CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowssshopenssh
ariestav
ariestav

Reputation: 2957

scp on OSX doesn't allow spaces in usernames?

I need to ssh into a Windows 7 box running MobaSSH as its SSH daemon, and the username on the Windows box contains a space. I can login to the Windows 7 box on an OSX terminal like so:

ssh "Some User"@WindowsHost

So I thought I'd be able to use the scp command on OSX to transfer files between the computers, but I keep getting an error saying "invalid username" whenever I do something like this:

scp myfile "Some User"@WindowsHost:~/myfile

I looked into it and found this question on stackoverflow, but that is mainly about a space within the file paths.

I did find a bug posted about this issue in a specific version of scp, but I'm not sure how to patch scp on OSX. The patch is offered as a .c file.

My last resort is to create a new username on the Windows 7 box and transfer all my profile settings to that new user. It seems like a real hassle given that I can login via ssh, but not scp.

Any tips?

Upvotes: 8

Views: 8628

Answers (3)

Patrick McLaren
Patrick McLaren

Reputation: 988

Replace the spaces with underscores:

scp file "User Name@host":

becomes

scp file User_Name@host:

Working with scp from Linux to Mac OS X.

Upvotes: 0

bpanulla
bpanulla

Reputation: 2998

Add a special configuration to your Mac user's ssh config, usually in ~/.ssh/config

Host mySpaceyUsernameHost
User "Some User"
HostName WindowsHost

You should then be able to scp your file using that named configuration:

scp myfile mySpaceyUsernameHost:~/myfile

I just tried this on OS X 10.7 (Lion) and it worked from one Mac to another, whereas the other options (quoted, or backlash-escaped) did not.... so that's something.

Upvotes: 10

smitec
smitec

Reputation: 3049

Have you tried Some\ User@WindowsHost? The escaped space may work unless there is actually a bug in scp.

Alternatively could you not just change the widows 7 username and remove the space?

Upvotes: 4

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