SCP Deployment From Local Machine to Remote Windows Server

When doing deployment to a Remote Windows Server, we usually build our project locally and move the output build folder to the specific remote path. However, if we adopted the source control (Git) with CICD pipeline to automate the task of copying and updating files upon detected changes in specific branch, it will be partial automate since moving the files are done manually through Sftp client like WinSCP. Hence, the action to moving the files to the server has to be converted to single line command. Secure copy protocol (SCP) is a network protocol to transfer files between hosts on the network via Secure Shell (SSH).

Let’s see the basic command. Below show example to move a folder to remote server.

scp -r C:/app/MyProject/build TARGET_USER@TARGET_IP:~/build

Step 1: Startup OpenSSH Service in Windows Server

• Make sure OpenSSH Service is started on Windows server. If the Status is disabled, go to Properties > Log On > Log on as > Local System account. We will use the existing users available in the Remote Window Server for auth.

Open SSH Service

Step 2: Generate SSH Key Pairs

• At your host machine, run command below

# Key Type: RSA
# Number of bit for RSA Key: 2048 bit
# Generated key pairs path: $HOME/ssh_keys/windows-server-rsa
# Passphare: ""
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -f $HOME/ssh_keys/windows-server-rsa  -q -N ""

• Make sure private key to be not too open.

chmod 600 $HOME/ssh_keys/windows-server-rsa

• Copy the value in the windows-server-rsa.pub and prepare to paste the value to the Windows Server in the next step.

Step 3: Paste the Public Key in .ssh/authorized_keys

• Go to the target logon user folder in C drive of Window C:/Users/${REMOTE_LOGON_USER}, and navigate to .ssh folder and paste the public key to authorized_keys file.

# Create .ssh folder if no exist
mkdir -p C:/Users/${REMOTE_LOGON_USER}/.ssh

# Paste the ssh public key to the file
echo ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAA... >> C:/Users/${REMOTE_LOGON_USER}/.ssh/authorized_keys

Step 4: Create SSH Config

• In your local machine, go to the SSH Config file. And add a new Host config.

# Mac/Linux
cd ~/.ssh 
vi config

# Windows
cd C:/Users/${YOUR_LOCAL_USER}/.ssh
# Make sure have bash in Windows
bash -c "vi config"

• Add your Windows Server Host

Host windows-server
  HostName xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #Remote Server Public IP Address
  User REMOTE_LOGON_USER #Remote User 
  IdentityFile $HOME/ssh_keys/windows-server-rsa #Path of the generated private key just now

Step 5: Testing SSH Connection

# If command work, scp should also be fine
ssh windows-server

# If dont want to use SSH config, provide full command
ssh -i PRIVATE_KEY_PATH USER@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Step 6: SCP Deployment

• In your remote Windows server, go to your project path. Make sure to give full permission of target folder to your logon user.

Folder access right to full control

• If everything look good, try to run SCP command

scp -r ~/build windows-server:C:/MY_PROJECT_PATH/build

• After success copy the files to the server, you might need to run some command in the Window server. SSH provide RemoteCommand option for running command after logon to the server.

ssh windows-server -oRemoteCommand="cd C:/MY_PROJECT_PATH && git pull origin main && cmd -l"

# add --login/-l to maintain the connection after the command. Remove it if no necessary

• Combine together scp and ssh command above. If you are running NodeJS project, we can add “deploy” and “postdeploy” script to the package.json.

{
  "scripts": {
    "deploy": scp -r ~/build windows-server:C:/MY_PROJECT_PATH/build && ssh windows-server -oRemoteCommand="cd C:/MY_PROJECT_PATH && git pull origin main"
    "postdeploy": pm2 restart my-project // will run after npm run deploy
  }
}

That’s all for the deployment to Windows server via SCP.

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