Problem : SFTP Unix client to windows Server “Couldnt canonicalise”

Problem : SFTP Unix client to windows Server “Couldnt canonicalise”

Unfortunately im sitting in between two suppliers so i dont have all the necessary OS info to hand but hopefully it wont matter too much as this is an SFTP question.

The situation is such that we have a windows based SFTP server hosted at our supplier.  We have a customer who needs to be able to copy and retrieve files from their unix based machine to our server.

We have tested the comunications using FTP and they workfine, as does their account when using FTP.  However the nature of the file contents is sensitive so they wish to use SFTP command line shell and a script.
We cannot get the unix system to complete the login.  I have tested to login to the windows based SFTP using WinSCP and initially reproduced the problem.  Then realised that / must be specified to login to root directory.  WinSCP logs in fine using the account details.
I then installed Cygwin and the SSH package to try to “simulate” using the SFTP command line from unix and it just will not log me in.
Trying to login with the command $ SFTP user@server:/
Have tried a few variations, such as no :/, ~/, //, \, \\
and receive the error “Couldn’t canonicalise.  Need CWD” everytime
I tried to access the file directly via SFTP and via SCP comand lines and get a “permission denied” message.
However I can access the file just fine using WinSCP client and exactly the same account details.

Im confused as I figured that SFTP, like FTP, is independant of platform and should allow transfer of files.  I believed it to be a problem in the script on the customer side, but having spent the last couple of hours trying diferent syntax trying to get SFTP unix comand to login and not getting any joy, im beginning to wonder if that is so?  Could it be a problem with cross platform communication.  can it be a security problem betwen OS’s that they cant read each others security settings?


Solution: SFTP Unix client to windows Server “Couldnt canonicalise”

As said it seemed strange that it worked with a windows client.  I expected SFTP to work independant of platform.

There are actually two protocols for file transfer over SSH — scp and sftp.  Perhaps windows client used scp…