scp
—
Secure copy (remote file copy program)
scp |
[-346ABCOpqRrsTv ] [-c
cipher] [-D
sftp_server_path] [-F
ssh_config] [-i
identity_file] [-J
destination] [-l
limit] [-o
ssh_option] [-P
port] [-S
program] source ...
target
|
scp
copies files between hosts on a network.
It uses ssh(1) for data transfer, and uses the
same authentication and provides the same security as a login session.
scp
will ask for passwords or passphrases
if they are needed for authentication.
The source and target
may be specified as a local pathname, a remote host with optional path in
the form [user@]host:[path], or a URI in the form
scp:// [user@]host[:port][/path]. Local file names
can be made explicit using absolute or relative pathnames to avoid
scp
treating file names containing ‘:’
as host specifiers.
When copying between two remote hosts, if the URI format is used,
a port cannot be specified on the
target if the -R
option is
used.
The options are as follows:
-3
- Copies between two remote hosts are transferred through the local host.
Without this option the data is copied directly between the two remote
hosts. Note that, when using the original SCP protocol (the default), this
option selects batch mode for the second host as
scp
cannot ask for passwords or passphrases for
both hosts. This mode is the default.
-4
- Forces
scp
to use IPv4 addresses only.
-6
- Forces
scp
to use IPv6 addresses only.
-A
- Allows forwarding of ssh-agent(1) to the remote system.
The default is not to forward an authentication agent.
-B
- Selects batch mode (prevents asking for passwords or passphrases).
-C
- Compression enable. Passes the
-C
flag to
ssh(1) to enable compression.
-
-c
cipher
- Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the data transfer. This option is
directly passed to ssh(1).
-
-D
sftp_server_path
- When using the SFTP protocol support via
-s
,
connect directly to a local SFTP server program rather than a remote one
via ssh(1). This option may be useful in debugging the
client and server.
-
-F
ssh_config
- Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for
ssh
. This option is directly passed to
ssh(1).
-
-i
identity_file
- Selects the file from which the identity (private key) for public key
authentication is read. This option is directly passed to
ssh(1).
-
-J
destination
- Connect to the target host by first making an
scp
connection to the jump host described by destination
and then establishing a TCP forwarding to the ultimate destination from
there. Multiple jump hops may be specified separated by comma characters.
This is a shortcut to specify a ProxyJump
configuration directive. This option is directly passed to
ssh(1).
-
-l
limit
- Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s.
-O
- Use the original SCP protocol for file transfers instead of the SFTP
protocol. Forcing the use of the SCP protocol may be necessary for servers
that do not implement SFTP, for backwards-compatibility for particular
filename wildcard patterns and for expanding paths with a
‘~’ prefix for older SFTP servers. This mode is the
default.
-
-o
ssh_option
- Can be used to pass options to
ssh
in the format
used in ssh_config(5). This is useful for specifying
options for which there is no separate scp
command-line flag. For full details of the options and their possible
values, see ssh_config(5).
-
-P
port
- Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host. Note that this option
is written with a capital ‘P’, because
-p
is already reserved for preserving the times
and mode bits of the file.
-p
- Preserves modification times, access times, and file mode bits from the
source file.
-q
- Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and diagnostic
messages from ssh(1).
-R
- Copies between two remote hosts are performed by connecting to the origin
host and executing
scp
there. This requires that
scp
running on the origin host can authenticate to
the destination host without requiring a password.
-r
- Recursively copy entire directories. Note that
scp
follows symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal.
-
-S
program
- Name of program to use for the encrypted connection.
The program must understand ssh(1) options.
-s
- Use the SFTP protocol for transfers rather than the original scp protocol.
Note functionality is considered as experimental and is still
under development. In some cases requires specific SFTP server extension
to work, in other cases may fail. As result is not considered as drop-in
replacement of secure copy utility.
-T
- Disable strict filename checking. By default when copying files from a
remote host to a local directory
scp
checks that
the received filenames match those requested on the command-line to
prevent the remote end from sending unexpected or unwanted files. Because
of differences in how various operating systems and shells interpret
filename wildcards, these checks may cause wanted files to be rejected.
This option disables these checks at the expense of fully trusting that
the server will not send unexpected filenames.
-v
- Verbose mode. Causes
scp
and
ssh(1) to print debugging messages about their progress.
This is helpful in debugging connection, authentication, and configuration
problems.
SSH_SCP_MODE
- Specify mode for remote copy. If value is “sftp” will be
used sftp protocol. If value is “scp” will be used scp
protocol. Note any other value or if variable is not set means use scp
protocol.
The scp
utility exits 0 on success,
and >0 if an error occurs.
scp
is based on the rcp program in
BSD source code from the Regents of the University of
California.
The original SCP protocol (used by default) requires execution of the remote
user's shell to perform glob(3) pattern matching. This
requires careful quoting of any characters that have special meaning to the
remote shell, such as quote characters.