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📝 NAME

scp -- OpenSSH secure file copy

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
📤 Copy file to remote host	scp file.txt user@host:/path/	Copy local file to remote directory
📥 Copy file from remote host	scp user@host:file.txt .	Copy remote file to current directory
💼 Copy directory recursively	scp -r dir/ user@host:/path/	Recursively copy entire directory
🔐 Use specific identity file	scp -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa file.txt user@host:	Authenticate with private key
🌐 Copy between two remote hosts via local	scp -3 user1@host1:file.txt user2@host2:	Transfer through local machine
⚡ Enable compression	scp -C file.txt user@host:	Compress data during transfer
🔇 Quiet mode	scp -q file.txt user@host:	Suppress progress meter and warnings
📊 Limit bandwidth	scp -l 1000 file.txt user@host:	Limit to 1000 Kbit/s
🕐 Preserve timestamps	scp -p file.txt user@host:	Keep modification/access times and mode

📋 SYNOPSIS

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

📖 DESCRIPTION

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 listed below, and their possible values, see ssh_config(5).

The following options can be passed via -o:

• AddressFamily
• BatchMode
• BindAddress
• BindInterface
• CanonicalDomains
• CanonicalizeFallbackLocal
• CanonicalizeHostname
• CanonicalizeMaxDots
• CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
• CASignatureAlgorithms
• CertificateFile
• CheckHostIP
• Ciphers
• Compression
• ConnectionAttempts
• ConnectTimeout
• ControlMaster
• ControlPath
• ControlPersist
• GlobalKnownHostsFile
• GSSAPIAuthentication
• GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
• HashKnownHosts
• Host
• HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms
• HostbasedAuthentication
• HostKeyAlgorithms
• HostKeyAlias
• Hostname
• IdentitiesOnly
• IdentityAgent
• IdentityFile
• IPQoS
• KbdInteractiveAuthentication
• KbdInteractiveDevices
• KexAlgorithms
• KnownHostsCommand
• LogLevel
• MACs
• NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
• NumberOfPasswordPrompts
• PasswordAuthentication
• PKCS11Provider
• Port
• PreferredAuthentications
• ProxyCommand
• ProxyJump
• PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms
• PubkeyAuthentication
• RekeyLimit
• SendEnv
• ServerAliveInterval
• ServerAliveCountMax
• SetEnv
• StrictHostKeyChecking
• TCPKeepAlive
• UpdateHostKeys
• User
• UserKnownHostsFile
• VerifyHostKeyDNS

• -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.
• -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.

🚪 Exit Codes

The scp utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

🔗 SEE ALSO

sftp(1), ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5), sftp-server(8), sshd(8)

📜 HISTORY

scp is based on the rcp program in BSD source code from the Regents of the University of California.

👤 AUTHORS

Timo Rinne <tri AT iki.fi>
Tatu Ylonen <ylo AT cs.fi>

⚠️ CAVEATS

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.

📝 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📋 SYNOPSIS 📖 DESCRIPTION 🚪 Exit Codes 🔗 SEE ALSO 📜 HISTORY 👤 AUTHORS ⚠️ CAVEATS