Secure copy the file “somefile.txt” from a remote host to your local host

$ scp your_username_on_remotehost@remote_host.edu:somefile.txt /your/local/directory

Secure Copy your file “somefile.txt” from the local host to a remote host

$ scp somefile.txt your_username_on_remotehost@remotehost.edu:/the/remote/directory

Secure Copy the directory “localfoo” from your local host to a remote host’s directory “foobar”

$ scp -r localfoo your_username@remotehost.edu:/the/remote/directory/foobar

Copy the file “foobar.dat” from remote host “remoteh1.com” to remote host “remoteh2.com”

$ scp your_username@rh1.edu:/some/remote/directory/foobar.txt \ your_username@rh2.edu:/some/remote/directory/

Copying the files “foo.dat” and “bar.dat” from yor localhost to your home directory on the remote host

$ scp foo.dat bar.dat 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 remote to your current directory on the local host

$ scp your_username@remotehost.edu:/some/remote/directory/\{a,b,c\} .

Or

$ scp your_username@remotehost.edu:~/\{foo.txt,bar.txt\} .

Managing scp Performance

scp uses the Triple-DES cipher to encrypt the data being sent by default. By using Blowfish, as a cipher you may increase speed. Here is how.

$ scp -c blowfish some_file your_username@remotehost.edu:~

If you have a slow connection you can use the -C option for compression to increase speed. If your connection is not slow, then this is not very helpful as it ads to the CPU burden.

$ scp -c blowfish -C local_file your_username@remotehost.edu:~