Using Midnight Commander & SSH To Transfer Files Securely Between Hosts

by AndrzejL

Let me explain how to use Midnight Commander to transfer files between two machines using SSH server.

The machines are configured to use authentication keys (a great method of fooling the keylogger, by the way). Watch the video at the link below for a demonstration.

Using SSH and MC to copy files securely between hosts VIDEO

You can add extra information when logging in. For example:

username@host.domain.xxx:port/home/username/

username – Your login to the SSH server

host.domain.xxx – IP or host of the SSH server

port – number of the port that ssh works on – 22 by default

/home/username/ – the directory that you want to open on the SSH server.

It’s simple and very useful, as Midnight Commander can copy multiple files and folders, plus it can also skip certain files if they already exist on the target computer (depending on multiple conditions). It can be used to overwrite files, or to edit files on the SSH server. It can be used to move/delete/rename/create/chown/chmod/search files on the SSH server.

Midnight Commander is one of my favorite tools. Hopefully, you will find it useful too.