scp cheatsheet

SCP command is used to securely copy files btween two locations i.e local to a remote location or remote location to local, you can also transfer from one remote location to another remote location.

Local to remote location

scp /path/to/local/file user@remote_host:/path/in/remote/location

Remote location to local

scp user@remote_host:/path/in/remote/location /path/to/local/file 

Copying multiple files

scp /path/to/local/file1 /path/to/local/file2 user@remote_host:/path/in/remote/location

Copying entire directory

scp -r /path/to/local/directory user@remote_host:/path/in/remote/location

SCP Options

Option	Description	Example
-C	Force SCP to compress data	scp -C foo.txt ubuntu@1.1.1.1:/home/ubuntu/
-r	recursively copy files from directories
-v	verbose mode to see transfer details	scp -v foo.txt ubuntu@1.1.1.1:/home/ubuntu/
-l	limit the bandwidth	scp -l 100 foo.txt ubuntu@1.1.1.1:/home/ubuntu/

Examples

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

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

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 the file "foobar.txt" from the local host to a remote host using port 2264

$ scp -P 2264 foobar.txt your_username@remotehost.edu:/some/remote/directory

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\} .