SCP

Secure Copy (remote file copy program)

Summary

scp copies files between hosts on a network. It uses ssh(1) for data transfer, and uses the same authentication and provides the same security as ssh(1). scp will ask for passwords or passphrases if they are needed for authentication.

Basic usage

The basic usage of scp is as follows:

scp file host:path

This copies the file to the remote host. The destination path is optional, but can be a directory on the server, or even a file name if copying a single file. It is possible to specify multiple files; the last one is the destination.

To copy a file from the remote host, use:

scp host:file path

This fetches the file from the host, and puts it in the directory indicated by path. Often, path is just ., meaning the current working directory.

Source & Target

scp [source] [target]

The source and target may be specified as a local pathname, a remote host with optional path in the form [user@]host:[path], or a URI in the form scp://[user@]host[:port][/path].

Local file names can be made explicit using absolute or relative pathnames to avoid scp treating file names containing `:' as host specifiers.

When copying between two remote hosts, if the URI format is used, a port may only be specified on the target if the -3 option is used.

Syntax

scp [source] [target]

scp [-346BCpqrTv] [-c cipher] [-F ssh_config] [-i identity_file] [-J destination] [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port] [-S program] source ... target