If you try to connect to a remote system where password authentication is disabled and public authentication is not configured properly, you will see fish: Waiting for initial line. So the best option is just to work with Shell link instead of SFTP link. Instead, you have to work with password authentication, which I don't recommend. This means you can't use public key authentication. The SFTP link command ignores the SSH config file. However, it appears the SFTP implementation in Midnight Commander has a bug that has never been fixed. Because you work in a GUI in Midnight Commander, it does not really make a difference which protocol you use. With SCP, you can't list the contents of a directory with SFTP, you have to use the old FTP console with its commands. If you work on the command line, it makes a difference if you work with SCP or SFTP. You can also transfer files via SFTP in Midnight Commander. Midnight Commander connected to a remote host Midnight Commander and SFTP link

Just in case you are still working with passwords, you can simply connect to the remote system by clicking the Left or Right menu or, alternatively, pressing F9+L (or F9+R) and then selecting Shell link. I hope you have disabled password authentication for SSH on all your Linux machines. Connect to the remote host with SSH in Midnight Commander The main advantage over SCP on the command line is that you can also list the contents of the remote system, and the advantage over SFTP is that you don't have leave your shell and work on the SFTP console. When transferring files via SSH in Midnight Commander, you have to keep in mind that Midnight Commander uses FISH for remote shell connections, which does not require SCP to be installed on the remote system. On your local system, you just have to install Midnight Commander once with a simple one-liner (for instance, on Ubuntu): sudo apt install mcįiles transferred over shell protocol (FISH) If you have to copy files to another server, you don't have to install anything on the remote system.

The file manager also allows you to remotely edit files using nano.īecause you can run Midnight Commander in a SSH terminal window, you can work with it on any Linux machine without a desktop environment, such as GNOME or KDE. Another very useful feature is that if you want to view the contents of a file, you can simply hit F3.

Total commander sftp connection