SCP(1) General Commands Manual SCP(1)

scp —
secure copy (remote file copy program)

scp [-1246BCpqrv] [-c cipher] [-F ssh_config] [-i identity_file] [-l limit] [-o ssh_option] [-P port] [-S program] [[user@]host1:]file1 ... [[user@]host2:]file2

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.

The options are as follows:

Forces scp to use protocol 1.
Forces scp to use protocol 2.
Forces scp to use IPv4 addresses only.
Forces scp to use IPv6 addresses only.
Selects batch mode (prevents asking for passwords or passphrases).
Compression enable. Passes the -C flag to ssh(1) to enable compression.
cipher
Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the data transfer. This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
ssh_config
Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for ssh. This option is directly passed to ssh(1).
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).
limit
Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s.
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
 
Port
 
PreferredAuthentications
 
Protocol
 
ProxyCommand
 
PubkeyAuthentication
 
RekeyLimit
 
RhostsRSAAuthentication
 
RoutingDomain
 
RSAAuthentication
 
SendEnv
 
ServerAliveInterval
 
ServerAliveCountMax
 
SmartcardDevice
 
StrictHostKeyChecking
 
TCPKeepAlive
 
UsePrivilegedPort
 
User
 
UserKnownHostsFile
 
VerifyHostKeyDNS
 
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).
Preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original file.
Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and diagnostic messages from ssh(1).
Recursively copy entire directories. Note that scp follows symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal.
program
Name of program to use for the encrypted connection. The program must understand ssh(1) options.
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.

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

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

Timo Rinne ⟨tri@iki.fi⟩
Tatu Ylonen ⟨ylo@cs.hut.fi⟩
December 29, 2009 BSD