The Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) is a simple and efficient way to securely transfer files between a local machine and a remote server, or between two remote systems. SCP uses SSH (Secure Shell) for encryption, ensuring that your data remains secure during transit.
Command syntax
scp [options] source_file destination
- source_file: The file you want to transfer. This can be a local file path or a remote file path in the format
user@host:/path/to/file - destination: The location where you want to copy the file. This can be a local path or a remote path in the same format as above
- options: The location where you want to copy the file. This can be a local path or a remote path in the same format as above
-P 2222: Specify a custom SSH port-r directory_name: Recursively copy directories-i ~/.ssh/private_key.pem: Use an SSH private key for authentication-p file.txt: Preserve file attributes like modification time and permissions-C large_file.iso: Enable compression for faster transfers over slow networks
Copying files from local to remote server
Copying report.pdf to the /home/user/documents/ directory on the remote server
scp report.pdf user@192.168.1.100:/home/user/documents/
Copying files from remote to local machine
Downloading report.pdf from a remote server to your local machine
scp user@192.168.1.100:/home/user/reports/report.pdf ~/Downloads/