scp—Secure Copy

The command scp copies files to a remote machine. The following examples shows the most common used options and arguments. The examples pretent you are on host jupiter:

scp MyLetter.tex sun:

copies the file MyLetter.tex from the host jupiter to the host sun. The file appears inside the home directory of the current user on sun.

scp MyLetter.tex tux@sun:

copies the file MyLetter.tex from the host jupiter to the host sun, but uses a the user tux on the host sun.The file appears inside the home directory of user tux.

scp-ltux MyLetter.tex sun:

the same than the last command, but with a slightly different syntax.

scp-rsrc/ sun:backup/

recursive copying of the entire src directory from the host jupiter to the host sun. The source directory appears inside the directory backup.

After the correct password is entered, scp starts the data transfer and shows a growing row of asterisks, simulating a progress bar. In addition, the program displays the estimated time of arrival to the right of the progress bar. Suppress all output with the option -q. The option -p tells scp to leave the time stamp of files unchanged. -C compresses the data transfer. This minimizes the data volume to transfer, but creates a heavier burden on the processor.