How do you FTP into your Forge Server?

Do you have any FTP server instaled on your forge server? Is your firewall allowing ftp port?

I use MobaXterm to SSH into server for whatever I'm doing and that has added sftp functions.

Not sure if this helps, but having just tried this using 3 different clients . . . here is what I landed on:

First, I assume you have set up the SSH key on your machine per the Forge instructions. Forge does not allow password login to the server. In my case, I also password protected my SSH key (so each time I log in via SSH, I must also use a passphrase). This caused some issues below I was not aware of, and probably would not do this again . . .

Second - the free solution is FileZilla. There is already a solution on here, see https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/sftp-on-forge-issue However, if you did what I did and password protected the private key, FileZilla prompts you to convert the key to .ppk. From there it will work, but you have to put in the passphrase each time.

Third - Transmit - unless I am missing something, Transmit will not work with passphrase protected ssh keys (it says it right in their help manual). However, it should work without passphrase protected keys but I could not try it. Just search for sftp in the help for Transmit.

Fourth, what I ended up with using was YummyFTP Pro (available on MAC app store). This not only worked out of the box, but it has a nice feature if you have a passphrase protected ssh key file: When you select SFTP as the connection, click the box for ssh key, it will take you (on a MAC) right to the .ssh folder (nice, in FIleZilla I had to copy the private key and convert it), and select the private key (the one that does not have .pub). In the user, the user field is "forge" and if you used a passphrase, put the passphrase in the password field - it will not work at all if you do not do this, it fails for authentication. Then it auto logs in, right to the home folder. Nice.

For anyone landing here thought I'd share my experience with this.

As described by mikeoliver, the problem I was having was that my SSH key is password protected and using ForkLift it didn't allow my to enter that password.

Rather than spending £30 on YummyFTP I just altered my SSH config to use the keychain on my mac. So I created a file ~/.ssh/config and in it put

Host *
    UseKeychain yes

This made everything work :)

Transmit works fine for me but you must use SFTP with a public/private key. Any other SFTP software that uses this combination will work with a Forge server. Nothing should be required on the actual server to use that process.

@bradfields Brilliant! I can confirm that it works flawlessly with Transmit.