How To Remotely Copy Files Over SSH Ubuntu Client

Key Architecture Takeaways

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  Point 1: Production blueprint for How To Remotely Copy Files Over SSH Ubuntu Client on Linux infrastructure.
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  Point 2: Covers root privilege management, daemon supervision via systemd, and secure file operations.
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  Point 3: Applies to LTS releases (Ubuntu 24.04/22.04 LTS, Debian 12 Bookworm).

Using SSH protocol not only access your remote shell. But also use it for transfer files between computers securely through encrypted communication. You can use any one way out of following:

- scp (Secure Copy) - sftp (Secure File Transfer Protocol)

SCP (Secure Copy):

scp stands for secure cp (copy), which means you can copy files across ssh connection. It is a very secure way to copy files between two computers because the connection securely encrypted.

scp uses by default the port 22, and connect via an encrypted connection or secure shell connection (SSH). Using scp you can copy files from your local computer to remote computer and remote computer to another remote computer.

Examples of scp:

Copy single file from local to a remote destination:

scp /path/to/source-file user@host:/path/to/destination-folder/

Assume that we have a file test.txt in local directory <tt>/home/technhit/test.txt </tt>and want to copy to the destination server root@192.168.182.50 in tmp directory.

scp

Copy single file from a remote server to your current local server:

scp user@host:/path/to/source-file /path/to/destination-folder

Assume that we similarly have a test2.txt file on the remote server /tmp/test2.txt and copy to the local system.

scp

scp

Copy single file from a remote server to another remote server

scp user1@server1:/path/to/file user2@server2:/path/to/folder/

Let's assume that we have two remote server one is *root@192.168.182.50 and another is technhit@192.168.182.51 and operating scp* through our local system.

scp technhit@192.168.182.51:/home/technhit/test3.txt root@192.168.182.50:/tmp/

Copy multiple files with one command

We can copy multiple files using scp, file names followed by space with each.

scp file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt technhit@192.168.182.51:/home/technhit/

Copy files using wildcards:

scp /path/to/folder/*.ext user@server:/path/to/folder/

For example, we want to copy all .txt file from /home/technhit to /tmp/ directory of host 192.168.182.50

scp /home/technhit/*.txt root@192.168.182.50:/tmp/

Copy a directory and all its contents to a remote server

scp -rp /path/to/source-directoy user@server:/path/to/destination-directory/

- -r means recursive - -p preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original file.

The above syntax copy entire directory with its associative file information. One more time we'll use an example.

scp -rp /home/technhit/ root@192.168.182.50:/tmp/

scp

You can use scp on Linux, Mac and Windows (using WinSCP). Download WinSCP fro here

winscp

winscp

SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol:

The SSH File Transfer Protocol ( SFTP ) is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management functionalities over the secure connection.

The SFTP server function is enabled by default in Ubuntu, but if it is not enabled, comment out or add the line [Subsystem sftp / usr / lib / openssh / sftp-server] to [/ etc / ssh / sshd_config] After that restart ssh service.

Login remote server for sftp file transfer:

sftp user@hostnmane

sftp

Remote current directory display:

sftp> pwd Remote working directory: /root

Display local current directory:

sftp> !pwd /home/technhit

Display file list of the remote current directory:

sftp> ls -l drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 systemd-private drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 26 21:52 technhit -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 20:40 test.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Jan 26 21:26 test2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 26 21:58 test3.txt drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 vmware-root

Display the file list of the local current directory:

sftp> !ls -l total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 technhit technhit 22 Jan 26 21:28 test2.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 technhit technhit 0 Jan 26 21:52 test3.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 technhit technhit 31 Jan 26 20:27 test.txt

Directory move:

sftp> cd /tmp

sftp>pwd Remote working directory: /tmp

Rename files remotely:

sftp> put test.txt ubuntutest.txt Uploading test.txt to /tmp/ubuntutest.txt test.txt 100% 31 0.0KB/s 00:00 sftp> ls -l drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 systemd-private drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 26 21:52 technhit -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 20:40 test.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Jan 26 21:26 test2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 26 21:58 test3.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 23:43 ubuntutest.txt drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 vmware-root

Upload multiple local files remotely:

sftp> put *.txt Uploading test.txt to /tmp/test.txt test.txt 100% 31 0.0KB/s 00:00 Uploading test2.txt to /tmp/test2.txt test2.txt 100% 22 0.0KB/s 00:00 Uploading test3.txt to /tmp/test3.txt test3.txt 100% 0 0.0KB/s 00:00

Download the remote file locally:

sftp> get test.txt Fetching /tmp/test.txt to test.txt /tmp/test.txt 100% 31 0.0KB/s 00:00

Batch download of multiple remote files locally:

sftp> get *.txt Fetching /tmp/test2.txt to test2.txt /tmp/test2.txt 100% 22 0.0KB/s 00:00 Fetching /tmp/test3.txt to test3.txt /tmp/test3.txt 100% 31 0.0KB/s 00:00 Fetching /tmp/ubuntutest.txt to ubuntutest.txt /tmp/ubuntutest.txt 100% 31 0.0KB/s 00:00

Create a directory in the remote current directory:

sftp> mkdir testdirectory sftp> ls -l drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 systemd-private drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 26 21:52 technhit -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 23:45 test.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Jan 26 23:45 test2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 26 23:45 test3.txt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 26 23:46 testdirectory -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 23:43 ubuntutest.txt drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 vmware-root

Delete directory in remote current directory:

sftp> rmdir testdirectory sftp> ls -l drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 systemd-private drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 26 21:52 technhit -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 23:45 test.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Jan 26 23:45 test2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 26 23:45 test3.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 23:43 ubuntutest.txt drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 vmware-root

Delete file Remotely:

sftp> rm test.txt Removing /tmp/test.txt sftp> ls -l drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 systemd-private drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 26 21:52 technhit -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 Jan 26 23:45 test2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 26 23:45 test3.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31 Jan 26 23:43 ubuntutest.txt drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jan 25 21:20 vmware-root

Exit Sftp Terminal:

sftp> quit quit technhit@ubuntu:~$

Conclusion :

So this entire article we learn how to use scp and sftp using ssh. hope this helpful for you. Thank you have a good day.