.
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
I haven't saw this question as much... I've really only saw 'what is the best distro for a Linux FTP server?"
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
I really only ever see FileZilla on Windows servers. What does Microsoft provide? I haven't found anything in my quick searches.
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@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
I really only ever see FileZilla on Windows servers. What does Microsoft provide? I haven't found anything in my quick searches.
OpenSSH-Win32
It's the same one that is on Linux, but ported to Windows.
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@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Don't do it at all.
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
I haven't saw this question as much... I've really only saw 'what is the best distro for a Linux FTP server?"
That one is weird too, why are so many people running FTP at all?
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
I really only ever see FileZilla on Windows servers. What does Microsoft provide? I haven't found anything in my quick searches.
OpenSSH-Win32
It's the same one that is on Linux, but ported to Windows.
Ah, got it. The only search that would give me anything was IIS.
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@DustinB3403 said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
Is this like a SW question of the day, but you provide us the answer instead of making us arbitrarily guess?
It's like a weekly question. How does this ever get asked, let alone over and over again? And why are people not starting with the two obvious answers:
- Don't do it at all.
- Use MS' own tools that are free.
I haven't saw this question as much... I've really only saw 'what is the best distro for a Linux FTP server?"
That one is weird too, why are so many people running FTP at all?
Haha I have no idea... I never have a need for it. If we ever need files accessible externally, users are expected to throw it on SharePoint.
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
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Actually I lied... we do provide a "complementary" (aged) Mirrors server for some of our clients.
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@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
What if users external to the company needs read access to quickly changing data that adds up to 1.5 TB, that can't be sync'd to OneDrive or such methods? If the data is located on a Windows Server, you can spin up a Linux VM, and use "mount" to mount the CIFS windows share, and then use the built in FTP or SFTP in Linux to point to the mount point.
Would that be a viable solution? Or did I pull that one out too quick and miss some things?
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@Tim_G said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
What if users external to the company needs read access to quickly changing data that adds up to 1.5 TB, that can't be sync'd to OneDrive or such methods? If the data is located on a Windows Server, you can spin up a Linux VM, and use "mount" to mount the CIFS windows share, and then use the built in FTP or SFTP in Linux to point to the mount point.
Would that be a viable solution? Or did I pull that one out too quick and miss some things?
The complexity of that is higher than just logging into a VPN and having a drive already mounted in Explorer via GPO (not available offline).
If it's a one time thing, connect to the VPN and mount the drive, opting out of Reconnecting.
If users aren't using a VPN, they really should be.
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@Tim_G said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
What if users external to the company needs read access to quickly changing data that adds up to 1.5 TB, that can't be sync'd to OneDrive or such methods? If the data is located on a Windows Server, you can spin up a Linux VM, and use "mount" to mount the CIFS windows share, and then use the built in FTP or SFTP in Linux to point to the mount point.
Would that be a viable solution? Or did I pull that one out too quick and miss some things?
Yup, that's pretty viable. If you have a unique case and really need something "like FTP", then SFTP on Linux is a great solution. It's very simple, very secure, very well known.
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@Tim_G said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
What if users external to the company needs read access to quickly changing data that adds up to 1.5 TB, that can't be sync'd to OneDrive or such methods? If the data is located on a Windows Server, you can spin up a Linux VM, and use "mount" to mount the CIFS windows share, and then use the built in FTP or SFTP in Linux to point to the mount point.
Would that be a viable solution? Or did I pull that one out too quick and miss some things?
There are very unique cases where direct SFTP to Windows would be better than a Linux VM, but it's rare. Very rare. In theory we can come up with scenarios, but in the real world I see it far less often than we would theorize. There are normally better ways to handle it, but different for every scenario.
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
can you give a client access to upload a file to your ODfB?
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@Tim_G said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
What if users external to the company needs read access to quickly changing data that adds up to 1.5 TB, that can't be sync'd to OneDrive or such methods? If the data is located on a Windows Server, you can spin up a Linux VM, and use "mount" to mount the CIFS windows share, and then use the built in FTP or SFTP in Linux to point to the mount point.
Would that be a viable solution? Or did I pull that one out too quick and miss some things?
wow 1.5 TB - how are they getting that data? are the downloading this regularly changing data as fast as it changes? you must have one hell of an upload pipe, they must have one hell of a download pipe.
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@Dashrender said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
can you give a client access to upload a file to your ODfB?
For this specific use case we've used ownCloud in the past.
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@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@Dashrender said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@scottalanmiller said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
@BBigford said in What is the Best SFTP Server for Windows:
What are your clients using to transfer files or make them accessible externally?
Normally tools like OneDrive for Business.
can you give a client access to upload a file to your ODfB?
For this specific use case we've used ownCloud in the past.
That's what I use Nextcloud for these days.
