I just came across an issue with a certain overseas project that required SSH access to the web server. The web server did not have FTP installed and thus all site files were maintained via SCP and SSH. This was of course going to be a bit tedious dealing in a text editor for this particular project as I prefer to do a lot of coding in Dreamweaver for its resources and reference material which readily on hand. Plus I did not really want to have to have refresh on ‘VI’ commands! A bit of research directed my attention a java application called MindTerm. This works perfectly, allowing me to see the remote folders and files and quickly find what I need to edit and update.

In order to set this up, we need to create an SSH Tunnel. You will need the MindTerm client (I am using version 3.2) and configure an FTP connection in Dreamweaver.

1. Open the MindTerm jar file and make you SSH connection to the web server and establish a connection
2. Go to ‘Plugins’ > ‘FTP to SFTP Bridge’
3. Set the the ‘Listen address’ as the 127.0.0.1 (localhost) – This is because Dreamweaver is talking to the server via the tunnel – it does not talk directly to the web server
4. Set the ‘Listen address’ port to something like 2021 (relevant becuase 20 and 21 are the ports used in FTP connections!)
5. Select the operating system the web server is running
6. The hit ‘Enable’

From here we need to configure Dreamweaver

1. Open Dw and go ‘Sites’ > ‘Manage Sites’ > ‘New’
2. Set the ‘Access type’ to FTP
3. ‘FTP Host’ needs to be set to 127.0.0.1:2021 – The IP address and Port we set when configuring the tunnel in MindTerm
4. ‘Host directory’ – Make sure you set this to the web site root directory correctly, eg /usr/local/www/
5. ‘Login’ and ‘Password’ – These are you SSH login details to the web server
6. Put a check mark against ‘Use Passive FTP’
7. Hit ‘OK’ and ‘Done’

Dreamweaver should start doing its thing, making a connection to the server via the SSH tunnel and start retrieving the files schema. If all goes well you should then have a directory listing and be able to start modifying the remote website as if it were a normal FTP connection.