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Remote Commands
WinSCP offers unique feature to execute command on remote server as with regular terminal client. However as it does not implement the terminal fully, there are some limitations. Particularly, you cannot execute commands that require terminal emulation1 or user input.2
Basically the feature is supported only for SCP protocol. With SFTP you can still use the feature by opening separate shell session, which in fact takes place automatically for you. With FTP you can only execute FTP protocol commands.
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How to Enter the Remote Command
You can enter the command on Console window (Commands > Open Terminal).
If you are using Norton Commander interface you can also enter the command on command-line box below the panels.
If you want to have full featured terminal, you may find command Open In PuTTY useful.
Automating Command Execution
To automate remote command execution use scripting command call.
Custom Commands
If there is command you need to execute regularly and in particular if the command works with files, you can find custom commands useful.
- Such commands will refuse to execute with error message like “Error opening terminal”, “No TTY available”, “stdin: is not a tty” or “Couldn’t open /dev/tty for reading”.Back
- If you happen to execute command that requires user input, WinSCP will eventually timeout waiting for command to finish and you will need to reconnect your session.Back