Mastering Ubuntu Server - Second Edition

Transferring files with scp

A useful alternative to rsync is the Secure Copy (SCP) utility, which comes bundled with OpenSSH. It allows you to quickly copy files from one node to another. While rsync also allows you to copy files to other network nodes via SSH, SCP is more practical for one-off tasks; rsync is geared more toward more complex jobs. If your goal is to send a single file or a small number of files to another machine, SCP is a great tool you can use to get the job done. To utilize SCP, we'll use the scp command. Since you most likely already have OpenSSH installed, you should already have the scp command available. If you execute which scp, you should receive the following output:

/usr/bin/scp 

If you don't see any output, make ...