The SCP protocol is a network protocol, based on the BSD RCP protocol, which supports file transfers between hosts on a network. SCP uses Secure Shell (SSH) for data transfer and utilizes the same mechanisms for authentication, thereby ensuring the authenticity and confidentiality of the data in transit. A client can send (upload) files to a server, optionally including their basic attributes (permissions, timestamps). Clients can also request files or directories from a server (download). SCP runs over TCP port 22 by default. Like RCP, there is no RFC that defines the specifics of the protocol.

SCP is an awesome tool. Learn it, Love it, Use it….

Edit a file on a remote host using vim

vim scp://username@host//path/to/somefile

Colored diff ( via vim ) on 2 remotes files on your local computer.

vimdiff scp://root@server-foo.com//etc/snmp/snmpd.conf scp://root@server-bar.com//etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

Restrict the bandwidth for the SCP command

scp -l10 user@urfix.com:/home/urfix/* .

the command is obvious, I know, but maybe not everyone knows that using the parameter “-l” you can limit the use of bandwidth command scp.
In this example fetch all files from the directory zutaniddu and I copy them locally using only 10 Kbs

Compare a remote file with a local file

vimdiff  scp://[@]/

Easily scp a file back to the host you’re connecting from

mecp () { scp "$@" ${SSH_CLIENT%% *}:Desktop/; }

Place in .bashrc and invoke like this: “mecp /path/to/file”, and it will copy the specified file(s) back to the desktop of the host you’re ssh’ing in from. To easily upload a file from the host you’re ssh’ing in from use this:

ucp (){ scp ${SSH_CLIENT%% *}:Desktop/upload/* .; }

scp file from hostb to hostc while logged into hosta

scp user@hostb:file user@hostc:

While at the command line of of hosta, scp a file from remote hostb to remote hostc. This saves the step of logging into hostb and then issuing the scp command to hostc.

Copy something to multiple SSH hosts with a Bash loop

for h in host1 host2 host3 host4 ; { scp file user@$h:/destination_path/ ; }

Just a quick and simple one to demonstrate Bash For loop. Copies ‘file’ to multiple ssh hosts.

scp with compression.

scp -C 10.0.0.4:/tmp/backup.sql /path/to/backup.sql

-C is for compression.