Preserving UTF-8 filenames from Windows to Linux

On occasion I access (Ubuntu) Linux servers from Windows using Putty and WinSCP. In order to preserve UTF-8 filenames, some snakeoil is required.

Putty (v0.60):

  • Set Window -> Translation -> Received data assumed to be in which character set = ‘UTF-8′
  • Set the LANG environment variable, either by setting it in /etc/environment or /etc/default/locale (system-wide), or within the Putty configuration by adding an environment variable ‘LANG’ with value ‘en_GB.UTF-8′ (or whatever your locale is) within Connection -> Data.

WinSCP (v4.1.0):

  • In WinSCP Login dialog, tick ‘Advanced options’
  • Set Session -> File protocol = ‘SFTP’
  • Set Environment -> UTF-8 encoding for filenames = ‘On’

Tags: , ,

Leave a Reply