Tunnelier

About the Tool

Total Commander doesn't have an SFTP client (secure FTP connection). Even though there is an SFTP plugin by Martin Kanich and Hans-Jürgen Petrich (SFTP for TotalCMD), the implementation isn't mature and the development has been discontinued.

Tunnelier includes a so called FTP-to-SFTP Bridge (beside other features that are based on SSH). It establishes a secured connection to the desired SFTP server. Total Commander then can use its normal FTP client to access this connection (via localhost = 127.0.0.1). Tunnelier translates between the FTP and the SFTP protocol.

The program is free for individual use, as well as for limited use inside organizations.

Note: Since version 7 Total Commander supports FTPS (SSL/TLS) based on OpenSSL. However, this isn't compatible to SFTP which is based on SSH. SFTP constitutes the background to this article.

Tips for Configuring

You can set-up Tunnelier and Total Commander to comfortably establish an (S)FTP connection to the desired server with the Start menu. Total Commander calls the Tunnelier application with a profile defined before. Tunnelier then starts the FTP client in the currently running Total Commander session with a connection to the localhost (the FTP-to-SFTP bridge) after connecting to the desired server. The two applications do a ping-pong play.

Profile for Tunnelier

• Tab Login:
  Enter the desired SFTP server and the user name for the login here.
• Tab Options, area On Login:
  In the field Execute Total Commander is executed with FTP access to localhost (command line parameter: "/o /l=ftp://localhost"). You may want to deactivate the options Open Terminal, Open SFTP, and Open Remote Desktop.
• Tab Options, option Logout when session activity is over:
  Tunnelier closes the SSH connection to the server after you quit the FTP connection in Total Commander.
• Tab Services, area FTP-to-SFTP Bridge:
  The option Enabled activates the FTP-to-SFTP bridge. All other settings may be left as they are.

Save the profile with a name of your choice to an arbitrary directory (e.g. MyProfile.tlp).

Start Menu Entry for Total Commander

• Command: Calling Tunnelier.exe
• Parameters: -profile=MyProfile.tlp -loginOnStartup -exitOnDisconnect
  Tunnelier is called with the profile saved before (the path to the profile is not indicated here, see below). When started, Tunnelier shows a login dialog. The application is quit after closing the FTP and the SSH connection.
• Start path: Contains the path to the directory where the Tunnelier profile (MyProfile.tlp) resides.

Web Links

• Web site of the Bitvise corporation: Bitvise Home Page
• Web site of the project SFTP for TotalCMD: BerliOS Developer: Project Info - SFTP for TotalCMD

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