Mount FTP Or SFTP As A Drive In Windows

Problem
I want to mount my folders from my webhost over sftp (ssh) on my Windows machine for free. Something like sshfs for Windows.

Discussion
Currently there is no single application that will let me mount an SFTP connection as a drive. There are however applications such as NetDrive, FTPDrive, etc which will let me mount an FTP connection as a drive. So all that’s left to do is create a FTP to SFTP bridge. What does that do you ask? That creates a FTP proxy to your SFTP connection. It will allow you to send your commands from the FTP server to the SFTP connection. There are two tools that stand out to create the bridge we need. The first is mindTerm, an open source solution written purely in java. The second is Tunnelier by Bitvise. I will be using mindTerm with NetDrive in my solution. If you have success with any other combination feel free to comment about your setup.

Solution

• Tools we will need
  • mindTerm
    • License: Free for personal use
    • download link
  • NetDrive
    • License: Free for non-commercial home use
    • download link

1. Download and extract mindTerm
2. Run mindterm.jar (double click it if you can, otherwise in command prompt type in java -jar mindterm.jar)
3. Type in the host you want to ssh into followed by the username and password
4. In the menu click on Plugins>FTP To SFTP Bridge…
5. Type in 127.0.0.1 for the Listen address
6. Type in  21 for the Listen port
7. Select the Remote system type
8. Click Enable
9. Click Dismiss
10. Next we want to install NetDrive
11. Once netdrive is installed, open it up, and click New Site on the bottom
12. Type in localhost (or whatever you want to call it) for the Site name
13. Type in localhost for the Site IP
14. Type in 21 for the Port
15. Select FTP for the Port
16. Select a Drive letter
17. Check Connect as anonymous
18. Click Save
19. Click Connect
20. Click the X to close the window (will minimize to system tray)

There you have it! A SSH/SFTP connection as a drive in Windows. I have tested it in Windows Vista, however it should work just fine in Windows XP.

Tagged as: ftp, networking, sftp, ssh, virtual drive