One of the many advantages of Linux/UNIX is how many ways you can do one thing. This tuturial is going to show you some of the many ways you can ttransfer files over a network connection.
Please note that there are many other ways these are just some of the more common ones. The methods covered assume that SSH is used in all sessions. These methods are all much more secure and reliable than using rcp or ftp. This tutorial is a great alternative for those looking for an FTP alterative to transfering files over a network.
scp
scp or secure copy is probably the easiest of all the methods, its is designed as a replacement for rcp, which was a quick copy of cp with network funcationability.
scp syntax
scp [-Cr] /some/file [ more ... ] host.name:/destination/file
-or-
scp [-Cr] [[user@]host1:]file1 [ more ... ] [[user@]host2:]file2
Before scp does any copying it first connects via ssh. Unless proper keys are in place, then you will be asked for usernames. You can test if this is working by using ssh -v hostname
The -r switch is used when you want to recursively go through directories. Please note you must specify the source file as a directory for this to work.
scp encrypts data over your network connection, but by using the -C switch you can compress the data before it goes over the network. This can significantly decrease the time it takes to copy large files.
Tip: By default scp uses 3DES encryption algorithm, all encryption algorithms are slow, but some are faster than others. Using -c blowfish can speed things up.
What scp shouldn't be used for:
1. When you are copying more than a few files, as scp spawns a new process for each file and can be quite slow and resource intensive when copying a large number of files.
2. When using the -r switch, scp does not know about symbolic links and will blindly follow them, even if it has already made a copy of the file. The can lead to scp copying an infinite amount of data and can easily fill up your hard disk, so be careful.
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