Ubuntu Manpage: scp — OpenSSH secure file copy

Provided by: openssh-client_9.6p1-3ubuntu13.12_amd64

NAME

       scp — OpenSSH secure file copy

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] [-X sftp_option] source ... target

DESCRIPTION

scp copies files between hosts on a network.

scp uses the SFTP protocol over a ssh(1) connection 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 legacy SCP
protocol (via the -O flag), 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
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 legacy 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.

-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
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
RequiredRSASize
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.

-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.

-X sftp_option
Specify an option that controls aspects of SFTP protocol behaviour. The valid options are:

nrequests=value
Controls how many concurrent SFTP read or write requests may be in progress at any point
in time during a download or upload. By default 64 requests may be active concurrently.

buffer=value
Controls the maximum buffer size for a single SFTP read/write operation used during
download or upload. By default a 32KB buffer is used.

EXIT STATUS

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

HISTORY

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

       Since OpenSSH 9.0, scp has used the SFTP protocol for transfers by default.

AUTHORS

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

CAVEATS

       The  legacy  SCP  protocol  (selected  by  the  -O flag) 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.

Debian                                          December 16, 2022                                         SCP(1)