How to copy file from windows to linux

In this updated guide, I will walk you through the steps to copy files from Windows to Linux using easy-to-follow steps.

I will show you two ways to copy files from windows to Linux

1. Using command line with pscp
2. Using GUI FTP utility.

Copy File from Windows To Linux Using PSCP

It is not always that you will need to copy a file from Windows to Linux or vice versa.

But at times when you are automating things or trying to achieve some copy functionality using a script, it is good to have a utility to do that.

Here is where pscp comes into play. Using pscp you can copy the file to/from windows and Linux.

Step 1: Download pscp.exe from here. Select the appropriate package.

Step 2: copy the pscp.exe executable to the system32 directory of your windows machine. This folder normally exists in C:WindowsSystem32 path.

Step 3: Open Windows PowerShell and use the following command to verify if pscp is accessible from the path.

pscp

You should see the following output.

Step 4: Use the following format to copy the single file from Windows to the Linux box.

pscp -pw password C:UsersAdminDesktoptest.txt  
[email protected]:/home/vagrant

Here is the explanation of the command.

1. -pw for the password.
2. Replace password with the Linux user password.
3. C:UsersAdminDesktoptest.txt represents the path of the file that has to be copied to the Linux system.
4. 192.168.33.10 is the IP of the Linux server.
5. /home/vagrant is the user-accessible path in the Linux system to copy the file.

If you want to copy all the files in a directory to Linux, you need to add a start to the folder. eg. folder*. An example is shown below.

pscp -pw password C:UsersAdminDesktopfolder*  
[email protected]:/home/vagrant

If you are using Linux private keys for authentication, you can use -i flag instead of -pw followed by the path to the .ppk , .pem or id_rsa file.

If your key file is in pem format, you can use the puttygen command to convert it to ppk. See this ec2 server guide for the pem to ppk conversion.

Info: Learn Linux & Windows administration from Pluralsight with its 10 days free account

For Linux Private key-based authentication, the command looks like below.

pscp -i /path/to/key.ppk C:UsersAdminDesktoptest.txt 
[email protected]:/home/vagrant

Copy File From Linux To Windows Using PSCP

You can use pscp to copy files from Linux to windows. use the following command format for the same.

pscp -pw password [email protected]:/path/to/file 
C:UsersAdminDesktop

The above command will copy the file in Linux from the specified path to the Windows desktop.

Copy File from Windows To Linux Using FTP GUI

If you are not familiar with the Windows command line, you can use an FTP tool like Filezilla.

This tool is really helpful if you are working with Web Hosting providers to upload your website files from your local workstation.

You can download Filezilla from here –> FileZilla Download.

After download, install Filzill as you install any other windows software.

After installation, open the Filezilla app and enter the remote Linux server details as shown below. It will connect to the server and shows the remote server files in the file explorer.

To upload a file, all you have to do is do a right-click and click upload, as shown in the image below. The file will get uploaded to the remote path, which is opened in the Filezilla explorer. You can also change the remote path from Filezilla.

Conclusion

I have shown two best and recommended ways to transfer files from Windows to Linux and vice versa.

If you face any issues while copying files, please drop the issues as a comment. I will look into it.

I see this post is very old, but in my search for an answer to this very question, I was unable to unearth a solution from the vast internet super highway. I, therefore, hope I can contribute and help someone as they too find themselves stumbling for an answer. This simple, natural question does not seem to be documented anywhere.

On Windows 10 Pro connecting to Windows 10 Pro, both running OpenSSH (Windows version 7.7p1, LibreSSL 2.6.5), I was able to find a solution by trial and error. Though surprisingly simple, it took a while. I found the required syntax to be

BY EXAMPLE INSTEAD OF MORE OBSCURE AND INCOMPLETE TEMPLATES:

Transferring securely from a remote system to your local system:

scp user@remotehost:DmySrcCodeProjectFooBarsomefile.cpp C:myRepoProjectFooBar

or going the other way around:

scp C:myRepoProjectFooBarsomefile.cpp user@remotehost:DmySrcCodeProjectFooBar

I also found that if spaces are in the path, the quotations should begin following the remote host name:

scp user@remotehost:"DMy Long Folder Namesomefile.cpp" C:myRepoSimplerNamerBro

Also, for your particular case, I echo what Cornel says:

On Windows, use backslash, at least at conventional command console.

Kind Regards.
RocketCityElectromagnetics

Each operating system uses its own file system. Windows, for example, uses NTFS on its primary partition; macOS uses its own system, APFS ; and Linux, although it is compatible with a good number of file systems, the most used in most distributions is EXT4 . As each system uses its own formats, it is difficult (and dangerous) to access the partitions of other operating systems. So if we are using Linux and we have to access a file saved on the Windows hard drive, what can we do?

Save data to a shared hard drive

If we want to avoid this type of problem, the best we can do is create a shared drive where we can save the data of all the operating systems that we use. This unit can be a hard drive or partition that we have internal to our own PC or an external hard drive that we have connected to the PC. The important thing is that this drive has a file system that is compatible with both Windows and Linux. And, although we can use NTFS for this, the best we can choose to avoid problems is exFAT .

Both Windows and Linux will be able to read and write to the exFAT disk without problems. This file system is the improved version of FAT32 that eliminates, among other restrictions, the limit of 4 GB per file. Therefore, we can use it as a link between all our operating systems. The important thing is to make sure that we keep all the data there.

Another alternative that we can use is a NAS server . These servers are connected to the network and allow any user connected to it to access the data. They usually mount an SMB / SAMBA server, so the files will be available from both Windows and Linux.

Other ways to access Windows data from Linux

In this case, we are going to see what we can do if we need to access a file from Linux that we have saved on the Windows hard drive.

Restart your computer

The simplest, and safest at the same time, is to restart the computer and return to Windows . By doing so, we will once again have access to all the files that we had saved on that hard drive and, therefore, we will be able to access it. Now that we are in Windows we can choose, either to do what we wanted to do from the Microsoft operating system, or to transfer the file to Linux, either through a pendrive or from the nexus hard drive that we have explained in the previous point .

This is the safest way to do it, since by not entering the Windows hard drive from Linux, we avoid changing permissions or corrupting files, saving us problems. However, it is the slowest method.

Mount the NTFS hard drive

Linux is capable of reading and writing to NTFS drives. The kernel itself has its own controller, and there are other third-party tools for this purpose. Reading files from an NTFS partition from Linux usually works fine, it doesn’t usually give problems. But if we are going to make any changes we run the risk that something does not go well and some data will be corrupted. Windows may be damaged, or we may lose files.

If we know what we are going to do, we can mount the Windows NTFS disk and access all its data. As long as we do not touch anything or modify anything, we can copy (yes, better copy than move) the file or files that we need from this unit to the Linux partition, and thus we can work with it without problems.

It is the fastest method, but the most risky. And it will only be possible if we do not have the disk encrypted with Bitlocker.

Recover Linux data from Windows

What if we use Linux, we go back to Windows and we have forgotten a file? Here we have several ways to re-access the data.

Restart the PC

As in the previous case, the safest and easiest way is to restart the computer and re-enter Linux . Once there, we can copy the file to a pendrive or an external hard drive, and restart again to take it to Linux. It is the longest and most tedious process, but it is the safest.

Use a program to read EXT4

Windows, by default, cannot read or write to Linux EXT drives. Therefore, if we want to access the data, it is necessary to install a program that allows us to do so. There is a very varied software, both free and paid, that allows us to do this. However, most of them are quite outdated programs that, although they can work, they can also give errors.

If we are going to avoid writing in these units, and we only want to pass the data, we can resort to these programs. If not, it is better to find another alternative.

Use the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Microsoft is betting very hard to integrate Linux into Windows. Thanks to the Windows Subsystem for Linux , WSL, it is possible to load a complete Linux instance on top of the operating system, thanks to Hyper-V. With the advent of WSL2, Windows is able to mount and use Linux EXT4 drives as if it were a hard drive more connected to the computer.

If we are advanced users, who have WSL enabled on Windows, and we want to access Linux data from Microsoft’s operating system, this is the best option. Anyway, we hope that Microsoft will simplify this process soon, adding almost native support to EXT4 from Windows.

I’m a CentOS 6 User so I tried this method on CentOS 6

Install samba using

[root@server ~]# yum install samba

Query for confirm

[root@server ~]# rpm -qa samba
samba-3.5.10-125.el6.i686

Create a Samba User.

[root@server ~]# useradd sambashare

Now create samba password for username sambashare using smbpasswd command.

[root@server ~]# smbpasswd -a sambashare
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
Added user sambashare.

Create a samba share directory

[root@server ~]# mkdir /share

change the ownership for the share folder

[root@server ~]# chown -R sambashare:sambashare /share/

Open the file /etc/samba/smb.conf and add the below lines.

[share]
comment = Share
path = /share
writable = yes
valid users = sambashare

Start samba service

[root@server ~]# service smb restart
Shutting down SMB services:                                [  OK  ]
Starting SMB services:                                     [  OK  ]

Check your configuration by using testparm command

.
.
[share]
comment = share
path = /share
valid users = sambashare
read only = No

In windows system type this in run

Now enter samba username and password

You are done