How can I SCP file from Linux host to Windows host with Git Bash?

Question

I installed git for windows on a Windows 7 host. The Git for Windows comes with a program called git bash. I can use scp to transfer files to a Linux host in a git bash Window, as follows:

 MINGW64 ~
 $ scp  from-windows-file  linuxuser@LINUX-HOST-IP:/home/linuxuser/

But when I transfer files back to a Git Bash window from a Linux host, scp not work, as follows:

 $ scp  from-linux-file   winuser@WINDOWS-HOST-IP:/c/Users/winuser/

I got an error:

ssh: connect to host WINDOWS-HOST-IP port 22: Connection refused
lost connection

How can I transfer files back to a Git Bash window from a Linux host?

Answer 1

You should remain in mingw64-shell and do:

$ scp linuxuser@LINUX-HOST-IP:/home/linuxuser/from-linux-file .

It will copy the file to the current directory keeping the filename.

Answer 2

The reason for ssh: connect to host WINDOWS-HOST-IP port 22: Connection refused is because your Windows doesn't have an SSH server running. So the solution is to keep an SSH server running as a service to listen to SSH connections. Windows 10 has a built-in OpenSSH server so no need to install a server anymore

Alternatively you can copy from Linux, just swap the source and destination