sftp to server in nautilus?

[MgFrobozz]

I used to be able to browse in other servers from nautilus, but my configuration procedure no longer works. Advice?

I'm doing this:

• Fire up nautilus
• Click "Other Locations"
• For "Connect to Server", enter (eg) "sftp://myserver.com:2020", where "myserver.com" is the domain name, and "2222" is the ssh port number (intentionally _not_ port 22)
• Click "Connect"
• Nautilus used to respond with a dialog that allowed me to enter the username and password for the connection. Now it responds "Permission denied".

Is there a way to convince it to pop up the authentication dialog?
If not, is there a way to store the username/password combination in ~/.config/nautilus? (I can't find any information on that file structure).

[TheFu]

is the ssh client package installed on the machine?

sudo apt install openssh-client

That is just a guess. i don't use nautilus.

Obviously, the remote systems must have the openssh-server package installed, configured. Hopefully, you also install fail2ban for protection on those machines too.

Really, passwords are a terrible idea. Just takes 2 commands to setup ssh-key authentication between a client and the servers. Getting prompted just once every 4 hrs to unlock the key is pretty nice AND much more secure than using passwords.

[HermanAB]

Debug it from the command line with 'ssh -vvv...' to see the error messages.

If it doesn't work from Bash, then it won't work from Nautilus.

[MgFrobozz]

Hi, The Fu ...

Yep, ssh is installed (I use it frequently). I'm also using ssh-key authentication, with .ssh/authorized_keys at the server(s) end.

> dpkg --list | grep openssh-client
ii openssh-client 1:7.6p1-4ubuntu0.3 amd64 secure shell (SSH) client, for secure access to remote machines

[MgFrobozz]

Hi, HermanAB ...

Direct ssh and sftp (from a bash shell) works to the same machine I'm trying to access in nautilus.

I'm fine with using bash, but a co-worker finds the bash learning curve too steep, and needs a gui method instead. It doesn't have to be nautilus, any app with a gui that could do this will be fine.

[HermanAB]

OK, if the command line works, then that eliminates all network routing problems - meaning that your problem is purely with Nautilus.

If you launch Nautilus from a Gnome menu, then you cannot see any error messages. Launch Nautilus from Bash and see what errors you get.

[TheFu]

Whenever I've used sftp:// in the URI for any Linux file manager, it has always worked. Don't remember doing anything special, ever, but I use caja perhaps 1-2 times a year, so I'm hardly an expert. Caja is the Mate file manager.

Hummmm. Just tried it with caja and it worked fine.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/3498...a-remote-serve
Seems like that should "just work." $ sftp lubuntu is working between the same machines too. Whenever that's happened before for other programs, it was usually
* firejail confinement
* snap confinement
* remote system firewall

Used it to a system without ssh-keys setup and was prompted for credentials, then allowed in. Tried 5 different systems. They all worked.

So, it should be working fine. Can you tail -f /var/log/auth.log while attempting the connections? The logs should provide some google-ible lines.

[MgFrobozz]

Thanks HermanAB and TheFu ...

I found "nemo" (a fork of nautilus?), and installed it ("sudo apt install nemo"). Alt-F2, then run "nemo" and

• From the nemo menu, Click "File/Connect to Server ..."
• For "Server", enter the alias name from ~/.ssh/config
• For "Type", select "SSH"
• For "Folder", select the home folder for the appropriate user on the server
• Leave "User Name" and "Password" empty (nemo will use the credentials from ~/.ssh/config)
• Click "Connect"

After installing nemo, one needs to do this to hide nautilus and show nemo:

• Right-click "Applications" and select "Edit Menus"
• Click "Accessories"
• There will be two "Files" icons. Right-click on each and select "Properties"
• Make sure only the icon using nemo has "Show" selected"
• Click "Close"

(Btw, if you do this in nemo, the ssh mount will also show up in nautilus.)