Mount FTP Or SFTP As A Drive In Windows

by Lalit Kapoor on 2008-06-292008-06-29T09:36:01ZY-m-d">June 29, 20082008-06-29T09:36:01ZF j, Y

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

  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.

  • rincewind
    win7 64 bit works great :) thanks a lot
  • MeM
    Great post, but I noticed that NetDrive now supports ssh directly, so there is no need for mindterm.
  • Cay Spekko
    Got it to work with Windows 7 64bit. NetDrive doesn't work, however if you goto: Control Panel-->Internet Options-->Advanced, then uncheck "Use Passive FTP", you can navigate to your sftp folders using windows explorer or even mount through "Add a network location" in internet explorer. Useful for quick updates to my website. Cool!
  • George
    it works fine on winXP, thanks for the tip, very useful for my student account :)
  • This snippet doesn't work on windows 7 64bit cause of NetDrive doesn't support such a systen
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post:

Next post: