Some times you need to copy files or entire contents of directory to another machine, you can use scp command. scp command uses SSH data transfers, so it requires a password or passphrase for authentication.

The syntax for scp command

scp [option] [user1@server1]:[source] [user2@server2]:[destination]

For example

If user user1 on a computer called server1 and wants to copy a file called mydata.txt to a directory called backup in his account on a computer called server2, he would enter:

[user1@server1]$ scp mydata.txt user1@server2:/backup
mydata.txt                                    100%   11     0.0KB/s   00:00

If he wanted to copy entire contents of directory called backup on server2 back to server 1, he would enter:

[user1@server1]$ scp -r user1@server2:/backup /backup
mydata.txt                                    100%   11     0.0KB/s   00:00
mydata1.txt                                    100%   11     0.0KB/s   00:00

scp command with SSH certificate

If you wanted to remote file copy without password authentication for automate your tasks or automate backup, you can uses SSH certificate. For above example, type the following command:

scp -r -i /path_to_private_key user1@server2:/backup /backup

For more information about scp command

At the prompt enter:

man scp

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