Accessing Amazon EC2 in Filezilla SFTP

To connect to a running Amazon EC2 instance with Filezilla:

1. Edit -> Settings -> Connection -> SFTP
2. Click "Add keyfile..."
3. Browse to the location of your .pem file and select it.
4. A message box will appear asking your permission to convert the file into a supported format. Click Yes, then give the file a name and store it somewhere safe.
5. If the new file is shown in the list of Keyfiles, then continue to the next step. If not, then click "Add keyfile..." and select the converted file.
6. File -> Site Manager
7. Add a new site wih the following paramerters:
   • Host: 123.456.789.123
   • Protocol: SFTP
   • Logon Type: Normal
   • User: username
8. Connect to the new server

I use WinSCP instead of FileZilla to transfer files to/from my EC2 instance. Logging in with a PPK file is very simple. In addition, WinSCP provides a very nice GUI (I use the version that looks/acts like the regular Windows Explorer interface).

Note the PPK file is associated with the username and password from [Set2]. [Set1] simply connects you to a computer that has the credentials needed to access the EC2 instance. Since you transferred the *.pem (ssh private key) file, you should not need to use [Set1] anymore.

update:

Your developer may have configured your EC2 instance to only accept connections from bridge.hisdomain.com. Go to the AWS management console to see if that is the problem (Note the AWS account username and password are probably different than any of the passwords above):

1. First, find out which security groups your EC2 instance is a member of.
2. Then find out which inbound connections are allowed for those security groups.
3. You need to find/add a rule that allows port 22(SSH) from your IP address.
4. This source IP will allow all SSH requests from anywhere: 0.0.0.0/0.

Alternatively, you can try making an ssh connection from your local machine to figure how why the sftp connection is not working. Use Plink, the command-line version of Putty, with your PPK file and the -v option (for verbose.)

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The process for using FileZilla with a PPK file seems quite convoluted. (Hint: you give your password to Pageant, not FileZilla! If you insist on using FileZilla, follow the instructions below:

Now run Pageant. In your system tray, you'll see the Pageant icon appear. Right-click the icon and select "Add Key" and select your private key (PPK) file. Follow the prompt to enter your pass phrase and you're done.

Now simply launch FileZilla and connect to your server using SFTP using SSH2 with a username and an empty password.