The “SCP” implementation of WinSCP
SCP is a simple protocol for secure file copy. Only file-copy (bi-directional) is supported by scp.
However, the WinSCP implementation of “SCP” is actually a GUI for the remote shell.
WinSCP requires login access to remote server. After login, it make use of common *ix commands like ls, ln, mv, etc. The real scp client is only called when there’s a need to exchange files (i.e. download / upload). Other than that, the operations are indeed completed by the remote shell. And because of that, the implementation is rather platform-dependent. As different distributions have different output formats, especially with “ls”, the output varies among each other. (And that’s why WinSCP recommends to use bash on the server side as default shell for remote login).
So when you use “SCP” protocol in WinSCP, you’re actually using a SSH client with scp. WinSCP should name it like “SCP (with Shell)” or something to avoid misleading.
Tags: remote shell, scp, ssh, winscp
Programming | softboysxp, May 21, 2008 12:31 am
