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linscpSecure file transfer for Linux and Windows
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Building from source

Build linscp and linscp-cli on Linux, and cross-compile the Windows version from Linux.

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linscp builds on Linux with clang and CMake. The Windows version is cross-compiled on the same Linux machine; you do not need Windows or C++Builder to build either.

Requirements

Section titled “Requirements”
  • clang and lld. GCC does not work: linscp relies on clang’s __declspec(property) support, which GCC lacks.
  • CMake 3.25 or newer, Ninja, Python 3, Perl and make (OpenSSL’s build scripts need the last two).
  • Qt 6 with the SVG module and the translation tools.

On Debian 13 (trixie), this installs everything for a Linux build:

Terminal window
sudo apt install clang lld llvm cmake ninja-build make perl python3 git \
  libssl-dev zlib1g-dev qt6-base-dev qt6-svg-dev qt6-l10n-tools \
  qt6-translations-l10n

Other distributions work if their Qt 6 and clang are recent enough; Debian 13 is what the project’s CI uses.

Get the source

Section titled “Get the source”
Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/99ecarvalho/linscp
cd linscp
git submodule update --init --depth 1

Use git submodule update as shown rather than --recurse-submodules. OpenSSL’s own submodules are test suites that the build does not need.

The submodules hold pinned copies of WinSCP, OpenSSL and PuTTY. Do not edit them; see architecture for why.

Build for Linux

Section titled “Build for Linux”
Terminal window
cmake -S . -B build/linux -G Ninja \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++
cmake --build build/linux --target linscp linscp-cli

The first build rewrites WinSCP’s sources into build/linux/gen/ before it compiles them, so expect it to take a while. Later builds only redo what changed.

Run the programs straight from the build tree:

Terminal window
build/linux/port/qt/linscp
build/linux/port/frontend/linscp-cli

A development build shows “Dev Build” in its version. Add -DLINSCP_RELEASE=ON to drop that marking.

To keep your normal settings out of the way while testing, pass an INI file of your own: build/linux/port/qt/linscp /ini=/tmp/alice-test.ini, or /ini=nul to save nothing at all.

Build for Windows

Section titled “Build for Windows”

The Windows build uses llvm-mingw and MSYS2’s prebuilt Qt. Both are downloaded at pinned versions and checked by SHA-256. The host also needs Debian’s Qt of the same version for moc, uic and rcc, plus binutils-mingw-w64-x86-64.

Terminal window
python3 port/tools/fetch_llvm_mingw.py --dest build/tools
python3 port/tools/fetch_msys2_qt.py --dest build/tools/msys2-qt
cmake -S . -B build/win -G Ninja \
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=cmake/toolchain-llvm-mingw.cmake
cmake --build build/win --target deploy

build/win/deploy is a folder you can copy to a Windows machine and run as is. With Wine installed, you can also run it on Linux.

The target Qt and the host Qt must be the same version: 6.8.2 for now. If the configure step cannot find a host Qt, it skips the GUI. The full story is in doc/qt/windows-toolchain.md in the repository.

Common problems

Section titled “Common problems”
Symptom Cause
Errors about __declspec(property) The compiler is GCC. Set CMAKE_C_COMPILER and CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER to clang.
moc.exe: Syntax error during a Windows build No host Qt was found, so the build tried to run Windows tools. Install qt6-base-dev.
Missing files under 3rd-party/ The submodules were not fetched. Run the git submodule command above.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”

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