Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?
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Ok I see, I wasn't aware it was a free install. Why don't they just include it natively?
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I've also never had a reason to use SFTP on Windows either for that matter.
It's pretty useful, but if you are so used to not having it that you never think of it, you might not realize how often you'd like to have it. SFTP makes getting simple, normal files on and off of systems in an ad hoc manner SO much easier than with pretty much any other tool. Need to do remote file manipulation or direct system to system file transfers, nothing really beats it. Very secure, very little setup, very easier to use.
As the world moves to cloud and hosted systems more and more, the more useful it will be, too. And it is universal and doesn't require special support from an OS. With Microsoft adding it, all major OSes have it. Its' the only protocol that is so universal.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I know it has had FTP for many years but not the secure version.
The secure version of FTP is FTP/S and Microsoft has had that in IIS for a very long time. SFTP is a different protocol than FTP or FTP/S. FTP/S is SSL encrypted FTP. SFTP is an FTP-like system that is part of the SSH protocol family. So while they are similar in use, they are not related in any way.
Sorry I wasn't clear here. When I said secure version I meant SFTP instead of FTP/S
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Ok I see, I wasn't aware it was a free install. Why don't they just include it natively?
Not sure. It's a bit too new and they might be concerned about licensing conflicts. There are tons of Microsoft packages, like the SysInternals tools or the RSAT, that are super important and standard, yet not in the default installs. That it is in Chocolatey, though, is as close as they can get to having it built in without pushing it onto the install media.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I can't find anything about it on my Windows 10 machine either.
Like many Windows components, you have to install it. But unlike a third party package, you install it from Microsoft.
I will have to look at it. To answer your original question though I believe it is just not known enough. I just Googled for SFTP on Windows 10 and I got nothing but Swish, WinSCP, and Putty. No mention of Microsoft's product at all which is ashame.
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I can't find anything about it on my Windows 10 machine either.
Like many Windows components, you have to install it. But unlike a third party package, you install it from Microsoft.
I will have to look at it. To answer your original question though I believe it is just not known enough. I just Googled for SFTP on Windows 10 and I got nothing but Swish, WinSCP, and Putty. No mention of Microsoft's product at all which is ashame.
That's because SFTP isn't a "thing", it's a command of SSH. So looking for it should be searched for via SSH. SSH is the actual product, SFTP is just an aspect of it, as is SCP.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
It's pretty useful, but if you are so used to not having it that you never think of it, you might not realize how often you'd like to have it. SFTP makes getting simple, normal files on and off of systems in an ad hoc manner SO much easier than with pretty much any other tool. Need to do remote file manipulation or direct system to system file transfers, nothing really beats it. Very secure, very little setup, very easier to use.
When I do anything like moving files from one system to another I am using some Linux operating system honestly. I support Windows and I have it at home for the wife(support it at home too for her lol) but most of the time I am in a vm running some version of Fedora or BSD learning things. The only time I use Windows 10 is to play Everquest.
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
When I do anything like moving files from one system to another I am using some Linux operating system honestly. I support Windows and I have it at home for the wife(support it at home too for her lol) but most of the time I am in a vm running some version of Fedora or BSD learning things. The only time I use Windows 10 is to play Everquest.
Well if your "I never need this on Windows" is a result of "I never need Windows".... LOL
Buf if you use Linux all the time, think about how handy it is to be able to do things like SCP / SFTP packages between Linux boxes, especially between your local box and a server, especially a remotely hosted one. Now extend that so that Windows admins have that same power, they've lacked that in the past. Now extend that again to allow it between Linux and Windows. Suddenly Windows desktop users can admin Linux boxes more easily. Linux admins can admin Windows boxes more easily and so forth.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I can't find anything about it on my Windows 10 machine either.
Like many Windows components, you have to install it. But unlike a third party package, you install it from Microsoft.
The problem with this is that it's not something that shows up under Add/remove features.
So my question is - how did you learn about this? Other than simply searching the interwebs, how is someone suppose to know this?
It's not like you can just bump into it in Add/Remove features like you can with so many other things. -
Certainly good points. Since I haven't used Windows SSH before how does it compare to WinSCP?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Ok I see, I wasn't aware it was a free install. Why don't they just include it natively?
Not sure. It's a bit too new and they might be concerned about licensing conflicts. There are tons of Microsoft packages, like the SysInternals tools or the RSAT, that are super important and standard, yet not in the default installs. That it is in Chocolatey, though, is as close as they can get to having it built in without pushing it onto the install media.
I guess this answers my question. If they don't include RSAT in Win Pro, why would they include this?
/sigh. -
@dashrender said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I guess this answers my question. If they don't include RSAT in Win Pro, why would they include this?
/sigh.Yeah that's a great point. I'll install this and see how it compares to what people find by searching.
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@dashrender said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I can't find anything about it on my Windows 10 machine either.
Like many Windows components, you have to install it. But unlike a third party package, you install it from Microsoft.
The problem with this is that it's not something that shows up under Add/remove features.
So my question is - how did you learn about this? Other than simply searching the interwebs, how is someone suppose to know this?
It's not like you can just bump into it in Add/Remove features like you can with so many other things.If you aren't a Windows Admin, no idea. If you are a Windows Admin this was pretty heavily pushed as information in the Microsoft "wants you to know" space. Lots of news outlets and such covered this. Microsoft definitely got the word out to their constituents. To some degree, working in the MS space means keeping up with Microsoft's different channels of information.
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Big news sources for Windows Admins are the PowerShell and Hanselman blogs. These are official, internal resources.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2015/06/03/looking-forward-microsoft-support-for-secure-shell-ssh/
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2015/10/19/openssh-for-windows-update/
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsHappeningOpenSSHForWindowsfromMicrosoft.aspxIt's been two years of news on it
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Certainly good points. Since I haven't used Windows SSH before how does it compare to WinSCP?
WinSCP is just a client. Windows SSH is OpenSSH. Not "like OpenSSH", this IS OpenSSH, the same OpenSSH from OpenBSD that every major OS uses. So the exact same SSH that every Linux, BSD, UNIX, Mac and other OS has. Identical in every way.
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@dashrender said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Ok I see, I wasn't aware it was a free install. Why don't they just include it natively?
Not sure. It's a bit too new and they might be concerned about licensing conflicts. There are tons of Microsoft packages, like the SysInternals tools or the RSAT, that are super important and standard, yet not in the default installs. That it is in Chocolatey, though, is as close as they can get to having it built in without pushing it onto the install media.
I guess this answers my question. If they don't include RSAT in Win Pro, why would they include this?
/sigh.I've never understood that one. I guess because they feel it is too specialized?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@dashrender said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Ok I see, I wasn't aware it was a free install. Why don't they just include it natively?
Not sure. It's a bit too new and they might be concerned about licensing conflicts. There are tons of Microsoft packages, like the SysInternals tools or the RSAT, that are super important and standard, yet not in the default installs. That it is in Chocolatey, though, is as close as they can get to having it built in without pushing it onto the install media.
I guess this answers my question. If they don't include RSAT in Win Pro, why would they include this?
/sigh.I've never understood that one. I guess because they feel it is too specialized?
la sigh! They had the old Administrative Tools folder that only showed up when you were logged in as a local admin.. what's so much more about these tools?
but even if you don't install them by default, at least include them in Add/Remove features!
again - la sigh.
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I see the main problem with this. For most people that are not Windows admins they will not be comfortable at the command line and is why they use clients they can easily find by searching. Lots of people are just afraid of the command line if computer use is just a hobby for them.
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I see the main problem with this. For most people that are not Windows admins they will not be comfortable at the command line and is why they use clients they can easily find by searching. Lots of people are just afraid of the command line if computer use is just a hobby for them.
Except that as a server, there is nothing to see. Having a SFTP client does little good if they can't get what they need to a system.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@dashrender said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Ok I see, I wasn't aware it was a free install. Why don't they just include it natively?
Not sure. It's a bit too new and they might be concerned about licensing conflicts. There are tons of Microsoft packages, like the SysInternals tools or the RSAT, that are super important and standard, yet not in the default installs. That it is in Chocolatey, though, is as close as they can get to having it built in without pushing it onto the install media.
I guess this answers my question. If they don't include RSAT in Win Pro, why would they include this?
/sigh.I've never understood that one. I guess because they feel it is too specialized?
It would be nice if RSAT was an option when turning on or off features. In Windows 10, after installing RSAT it's already turned on. So maybe in the next releases Microsoft will include it.
