Installing on Debian Systems (like Ubuntu)

To install LFTP, which was described in our discussion of FTP, issue the command:

sudo apt-get install lftp

To install SSH utilities like SCP and SFTP, issue the command:

sudo apt-get install openssh-client

To install rsync (which requires the openssh-client), issue the command:

sudo apt-get install rsync grsync

Installing on Fedora Systems (like Red Hat and CentOS)

To install LFTP, which was described in our discussion of FTP, issue the command:

sudo yum install lftp

To install SSH utilities like SCP and SFTP, issue the command:

sudo yum install openssh-clients

To install rsync, issue the command:

sudo yum install rsync

Installing on Windows Systems

FTP has been included in Windows installations for some time. If you want to use the SCP and SFTP utilities on Windows, the OpenSSH versions of those tools have been included with Windows since autumn of 2018. If you try to run scp or sftp at a command prompt and it is not found, you may need to enable that optional feature:

• From the Start menu, open the Windows Settings Dialog.
• Choose Apps and click Optional Features.
• Find OpenSSH Client and make sure it is installed.
• If you would also like to run an OpenSSH server on your system, click "Add a feature", find OpenSSH Server and install it.

An rsync implementation is available through the Cygwin utility package. If you choose to install Cygwin to get rsync, be sure to select rsync as an optional package while installing, as it is not included by default. Alternatively, you can install just Cygwin's rsync, which has been repackaged as cwRsync.

Another option for accessing these utilities on a Windows system is to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which provides an Ubuntu environment within Windows and includes FTP, SCP, SFTP and rsync. It is not enabled by default on Windows systems, so you must install it.