Remote file transfer on Linux/Mac systems

Introduction

There is a wide assortment of graphical SCP/SFTP programs available for Linux. As such, for this document only the command-line version will be described, since it is usually installed by default in all Unix environments.

Execution

Open a shell/console/terminal window and change to the directory that contains the files you wish to upload.

To transfer files from your host machine to the remote machine, execute a command following this format:

   scp -P PORT LIST_OF_FILES USERNAME@SERVER:DESTINATION

Here is an example:

   scp -P 5010 test.txt h701234567@adams20401.hofstra.edu:~/Documents

To transfer files from your remote machine to your host machine, execute a command following this format:

   scp -P PORT USERNAME@SERVER:PATH_TO_FILE DESTINATION

Here is an example:

   scp -P 5010 h701234567@adams20401.hofstra.edu:~/Documents/test.txt /home/user/Documents