Start by opening the FileZilla client and navigating to the Site manager. Add your particular hosting server as the host and type “22” as the port. Next, select SFTP-SSH File Transfer Protoco l from the Protocol drop-down menu. Step 2: Set up an SSH key. Now, you’ll be able to secure your account by requiring an SSH key for access. To generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR), a key pair must be created for the server. These two items are a public key and a private key pair and cannot be separated. Typically with FileZilla the suggested application to generate this keypair is to use an archaic method of command line using OpenSSL. Jul 08, 2016 How to generate the CSR for FileZilla server? FileZilla Client is a cross platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) client, it supports IPv6 and it is available in many languages. To enable secure communication over FileZilla server, you need to install SSL certificate. Generate the Private Key: You need to use OpenSSL to.
This article explains public key authentication in general. You may want to see guide to setting up public key authentication instead.
Do not confuse your user key pair used for authentication with host public key verification. Learn about all SSH key types.
Public key authentication is an alternative means of identifying yourself to a login server, instead of typing a password. It is more secure and more flexible, but more difficult to set up.
In conventional password authentication, you prove you are who you claim to be by proving that you know the correct password. The only way to prove you know the password is to tell the server what you think the password is. This means that if the server has been hacked, or spoofed, an attacker can learn your password.
Public key authentication solves this problem. You generate a key pair, consisting of a public key (which everybody is allowed to know) and a private key (which you keep secret and do not give to anybody). The private key is able to generate signatures. A signature created using your private key cannot be forged by anybody who does not have that key; but anybody who has your public key can verify that a particular signature is genuine.
So you generate a key pair on your own computer, and you copy the public key to the server under a certain name. Then, when the server asks you to prove who you are, WinSCP can generate a signature using your private key. The server can verify that signature (since it has your public key) and allow you to log in. Now if the server is hacked or spoofed, the attacker does not gain your private key or password; they only gain one signature. And signatures cannot be re-used, so they have gained nothing.
There is a problem with this: if your private key is stored unprotected on your own computer, then anybody who gains access to that will be able to generate signatures as if they were you. So they will be able to log in to your server under your account. For this reason, your private key is usually encrypted when it is stored on your local machine, using a passphrase of your choice. In order to generate a signature, WinSCP must decrypt the key, so you have to type your passphrase.
This can make public-key authentication less convenient than password authentication: every time you log in to the server, instead of typing a short password, you have to type a longer passphrase. One solution to this is to use an authentication agent, a separate program which holds decrypted private keys and generates signatures on request. WinSCP can use PuTTY’s authentication agent, called Pageant. When you begin a Windows session, you start Pageant and load your private key into it (typing your passphrase once). For the rest of your session, you can start WinSCP any number of times and Pageant will automatically generate signatures without you having to do anything. When you close your Windows session, Pageant shuts down, without ever having stored your decrypted private key on disk. Many people feel this is a good compromise between security and convenience.
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There is more than one public-key algorithm available. The most common are RSA and ECDSA, but others exist, notably DSA (otherwise known as DSS), the USA’s federal Digital Signature Standard.1
To generate a key pair, use the PuTTYgen application.
You can start PuTTYgen directly from Authentication page of Advanced Site Settings dialog. If you start PuTTYgen this way, WinSCP will automatically pick up the generated key.
Different file formats are used to store SSH-2 private keys. WinSCP supports PuTTY format, as authors of PuTTY claim that it is the best one.
WinSCP also recognizes (but does not accept) the other two formats (OpenSSH and ssh.com), and it can convert the keys to PuTTY format for you. To convert the key file you can also use /keygen command-line switch or PuTTYgen application.
- The text is copy of PuTTY User Manual or was inspired by it.Back
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Introduction
Are you a recent cloud hosting convert and find yourself struggling to figure out how to best manage the files on your first virtual private server (VPS)? Do you find yourself intimidated by the command line? If so, you will be happy to learn that FileZilla provides a user-friendly graphical interface that can securely transfer files to-and-from, as well as move files around within, your VPS.
Secure Communication
The two most common methods of securely transmitting information between two computers are the (i) Secure Shell (SSH) and (ii) Transport Layer Security (TLS), and its predecessor Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), cryptographic protocols. Both are public-key cryptography tunneling protocols that aim to create a secure, confidential exchange of data and connection across a network (particularly the internet). The encryption technologies used by both protocols are very reliable, and are (when configured correctly) nearly impossible for hackers to break into. However, while both protocols provide similar services, they are not the same. In fact, they have several significant differences that are beyond the scope of this article.
Today, OpenSSH is a default software package found on Unix-like operating systems such as Mac OS X and Linux. Thus, programs or subsystems that are based on the SSH protocol will work “out-of-the-box” without having to go through the additional steps of either purchasing or creating the requisite SSL certificate needed for certain modes of secure data transmissions via TLS/SSL.
FTP vs. SCP vs. SFTP vs. FTPS
When needing to upload or download files from your VPS in real time, you essentially have the following options:
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP);
- Secure Copy Program (SCP);
- SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP); or
- FTP over TLS/SSL (FTPS).
FTP *not secure
Among the various file-transfer options, one should never, ever, ever connect to a remote server via FTP; SCP and SFTP are just as easy to use, but provide much more security. In addition, while FTP requires the installation of FTP server software such as vsFTP or ProFTP, both SCP and SFTP utilize the SSH protocol and, as a result, will work “out-of-the-box” when connecting to a remote Unix-like machine, such as Mac OS X or Linux.
SCP vs. SFTP
Given that both SCP and SFTP utilize the SSH protocol in connecting to another computer, the two methods are fairly equal in regard to security. SFTP has a slight edge in regard to efficiency, because an interrupted file-transfer can resume where it left off in the event of a broken connection that is later re-established.
SFTP vs. FTPS
SFTP should not be confused with FTPS, because the two methods are incompatible with each other. While FTPS can provide equal security, it does require additional steps to deploy if one does not already have an SSL certificate.
SFTP Clients
There are several quality SFTP clients out there: Cyberduck, Filezilla or WinSCP, to name a few. This article, however, will focus on Filezilla – an open-source (i.e. free) FTP client for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In addition to being able to download the program, the filezilla-project.org site also contains a documentation Wiki and a Support Forum.
Key-based Authentication
With SFTP, you have two user-authentication options when connecting to a cloud server: (i) passwords or (ii) SSH keys. For a discussion on the benefits of SSH keys over passwords and/or instructions on setting up password-less logins on your server, please refer to How To Create SSH Keys with PuTTY to Connect to a VPS.
SFTP via SSH2 Key-based Authentication
Public Key Definition
FileZilla has a built-in key management page in the Settings dialog, which allows you to save your Public (SSH) Key and to (securely) automate the process of connecting to a remote server.
Prequisite
If you have yet to create an SSH key pair, you can do so by following one of two DigitalOcean tutorials:
- Windows users:How To Create SSH Keys with PuTTY to Connect to a VPS
- Mac OSX & Linux users:How To Set Up SSH Keys
Follow these steps once you have an SSH key pair that you would like to use to connect to your VPS:
- Open the FileZilla client.
- From the top of the home screen, click on Edit and select Settings.
- On the left side of the menu, expand the Connection section and highlight SFTP.
- Click on the [Add keyfile…] button and browse your local machine’s directories and select your Private Key file.
- Then, again from the top of FileZilla’s home screen, click on File and select Site Manager.
- Finally, on the left side of the Site Manager, click on the New Site button and type a unique name under My Sites that will allow you to easily identify this particular remote server in the future.
- Now, under the General tab, fill in the Host (with either an IP address or FQDN) and Port fields (default is 22).
- In the Protocol dropdown menu, select SFTP - SSH File Transfer Protocol.
- In the Logon Type dropdown menu, select Interactive.
Note for PuTTY users with passphrase-protected public keys: If your original .ppk file is password-protected, FileZilla will convert your .ppk file to an unprotected one when importing the key into FileZilla. As of version 3.0.10, a password-protected key file is not yet supported.
If a password-protected key file is desired, FileZilla is able to utilize PuTTY’s Pageant tool.
- Simply run Pageant; in your system tray, you will see the Pageant icon appear.
- Right-click on the icon and select Add Key and select your private key (.ppk) file.
- Then, follow the prompt to enter your passphrase.
- Finally, launch FileZilla and connect to your virtual private server via SFTP using SSH2 with a username and an empty password (do not forget to close pageant when you are done).
Editing Text Files
In managing your VPS, you will inevitably encounter a situation where some programming (text) files require edits. FileZilla does not carry a built-in text editor, which gives you the freedom of using any text editor of your choice. A popular editor among Windows users is Notepad++ because it is lightweight and can work with many of today’s popular programming languages.
By default, FileZilla is configured to utilize your local system’s default editor. If you do not wish to make Notepad++ your system’s default text editor, but would nevertheless like to use it to edit HTML, XML, Python, CSS, PHP & other programming files on your VPS:
How To Use Filezilla
- From the FileZilla home screen, click on Edit and select Settings.
- Along the left side of the Settings window, highlight File editing.
- Then, select the radio button associated with Use custom editor and click on the Browse button.
- Find your desired editor’s executable (.exe on Windows machines), double-click on it, and click the OK button to save your changes & close the Settings window.