WinSCP is a GUI-based file manager for Windows that allows you to upload and transfer files to a remote computer using the SFTP, SCP, FTP, and FTPS protocols. WinSCP allows you to drag and drop files from your Windows machine to your Linux instance or synchronize entire directory structures between the two systems.
To use WinSCP, you'll need the private key you generated in Converting Your Private Key Using PuTTYgen. You'll also need the public DNS address of your Linux/UNIX instance.
- Download and install WinSCP from http://winscp.net/eng/download.php. For most users the default installation options are OK.
- Start WinSCP.
- At the WinSCP login screen, for Host name, enter the public DNS address for your instance.
- For User name, enter the default user name for your AMI. For Amazon Linux AMIs, the user name is ec2-user. For Red Hat AMIs the user name is root, and for Ubuntu AMIs the user name is ubuntu.
- For Private key, enter the path to your private key, or click the "…" button to browse for the file.
Note
WinSCP requires a PuTTY private key file (.ppk). You can convert a .pem security key file to the .ppk format using PuTTYgen. For more information, see Converting Your Private Key Using PuTTYgen.
- (Optional) In the left panel, click Directories, and then, for Remote directory, enter the path for the directory you want to add files to.
- Click Login to connect, and click Yes to add the host fingerprint to the host cache.
- After the connection is established, in the connection window your Linux instance is on the right and your local machine is on the left. You can drag and drop files directly into the remote file system from your local machine. For more information on WinSCP, see the project documentation at http://winscp.net/eng/docs/start.