SCP Examples

What is Secure Copy?

scp allows files to be copied to, from, or between different hosts. It uses ssh for data transfer and provides the same authentication and same level of security as ssh.

Examples

Copy the file "foobar.txt" from a remote host to the local host

$ scp your_username@remotehost.edu:foobar.txt /some/local/directory

scp -i /etc/openvpn/ts-dev.pem your_username@remotehost.edu:"foobar\ at\ foo.com" .

Copy the file "foobar.txt" from the local host to a remote host

$ scp foobar.txt your_username@remotehost.edu:/some/remote/directory

Copy the directory "foo" from the local host to a remote host's directory "bar"

$ scp -r foo your_username@remotehost.edu:/some/remote/directory/bar

Copy the file "foobar.txt" from remote host "rh1.edu" to remote host "rh2.edu"

$ scp your_username@rh1.edu:/some/remote/directory/foobar.txt \ your_username@rh2.edu:/some/remote/directory/

Copying the files "foo.txt" and "bar.txt" from the local host to your home directory on the remote host

$ scp foo.txt bar.txt your_username@remotehost.edu:~

Copy multiple files from the remote host to your current directory on the local host

$ scp your_username@remotehost.edu:/some/remote/directory/\{a,b,c\} .

$ scp your_username@remotehost.edu:~/\{foo.txt,bar.txt\} .