Connect to your Linux instance from Windows with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
PrerequisitesConnect to your Linux instance using WSLTransfer files to Linux instances from Linux using SCPUninstall WSL

Connect to your Linux instance from Windows with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

After you launch your instance, you can connect to it and use it the way that you'd use a computer sitting in front of you.

The following instructions explain how to connect to your instance with a Linux distribution on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). WSL is a free download and enables you to run native Linux command line tools directly on Windows, alongside your traditional Windows desktop, without the overhead of a virtual machine.

By installing WSL, you can use a native Linux environment to connect to your Linux EC2 instances instead of using PuTTY or PuTTYgen. The Linux environment makes it easier to connect to your Linux instances because it comes with a native SSH client that you can use to connect to your Linux instances and change the permissions of the .pem key file. The Amazon EC2 console provides the SSH command for connecting to the Linux instance, and you can get verbose output from the SSH command for troubleshooting. For more information, see the Windows Subsystem for Linux Documentation.

Note

After you've installed the WSL, all the prerequisites and steps are the same as those described in Connect to your Linux instance from Linux or macOS using SSH, and the experience is just like using native Linux.

If you receive an error while attempting to connect to your instance, see Troubleshoot connecting to your instance.

Prerequisites

Before you connect to your Linux instance, complete the following prerequisites.

Verify that the instance is ready

After you launch an instance, it can take a few minutes for the instance to be ready so that you can connect to it. Check that your instance has passed its status checks. You can view this information in the Status check column on the Instances page.

Verify the general prerequisites for connecting to your instance

To find the public DNS name or IP address of your instance and the user name that you should use to connect to your instance, see Get information about your instance.

Install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and a Linux distribution on your local computer

Install the WSL and a Linux distribution using the instructions in the Windows 10 Installation Guide. The example in the instructions installs the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, but you can install any distribution. You are prompted to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Copy the private key from Windows to WSL

In a WSL terminal window, copy the .pem file (for the key pair that you specified when you launched the instance) from Windows to WSL. Note the fully-qualified path to the .pem file on WSL to use when connecting to your instance. For information about how to specify the path to your Windows hard drive, see How do I access my C drive?. For more information about key pairs and Windows instances, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and Windows instances.

cp /mnt/<Windows drive letter>/path/my-key-pair.pem ~/WSL-path/my-key-pair.pem

Connect to your Linux instance using WSL

Use the following procedure to connect to your Linux instance using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). If you receive an error while attempting to connect to your instance, see Troubleshoot connecting to your instance.

To connect to your instance using SSH

  1. In a terminal window, use the ssh command to connect to the instance. You specify the path and file name of the private key (.pem), the user name for your instance, and the public DNS name or IPv6 address for your instance. For more information about how to find the private key, the user name for your instance, and the DNS name or IPv6 address for an instance, see Locate the private key and set permissions and Get information about your instance. To connect to your instance, use one of the following commands.

    • (Public DNS) To connect using your instance's public DNS name, enter the following command.

      ssh -i /path/key-pair-name.pem instance-user-name@my-instance-public-dns-name

    • (IPv6) Alternatively, if your instance has an IPv6 address, you can connect to the instance using its IPv6 address. Specify the ssh command with the path to the private key (.pem) file, the appropriate user name, and the IPv6 address.

      ssh -i /path/key-pair-name.pem instance-user-name@my-instance-IPv6-address

    You see a response like the following:

    The authenticity of host 'ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com (10.254.142.33)'
can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 1f:51:ae:28:bf:89:e9:d8:1f:25:5d:37:2d:7d:b8:ca:9f:f5:f1:6f.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

  2. (Optional) Verify that the fingerprint in the security alert matches the fingerprint that you previously obtained in (Optional) Get the instance fingerprint. If these fingerprints don't match, someone might be attempting a "man-in-the-middle" attack. If they match, continue to the next step.

  3. Enter yes.

    You see a response like the following:

    Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com' (RSA) 
to the list of known hosts.

Transfer files to Linux instances from Linux using SCP

One way to transfer files between your local computer and a Linux instance is to use the secure copy protocol (SCP). This section describes how to transfer files with SCP. The procedure is similar to the procedure for connecting to an instance with SSH.

Prerequisites

The following procedure steps you through using SCP to transfer a file. If you've already connected to the instance with SSH and have verified its fingerprints, you can start with the step that contains the SCP command (step 4).

To use SCP to transfer a file

  1. Transfer a file to your instance using the instance's public DNS name. For example, if the name of the private key file is key-pair-name, the file to transfer is SampleFile.txt, the user name is instance-user-name, and the public DNS name of the instance is my-instance-public-dns-name or the IPv6 address is my-instance-IPv6-address, use one the following commands to copy the file to the instance-user-name home directory.

    • (Public DNS) To transfer a file using your instance's public DNS name, enter the following command.

      scp -i /path/key-pair-name.pem /path/SampleFile.txt instance-user-name@my-instance-public-dns-name:~

    • (IPv6) Alternatively, if your instance has an IPv6 address, you can transfer a file using the instance's IPv6 address. The IPv6 address must be enclosed in square brackets ([ ]), which must be escaped (\).

      scp -i /path/key-pair-name.pem /path/SampleFile.txt instance-user-name@\[my-instance-IPv6-address\]:~

    You see a response like the following:

    The authenticity of host 'ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com (10.254.142.33)'
can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 1f:51:ae:28:bf:89:e9:d8:1f:25:5d:37:2d:7d:b8:ca:9f:f5:f1:6f.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

  2. (Optional) Verify that the fingerprint in the security alert matches the fingerprint that you previously obtained in (Optional) Get the instance fingerprint. If these fingerprints don't match, someone might be attempting a "man-in-the-middle" attack. If they match, continue to the next step.

  3. Enter yes.

    You see a response like the following:

    Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com' (RSA) 
to the list of known hosts.
Sending file modes: C0644 20 SampleFile.txt
Sink: C0644 20 SampleFile.txt
SampleFile.txt                                100%   20     0.0KB/s   00:00

    If you receive a "bash: scp: command not found" error, you must first install scp on your Linux instance. For some operating systems, this is located in the openssh-clients package. For Amazon Linux variants, such as the Amazon ECS-optimized AMI, use the following command to install scp:

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y openssh-clients

  4. To transfer files in the other direction (from your Amazon EC2 instance to your local computer), reverse the order of the host parameters. For example, to transfer the SampleFile.txt file from your EC2 instance back to the home directory on your local computer as SampleFile2.txt, use one of the following commands on your local computer.

    • (Public DNS) To transfer a file using your instance's public DNS name, enter the following command.

      scp -i /path/key-pair-name.pem instance-user-name@ec2-198-51-100-1.compute-1.amazonaws.com:~/SampleFile.txt ~/SampleFile2.txt

    • (IPv6) Alternatively, if your instance has an IPv6 address, to transfer files in the other direction using the instance's IPv6 address, enter the following command.

      scp -i /path/key-pair-name.pem instance-user-name@\[2001:db8:1234:1a00:9691:9503:25ad:1761\]:~/SampleFile.txt ~/SampleFile2.txt

Uninstall WSL

For information about uninstalling Windows Subsystem for Linux, see How do I uninstall a WSL Distribution?.