putty external text editor?

I'm new to ssh and linux in general. I've got putty set up and I can connect to my server and list files and everything. I'm wondering how I can edit a file using notepad++ (or another editor). Is there a way to have it automatically download and upload through ssh? How else do you edit a file?

Thanks

Solution 1:

If you really need a GUI editor another alternative is to install on one on the server and run it via SSH.

To do this you need:

• An X11 server on your guest that is running. (Xming works well - http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/)
• To permit X11 forwarding on the server adjust your /etc/ssh/sshd_config so this is set X11Forwarding yes. Restart ssh if you had to change.
• To enable X11 forwarding through putty. (link)
• To install a GUI editor on the server. I really like SciTE
• With all the pieces in places, just open the file with editor filename and the GUI from the remote system will be displayed on your local machine.

Solution 2:

You can use WinSCP and use sftp to edit your files. Just right click > edit. However, you'll have to login as root or a root level user to edit most system files which may be bad security practices.

The best thing for you to do is to use nano or a similar command line text editor and enable the color coding extensions, which is probably the point to use notepad++