The best way to copy file/folders from one server to another using SSH is scp command.
scp stands for Secure copy
- How to use in command line?
scp <source path> <destination path>- source path : from where/what files to copy.
- destination path : to which folder.
Examples for the user of the scp command are as follow,
Assume that your source machine IP address is 192.168.AAA.AAA and destination IP is 192.168.BBB.BBB
- Logged in to Source Machine
So in this case you need to copy files from 192.168.AAA.AAA -> 192.168.BBB.BBB. Your logged in to 192.168.AAA.AAA
Files to copy are located in /home/files.tar of 192.168.AAA.AAA
scp /home/files.tar root@192.168.BBB.BBB:/home/The above command will ask for the destination machine password of the root user [you can use any valid user credentials other than root]
- Logged in to Destination Machine
So in this case you need to copy files from 192.168.AAA.AAA -> 192.168.BBB.BBB. Your logged in to 192.168.BBB.BBB
Files to copy are located in /home/files.tar of 192.168.AAA.AAA
scp root@192.168.AAA.AAA:/home/files.tar /home/The above command will ask for the source machine’s password of the root user , as I ‘m using root as the user in above command line.
- Copy files to the directory you are currently in
So in this case you need to copy files from 192.168.AAA.AAA -> 192.168.BBB.BBB. Your logged in to 192.168.BBB.BBB and your in pwd(present working directory) is /home/user/
Files to copy are located in /home/files.tar of 192.168.AAA.AAA
scp root@192.168.AAA.AAA:/home/files.tar .- Copy files with port number
Yes, you can specify the port number for coping the files using scp. By default scp uses port 22.
scp -P 2435 root@192.168.AAA.AAA:/home/files.tar /home/- Copy files inside directory recursively
Case when we need to files/folders in directory and all inside directories and files
scp -r root@192.168.AAA.AAA:/home/files.tar /home/- Copy multiple file
You can specify the files to copy . in the below example file.tar and file2.tar in /home directory.
scp /home/files.tar /home/files2.tar root@192.168.BBB.BBB:/home/- Retain file attributes while copying
This will help you to retain the attributes of the file .Ex- modified date,user,file permissions etc…
scp -p root@192.168.AAA.AAA:/home/files.tar /home/