NAME¶

scp — secure copy (remote file copy program)

SYNOPSIS¶

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 ssh(1). Unlike rcp(1), scp will ask for passwords or passphrases if they are needed for authentication.

File names may contain a user and host specification to indicate that the file is to be copied to/from that host. Local file names can be made explicit using absolute or relative pathnames to avoid scp treating file names containing ‘:’ as host specifiers. Copies between two remote hosts are also permitted.

When copying a source file to a target file which already exists, scp will replace the contents of the target file (keeping the inode).

If the target file does not yet exist, an empty file with the target file name is created, then filled with the source file contents. No attempt is made at "near-atomic" transfer using temporary files.

The options are as follows:

-1

Forces scp to use protocol 1.

-2

Forces scp to use protocol 2.

-4

Forces scp to use IPv4 addresses only.

-6

Forces scp to use IPv6 addresses only.

-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).

-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).

-l limit

Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s.

-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).

AddressFamily

 

BatchMode

 

BindAddress

 

ChallengeResponseAuthentication

 

CheckHostIP

 

Cipher

 

Ciphers

 

Compression

 

CompressionLevel

 

ConnectionAttempts

 

ConnectTimeout

 

ControlMaster

 

ControlPath

 

GlobalKnownHostsFile

 

GSSAPIAuthentication

 

GSSAPIDelegateCredentials

 

HashKnownHosts

 

Host

 

HostbasedAuthentication

 

HostKeyAlgorithms

 

HostKeyAlias

 

HostName

 

IdentityFile

 

IdentitiesOnly

 

KbdInteractiveDevices

 

LogLevel

 

MACs

 

NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost

 

NumberOfPasswordPrompts

 

PasswordAuthentication

 

PKCS11Provider

 

Port

 

PreferredAuthentications

 

Protocol

 

ProxyCommand

 

PubkeyAuthentication

 

RekeyLimit

 

RhostsRSAAuthentication

 

RSAAuthentication

 

SendEnv

 

ServerAliveInterval

 

ServerAliveCountMax

 

StrictHostKeyChecking

 

TCPKeepAlive

 

UsePrivilegedPort

 

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 modes of the file in rcp(1).

-p

Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original file.

-q

Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and diagnostic messages from ssh(1).

-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.

-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.

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

IPV6¶

IPv6 address can be used everywhere where IPv4 address. In all entries must be the IPv6 address enclosed in square brackets. Note: The square brackets are metacharacters for the shell and must be escaped in shell.

SEE ALSO¶

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

HISTORY¶

scp is based on the rcp(1) program in BSD source code from the Regents of the University of California.

AUTHORS¶

Timo Rinne ⟨tri@iki.fi⟩
Tatu Ylonen ⟨ylo@cs.hut.fi⟩