Transferring files over SSH [closed]

Question

I'm SSHing into a remote server on the command line, and trying to copy a directory onto my local machine with the scp command. However, the remote server returns this "usage" message:

[Stewart:console/ebooks/discostat] jmm% scp -p ./styles/
usage: scp [-1246BCEpqrv] [-c cipher] [-F ssh_config] [-i identity_file]
           [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port] [-S program]
           [[user@]host1:]file1 [...] [[user@]host2:]file2
[Stewart:console/ebooks/discostat] jmm%

I'd like to be able to transfer files in both directions. From what I read, I thought the above command would work for downloading, and scp -p [localpath] [remotepath] for uploading?

Pentatomic

Answer 1

You need to scp something somewhere. You have scp ./styles/, so you're saying secure copy ./styles/, but not where to copy it to.

Generally, if you want to download, it will go:

# download: remote -> local
scp user@remote_host:remote_file local_file 

where local_file might actually be a directory to put the file you're copying in. To upload, it's the opposite:

# upload: local -> remote
scp local_file user@remote_host:remote_file

If you want to copy a whole directory, you will need -r. Think of scp as like cp, except you can specify a file with user@remote_host:file as well as just local files.

Edit: As noted in a comment, if the usernames on the local and remote hosts are the same, then the user can be omitted when specifying a remote file.

Permanent

Note that if the user is the same on the remote host and the local host, the username can be omitted: scp hello.c myserver.net:~/projects/ – Sokol

Yes, true, I'll add a note about that. I included the user because then the examples I gave will always work. :) – Permanent

Im having a hardtime on this.. is this correct. scp C:\filename.txt server1@server2:home – Immoralist

Please add bold formatting on "donload" and "upload". – Cardigan

"naturally" (I say naturally because I just wasted 15 minutes on this) you should not be connected to the remote host while attempting to "download" to local, because if you are executing the code from a remote instance, "local" will be interpreted as the "remote", if you see what I mean. So don't run ssh first. – Heavy

-P for port / -r for folder coping – Ney

make sure to pass port as scp -P port local_file user@remote_host:remote_file and scp -P port user@remote_host:remote_file local_file – Etheridge

+1 I keep coming back to this. I love that the answer is extremely clear on defining the direction of transfer and order of parameters – Aulos

If you want to use credentials don't forget to set the -i flag: scp -i rsa_file_path user@remote_host:remote_file local_file This is recommended over passwords. – Ursa

Answer 2

If copying to/from your desktop machine, use WinSCP, or if on Linux, Nautilus supports SCP via the Connect To Server option.

scp can only copy files to a machine running sshd, hence you need to run the client software on the remote machine from the one you are running scp on.

If copying on the command line, use:

# copy from local machine to remote machine
scp localfile user@host:/path/to/whereyouwant/thefile

or

# copy from remote machine to local machine
scp user@host:/path/to/remotefile localfile

Elias

You are the man. I deployed a blog in less than 10 seconds without any additional installation on server side! – Underbodice

This worked perfectly. I used msysgit in cmd since it has both scp and ssh. – Siliceous

This worked perfectly. I used scp * user@host:/path/to/where – Crosspurpose

That should be the top answer. – Comedy

If I have a file on my laptop (mac using terminal) surely I run the command to copy from that to the server I want the file on. How could a remote server access my laptop that isn't set up as some kind of server? When trying this I get - Permission denied (publickey) I think I need to get my login somehow automated as I pass the path every time to my key when logging in. – Abb

Thanks for the WinSCP suggestion. Way easier than trying to write all those commands manually... – Erythrism

Good mention of Nautilus having SCP integrated. Way easier for adhoc transfers than messing around with terminal. Basically your server connection is mounted like a volume. – Pushcart

Is there a linux alternative to WinSCP? – Cummings

If you have to pass a key just scp -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub FILENAME USER@SERVER:/home/USER/FILENAME – Rectrix

Answer 3

You need to specify both source and destination, and if you want to copy directories you should look at the -r option.

So to recursively copy /home/user/whatever from remote server to your current directory:

scp -pr user@remoteserver:whatever .

Larianna

Answer 4

No, you still need to scp [from] [to] whichever way you're copying

The difference is, you need to scp -p server:serverpath localpath

Averse

what is the purpose of -p? – Sturgis

From man scp: Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original file. – Gluttony

To be clear -p is only included here because the OP included the flag in their original question. It's not in any way relevant to the answer – Averse