Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?
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Real question. In the UNIX world, everyone has SFTP (it is part of SSH) natively. It's enterprise, rock solid and "just works." It's free and included in everything. Windows has this too. Sure you have to add it on but it is free, provided by Microsoft themselves and the same code base as all enterprise UNIX systems use - OpenSSH. To me, this is an insane slam dunk for Windows and of course, you deploy that.
Yet I constantly see people asking how to get SFTP on Windows and there is always a lot of pushback against Windows' own OpenSSH implementation as if it is inadequate for the needs of Windows. But no one ever says that it is not enough on UNIX. I've never heard someone suggest such a thing. So I'm pretty confused. What SFTP functionality are people looking for that is above and beyond what any enterprise implementation provides that is only needed or desired on Windows but nowhere else?
Of course, because I use OpenSSH universally, whatever limitations it has limits what I see. Maybe other SFTP solutions do some amazing things. But what would they be? OpenSSH is so universal and so powerful, I'm quite surprised that anyone would even consider something else. I must be missing something(s). Anyone know what SFTP features are driving Windows admins so commonly to skip using Microsoft's and the industry's standard OpenSSH implementation to choose third party SSH add-ons instead?
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@scottalanmiller Partly it's because, I think, the command isn't natively available. A lot of people forget about RSAT, too. This is why we have monitoring and other tools that do the same thing. If there were one tool to rule them all, then we'd never have some of the tools we have now.
FYI I installed bash on windows last week and it includes sftp.
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@grey said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
FYI I installed bash on windows last week and it includes sftp.
That's bash and SFTP in a VM. Not for Windows. That's not useful for Windows Admins. Windows has real SFTP for itself and has for a while.
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@scottalanmiller
Do you mean enable Developer Mode or doing by following this link https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki/Install-Win32-OpenSSH? -
@black3dynamite said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
@scottalanmiller
Do you mean enable Developer Mode or doing by following this link https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki/Install-Win32-OpenSSH?Developer Mode or anything referring to Linux, Bash, WSL or such runs in a VM and is not "Bash on Windows" or "SFTP on WIndows", it's a virtualized Ubuntu system running on top of Windows and isn't useful in an administration context (or really, any context, it's a joke.) But real Windows has OpenSSH available. It's recommended to install it from Chocolatey but is available through other sources as well. Your GitHub link looks correct.
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Right on that page you'll notice that they mention that "Developer Mode" causes a port conflict (because the VM doesn't have its own port space) and they mention the Chocolatey install.
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I guess I'm a little behind but I didn't think Windows 10 or Server 16 had SFTP built in natively. Running it in a vm wither their Ubuntu doesn't really count for any use to a Windows admin either right? I know it has had FTP for many years but not the secure version. I've also never had a reason to use SFTP on Windows either for that matter. I can't find anything about it on my Windows 10 machine either. Did I misunderstand the question?
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
I guess I'm a little behind but I didn't think Windows 10 or Server 16 had SFTP built in natively.
BUILT IN, no. Native, yes. Microsoft has made SSH for Windows for a couple of years now and it is built from the industry standard OpenSSH code base. It's excellent and identical to what Linux and BSD have. It's not included in a default install, but like many Microsoft tools, is a free install away. It's packaged in NuGet format by default and the recommended install path is Chocolatey. It's all officially and straight from MS. This is the official, free "SSH on Windows".
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@jmoore said in Why Does Windows Need Special SFTP Functionality?:
Running it in a vm wither their Ubuntu doesn't really count for any use to a Windows admin either right?
Doesn't count in the least.
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@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.
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@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.
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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.
