Use WinSCP as a commander for for TWO remote directories

Hi,

I often have to move files from one remote system to another and in doing so I have to copy the files to a local directory before moving them to the other remove system. I would really, really love to see a version of WinSCP with support for two remote connections at the same time so files can be marked on one remote system and copied directly to the other remove directory.

Implementing this would not only reduce the amount of required disk space on my local pc but would also speed up the transfer significantly.

Integrating this with the local-mode-only WinSCP (SCP being Smart CoPy hereafter) could be easy - simply allow each side of the main window to be configured for local or remote connection.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Søren Dalsgaard
Lystrup
Denmark

It is not that easy to do. Maybe in sometime in future.

Edit 2021: See Synchronize with Another Remote Server

I also have a need for the ability to have two remote file listings and move files/directories between two remote systems.

I am not aware of any other software that offers this ability, and I think it would be very useful for administrators who manage multiple servers. It could even be a "Pro" paid licence version that fills a market niche where there is no competition.

Regards,

Yiorgos

I'm a developer meself and I agree with martin.

In order to do FXP-ike transfers (between two remote machines) it would require either to use your client machine (the WinSCP one) as a buffer, which would slow down everything, or start ssh-ing/scp-ing from one of the machines to the other which would imply other privileges on the remote machine.

It's not that easy to do .. it's not like FXP on FTP.

@martin: Yes, but if it's possible to create, it would make it a unique niche program that would appeal to sysadmins.

If you think about it, WinSCP has 1 million users (? conservative guesstimate derived from number of downloads) who prefer a GUI to the shell for manipulating files on remote systems. And if they like the GUI to handle files on a single server at a time, I imagine they would love the ability to drag and drop between two servers (I know I would).

So, there is a possible market of 1,000,000 users. If only 500 pieces are sold (0.05%, or, 1 sale per 2000 users) at $100 each, that's $50,000. Even if it takes 5 months to develop, that's $10,000/month, not too bad. Of course, I'm not a marketing expert and my numbers could be off, but I think it has potential.

Regards,
Yiorgos

I believe that this can be done in secure FX or absolute FTP.

Yes, but not SFTP.

But SFTP does not have the feature. Well AFAIK, neither FTP does, FXP is just an extension supported by some servers. But SFTP does not have such extension yet.

Yes, afaik also FXP is not mentioned in the FTP protocol standard but it supported by most FTP servers.
The SFTP does not support this and neither do the SSH2 servers ... it would require a user shell (so another privileges), something like SCP does.

Hmm..... I personally need something else – I need two remote panels but for the same machine! Any chance for this?

@sopi20: What for?

I sometimes need to copy some directories from the remote server to another directory of the same server. With FTP I can do that without using twice the bandwith. I just copy it once from my local computer and then copy it from 1 dir to another. And with sftp this can't be done.. Do you know why?

Thanks

I agree! I, too, need to copy and/or move files from remote directory X to remote directory Y, where X and Y are both on the same remote server.

The only way I could do this is by manually clicking on Commands > Open Terminal to launch the Console window. Then in the Console window I can execute Unix commands such as:
It would be nice if I could do the copy/move in a graphical manner like in Windows Explorer.

@Danno: SFTP protocol does not have command to duplicate the file. AFAIK even FTP does not have the function, maybe there's some extension to FTP specification that allow it.

You may use SCP protocol with WinSCP to duplicate the file. Either use terminal function to type cp command manually of define custom command:

Hello,

This is quite an old request, but I was just looking for this functionality:

I often have to move files from one remote system to another and in doing so I have to copy the files to a local directory before moving them to the other remove system. I would really, really love to see a version of WinSCP with support for two remote connections at the same time so files can be marked on one remote system and copied directly to the other remove directory.

Any plans? :)

Please read FAQ:
Can I transfer files between two remote servers with WinSCP?
If that does not help, come back.

I don't know if this will help in this case, but I have to synchronize between two remote servers (one Linux and one Windows). First, I map the appropriate folder on the Windows server as a local drive on my machine. WinSCP recognizes that as a local drive and I can use it to synchronize to a remote folder on the Linux machine. It works very well for me. No need to copy anything to a local folder. :D

Hello again,

I took this one step further assuming you wanted to be able to drag and drop fron one remote folder (left panes) to a second remote folder (right panes). Again, the mapped drive worked for me. I could select the mapped drive as the local folder and the other remote folder as a remote folder and I was able to drag files from the mapped drive to the remote drive. No problem. I never had to copy anything to my local drive.

Jerry

Just open two instances of WinSCP. One to server A and the other to server B.


Yes, this DOES use twice the bandwidth because it is two transfers, but it works.

In order to make the transfer from server A directly to server B, there has to be configuration on server B to allow an unprompted transfer from A.

martin wrote:

Please read FAQ:
Can I transfer files between two remote servers with WinSCP?

I see the points you make in the FAQ. However, as I also use Linux I am acquainted with the general purpose KDE browser called Konqueror (https://konqueror.org/) which provides users with complete flexibility in what they connect to in the application panes (local/local, local/remote1, remote1/local, and even remote1/remote2).

However, it does not use sftp, but another protocol with the acronym "fish". I'm sure this is significant, but not sure how or why.

ohtarion wrote:

However, it does not use sftp, but another protocol with the acronym "fish". I'm sure this is significant, but not sure how or why.

AFAIK, fish:// is just a wrapper around an SSH shell connection.

Hi.tHIS APP IS GREAT BUT this is very hard to copy something from one server to another. So if coders of winscp don't want to make this function from 6 year I suppose this won't be available at all maybe we should look for some other application with 2 remote panels .
Anyone knows such app (not mc:) )? PS I could also pay for such an extension!

@mastabog: The buffer is a good idea and would be a big help. I have to use a temp folder on my local machine now anyway, so would be easier for me if WinSCP hid it. So let's have a local temp folder (configurable path), and have two remote panels and WinSCP should copy files from 1st remote to temp and from temp to 2nd remote. On the user GUI it should look like it is being copied between the two remotes. It would be even better if the size of the temp (buffer) was configurable, so the file transfer would be done in buffer sized blocks.

@vzs: WinSCP can already copy file between two different session using temporary file:
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/task_move_duplicate

I'm with Danno on this one, except most of the time, I actually just need to rename/move a file or folder to another directory on the same server. Yes, I'm aware this is already possible, and I do it frequently by just dragging the file/folder over to the tree view that has already been expanded to the destination folder.

My problem here doesn't have anything to do with the internal functionality (that all works already), it's with the interface. In some situations, I could save hours of time if I had two panels/views exactly like the Commander interface, except that the local panel is actually just another view of the same remote server session. In particular, situations that involve making many individual comparisons of contents in one folder with contents in another. This would save a ton of time and effort involved with scrolling the tree view back and forth to find the source and destination folders, as well as the time involved with changing the CWD to check contents of those two folders constantly back and forth (rather than just looking at the other half of the screen).

One alternative approach to this would be to enable drag & drop between multiple instances of WinSCP as long as the instances are using the same stored session. I'm not really sure which would be harder to implement, but I would be happy with either one.

Bookmarks don't really help with this. They could help a little if bookmarks had keyboard shortcuts, or if WinSCP had a bookmarks toolbar much like browsers, but even those wouldn't be ideal.

Thanks for your ideas. I'll consider them.

Just two notes. For comparing directories, you may find useful having two sessions opened to the same server, each with different current directory. Also shared bookmarks allows keyboard shortcut.

Martin,

yes, please consider theses ideas, I am aswell in need of a second commander window on the same remote system with the option to choose in each window a folder and compare the contents of the two folders for newer version of files, sizes and the ability to drag and drop between them.

Best regards and thanx for your effort!
Steffen

After I wished for this feature the n'th time I thought to post a feature request. Seems that there are others with the same idea :)

Situation:

Logged into server1 & server2
- Need to copy between server1 & server2
- They are in the same DC, they probably could hear eachother if they could hear ;)
- WinSCP gives me the option to duplicate to other session.
- However instead of the Gigabit connection I have to use a temp folder through my 1mbit upload line at the office. It works, but it could work better.

I understand that a new connection needs to be opened and I'm not sure how easy that would be although it is possible with a scp command.

What I was thinking is of a radio button/checkbox 'try to connect directly'.

As I'm logged into al the servers with the same cert, it could just try to connect with the same credentials and auth settings as my current session and it would work. Of course it could also be possible to show a new l/p field. Etc etc

I'm no expert in this, but I would definately welcome such a feature!

Cheers

I too am looking for a server-to-server FTP program, only to find it doesnt exist. I only need it for a one-time transfer of a 400mb website, so if I don't find it, I'll live.

But what about setting up an on-line server somewhere with TWO copies of WinSCP running on it? It could be a subscription-based service. Anyone paying $X.00 a month could use it. They'd log in, specify ServerA and ServerB and then start the transfer. Files would not have to come through their home computer. In fact, they could shut down their computer for the night and the transfer would still run.

Seems to me like the technology to do that already exists, and so does the market.

Anyway, if if does work, its a free business idea for someone.

-Rick

I find it very easy to log into a tty on server A and then issue a simple scp command to server B. It would also be pretty easy to write a winscp script to do this from windows.

Same as most others.
Looking for improvement on the very lovely WinSCP.
To permit GUI for remote to remote transfers.

Mostly to avoid buffering / double bandwidth.
And avoiding Linux / Windows / Linux file name incompatibilities, too.
But, even more so, to avoid ssh / keys / Putty / ... authentication issues, as much as possible. That stuff makes me more nuts.

If I have login credentials for both remote systems, I would like WinSCP to do any necessary administriva with keys in the background. Probably only with the obligatory authorization.

Guest: Have you read this FAQ?
Can I transfer files between two remote servers with WinSCP?

I would really love to see this ability.

Why can't you have a button that basically just fires off a rsync or scp command line script that runs in a PuTTY console?

Perhaps a rsync/scp feature that provides a gui with boxes and check marks to mask the command line stuff which can be a PiTA to remember and gets pretty long sometimes. Usually takes me several tries before I get the syntax right which is a lot of trouble when you often just want to quickly copy a file from server A to server B.

Would be so much nicer if I could press an rsync/scp button and up pops a gui that asks for SSH port, source or destination address, and check marks for the other various features.

Perhaps integrate it with the "duplicate" feature which I use all the time. Except when you right click on Duplicate it gives the option of rsync/scp to another server opened on another tab.

Of course you would have to have the PuTTY feature set up to use this which is always a must for me as well and I'm assuming it is for most people.

Anonymous wrote:

Why can't you have a button that basically just fires off a rsync or scp command line script that runs in a PuTTY console?

You can. That's what custom commands are good for.
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/custom_command
If you manage to make it working, please share the solution.

I have added an example of such custom command:
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/custom_commands#fxp

Hopper from LLNL can do this very easy, but not sure it is available to outsiders yet

If you want to pay for it, look for the program "Beyond Compare" https://www.scootersoftware.com/ We have used that to manage either 2 remote servers or 2 locations on the same remote server. Used it for years but due to money issues, we are looking for a free equally powerful alternative. It is not only possible. It has been done for years.

Estoy de acuerdo que en una nueva versión, ambos paneles con conexión remota, quiero donar 200 USD

See Synchronize with Another Remote Server.

martin wrote:

It is not that easy to do. Maybe in sometime in future.

Edit 2021: See https://winscp.net/eng/docs/extension_synchronize_another_server

Couldn't you just do an rsync and call it good?

@InteXX: Can you please elaborate?

I recently needed to sync two large directories on the same remote host, so as to not incur any bandwidth expenses locally. I was hoping to use WinSCP for the task, which is what led me to this thread.

I ended up doing this:
Couldn't you do something similar and capture STDOUT to display progress?

@InteXX: Well, yes for synchronization only, rsych can be used.
You can run rsync as a custom command in WinSCP.
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/custom_command
Or just from the console window.
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/ui_console
A native support for rsync is tracked here:
Issue 141 – Support for rsync
You can vote for it there.

@martin: I voted for the feature, thanks.