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• Chapter 5: Using PSCP to transfer files securely
• Section 5.1: Starting PSCP
• Section 5.2: PSCP Usage
• Section 5.2.1: The basics
• Section 5.2.2: Options
• Section 5.2.3: Return value
• Section 5.2.4: Using public key authentication with PSCP
• Section 5.3: Secure iXplorer

Chapter 5: Using PSCP to transfer files securely

PSCP, the PuTTY Secure Copy client, is a tool for transferring files securely between computers using an SSH connection.

If you have an SSH 2 server, you might prefer PSFTP (see chapter 6) for interactive use. PSFTP does not in general work with SSH 1 servers, however.

5.1 Starting PSCP

PSCP is a command line application. This means that you cannot just double-click on its icon to run it and instead you have to bring up a console window. With Windows 95, 98, and ME, this is called an "MS-DOS Prompt" and with Windows NT and 2000 it is called a "Command Prompt". It should be available from the Programs section of your Start Menu.

To start PSCP it will need either to be on your PATH or in your current directory. To add the directory containing PSCP to your PATH environment variable, type into the console window:

set PATH=C:\path\to\putty\directory;%PATH%

This will only work for the lifetime of that particular console window. To set your PATH more permanently on Windows NT, use the Environment tab of the System Control Panel. On Windows 95, 98, and ME, you will need to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT to include a set command like the one above.

5.2 PSCP Usage

Once you've got a console window to type into, you can just type pscp on its own to bring up a usage message. This tells you the version of PSCP you're using, and gives you a brief summary of how to use PSCP:

Z:\owendadmin>pscp
PuTTY Secure Copy client
Release 0.53
Usage: pscp [options] [user@]host:source target
       pscp [options] source [source...] [user@]host:target
       pscp [options] -ls user@host:filespec
Options:
  -p        preserve file attributes
  -q        quiet, don't show statistics
  -r        copy directories recursively
  -v        show verbose messages
  -load sessname  Load settings from saved session
  -P port   connect to specified port
  -l user   connect with specified username
  -pw passw login with specified password
  -1 -2     force use of particular SSH protocol version
  -C        enable compression
  -i key    private key file for authentication
  -batch    disable all interactive prompts
  -unsafe   allow server-side wildcards (DANGEROUS)

(PSCP's interface is much like the Unix scp command, if you're familiar with that.)

5.2.1 The basics

To receive (a) file(s) from a remote server:

pscp [options] [user@]host:source target

So to copy the file /etc/hosts from the server example.com as user fred to the file c:\temp\example-hosts.txt, you would type:

pscp fred@example.com:/etc/hosts c:\temp\example-hosts.txt

To send (a) file(s) to a remote server:

pscp [options] source [source...] [user@]host:target

So to copy the local file c:\documents\csh-whynot.txt to the server example.com as user fred to the file /tmp/csh-whynot you would type:

pscp c:\documents\csh-whynot.txt fred@example.com:/tmp/csh-whynot

You can use wildcards to transfer multiple files in either direction, like this:

pscp c:\documents\*.doc fred@example.com:docfiles
pscp fred@example.com:source/*.c c:\source

However, in the second case (using a wildcard for multiple remote files) you may see a warning like this:

warning: remote host tried to write to a file called 'terminal.c'
         when we requested a file called '*.c'.
         If this is a wildcard, consider upgrading to SSH 2 or using
         the '-unsafe' option. Renaming of this file has been disallowed.

This is due to a fundamental insecurity in the old-style SCP protocol: the client sends the wildcard string (*.c) to the server, and the server sends back a sequence of file names that match the wildcard pattern. However, there is nothing to stop the server sending back a different pattern and writing over one of your other files: if you request *.c, the server might send back the file name AUTOEXEC.BAT and install a virus for you. Since the wildcard matching rules are decided by the server, the client cannot reliably verify that the filenames sent back match the pattern.

PSCP will attempt to use the newer SFTP protocol (part of SSH 2) where possible, which does not suffer from this security flaw. If you are talking to an SSH 2 server which supports SFTP, you will never see this warning.

If you really need to use a server-side wildcard with an SSH 1 server, you can use the -unsafe command line option with PSCP:

pscp -unsafe fred@example.com:source/*.c c:\source

This will suppress the warning message and the file transfer will happen. However, you should be aware that by using this option you are giving the server the ability to write to any file in the target directory, so you should only use this option if you trust the server administrator not to be malicious (and not to let the server machine be cracked by malicious people).

5.2.1.1 user

The login name on the remote server. If this is omitted, and host is a PuTTY saved session, PSCP will use any username specified by that saved session. Otherwise, PSCP will attempt to use the local Windows username.

5.2.1.2 host

The name of the remote server, or the name of an existing PuTTY saved session. In the latter case, the session's settings for hostname, port number, cipher type and username will be used.

5.2.1.3 source

One or more source files. Wildcards are allowed. The syntax of wildcards depends on the system to which they apply, so if you are copying from a Windows system to a UNIX system, you should use Windows wildcard syntax (e.g. *.*), but if you are copying from a UNIX system to a Windows system, you would use the wildcard syntax allowed by your UNIX shell (e.g. *).

If the source is a remote server and you do not specify a full pathname (in UNIX, a pathname beginning with a / (slash) character), what you specify as a source will be interpreted relative to your home directory on the remote server.

5.2.1.4 target

The filename or directory to put the file(s). When copying from a remote server to a local host, you may wish simply to place the file(s) in the current directory. To do this, you should specify a target of .. For example:

pscp fred@example.com:/home/tom/.emacs .

...would copy /home/tom/.emacs on the remote server to the current directory.

As with the source parameter, if the target is on a remote server and is not a full path name, it is interpreted relative to your home directory on the remote server.

5.2.2 Options

PSCP accepts all the general command line options supported by the PuTTY tools, except the ones which make no sense in a file transfer utility. See section 3.7.3 for a description of these options. (The ones not supported by PSCP are clearly marked.)

PSCP also supports some of its own options. The following sections describe PSCP's specific command-line options.

These are the command line options that PSCP accepts.

5.2.2.1 -p preserve file attributes

By default, files copied with PSCP are timestamped with the date and time they were copied. The -p option preserves the original timestamp on copied files.

5.2.2.2 -q quiet, don't show statistics

By default, PSCP displays a meter displaying the progress of the current transfer:

mibs.tar                  |        168 kB |  84.0 kB/s | ETA: 00:00:13 |  13%

The fields in this display are (from left to right), filename, size (in kilobytes) of file transferred so far, estimate of how fast the file is being transferred (in kilobytes per second), estimated time that the transfer will be complete, and percentage of the file so far transferred. The -q option to PSCP suppresses the printing of these statistics.

5.2.2.3 -r copies directories recursively

By default, PSCP will only copy files. Any directories you specify to copy will be skipped, as will their contents. The -r option tells PSCP to descend into any directories you specify, and to copy them and their contents. This allows you to use PSCP to transfer whole directory structures between machines.

5.2.2.4 -batch avoid interactive prompts

If you use the -batch option, PSCP will never give an interactive prompt while establishing the connection. If the server's host key is invalid, for example (see section 2.2), then the connection will simply be abandoned instead of asking you what to do next.

This may help PSCP's behaviour when it is used in automated scripts: using -batch, if something goes wrong at connection time, the batch job will fail rather than hang.

5.2.3 Return value

PSCP returns an ERRORLEVEL of zero (success) only if the files were correctly transferred. You can test for this in a batch file, using code such as this:

pscp file*.* user@hostname:
if errorlevel 1 echo There was an error

5.2.4 Using public key authentication with PSCP

Like PuTTY, PSCP can authenticate using a public key instead of a password. There are three ways you can do this.

Firstly, PSCP can use PuTTY saved sessions in place of hostnames (see section 5.2.1.2). So you would do this:

• Run PuTTY, and create a PuTTY saved session (see section 4.1.2) which specifies your private key file (see section 4.18.5). You will probably also want to specify a username to log in as (see section 4.13.2).
• In PSCP, you can now use the name of the session instead of a hostname: type pscp sessionname:file localfile, where sessionname is replaced by the name of your saved session.

Secondly, you can supply the name of a private key file on the command line, with the -i option. See section 3.7.3.14 for more information.

Thirdly, PSCP will attempt to authenticate using Pageant if Pageant is running (see chapter 9). So you would do this:

• Ensure Pageant is running, and has your private key stored in it.
• Specify a user and host name to PSCP as normal. PSCP will automatically detect Pageant and try to use the keys within it.

For more general information on public-key authentication, see chapter 8.

5.3 Secure iXplorer

Lars Gunnarson has written a graphical interface for PSCP. You can get it from his web site, at www.i-tree.org.

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