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File Transfer using scp

To transfer a file securely to another machine - type:

Terminal window
scp file1.txt tom@server2:$HOME

This example presents transferring file1.txt from our host to server2’s user tom’s home directory.

scp can also be used to transfer multiple files from one server to another. Below is example of transferring all files from my_folder directory with extension .txt to server2. In Below example all files will be transferred to user tom home directory.

Terminal window
scp /my_folder/*.txt tom@server2:$HOME

To download a file from remote server to the local machine - type:

Terminal window
scp tom@server2:$HOME/file.txt /local/machine/path/

This example shows how to download the file named file.txt from user tom’s home directory to our local machine’s current directory.

  • scp /some/local/directory/file_name user_name@host_name:destination_file_path
  • scp user_name@host_name:origin_file_path /some/local/directory