Copying files to/from remote PC in the CLI

[viking60]

We all know the lovly SSH where we can log in to remote PC's and if you can do it via Dolphin or Nautilus we can drag and drop files between them, But believe me; sometimes that does not work!
So you are stuck in your CLI and want to copy files to and from your remote box to finish that all important project in Greenland or on the Bouvet islands.
What to do?

Enter SSH's brother secure copying; scp - if you have set up SSH with keys and pasword-less login it will work with scp too.
So here we go: to copy from a remote box:

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scp berserk@viking-pc:/home/berserk/berserkfiles/document.txt ~/berserkfiles/document.txt

This will copy document.txt from your remote berserfiles directory to your local berserkfiles directory.
To copy entire directories you can use the -r switch like this:

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scp -r berserk@viking-pc:/home/berserk/berserkfiles ~/

This will copy the berserkfiles directory to ~/

To copy to a remote box:

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scp ~/berserkfiles/document.txt berserk@remote-pc:~/berserkfiles/document.txt

If you are using other ports than 22 you will need to specify the port:

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scp -P 40065 ~/berserkfiles/document.txt berserk@remote-pc:~/berserkfiles/document.txt

Usefull stuff!

[rolf]

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hsftp is an FTP emulator that provides the look and feel of an FTP session,
but uses ssh to transport commands and data. It is written in C, and requires
no additional libraries.

I've used ftp with the `cd` and `dir` commands on public servers, a little. I hear there are `get` and `put` for moving files back and forth. Maybe one of the sftp programs would work for this, as well.

[viking60]

:B

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hsftp is an FTP emulator that provides the look and feel of an FTP session,
but uses ssh to transport commands and data. It is written in C, and requires
no additional libraries.

I've used ftp with the `cd` and `dir` commands on public servers, a little. I hear there are `get` and `put` for moving files back and forth. Maybe one of the sftp programs would work for this, as well.

sftp is SSH and way more secure than ftp so hstfp sounds good. I doubt that scp will work with regular ftp because the whole point is the security.

[rolf]

That's right. I'm suggesting one of the secure ftps that use ssh could work like scp.

[viking60]

Aha got it!
It sounds like they will work since it is the same protocol. I cannot see any reason why not....
Since I use the RSA key this would apply to me:

For RSA authentication, you can avoid to have hsftp caching the passphrase if you use ssh-agent. In this case, you can use hsftp securely without setting it SUID root.

I am instaling it now, thanks for the tip!

[viking60]

Confirmed!
I normally just do a

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ssh berserk-pc

since I have exhanged RSA keys with the host and set pasword-less login.
So I simply replaced SSH with hsftp

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hsftp berserk-pc

and poped right in there Now I only have to figure out how to use it...
Hey this thing is great!
I just did a

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get somefile

and it downloaded it without a question. So I wondered where it landed - and it seems to go to the current directory on your box.
Oh man this thing is way easier!
You are the Guru indeed

Having said that I am a bit cross with you for leting me work the hard way while you have been sitting on this secret all along....

[rolf]

Not so. I just saw a connection with something I remembered and looked up something sftp on Mandriva.
You won't catch me doing that sort of heavy lifting anytime soon!

[viking60]

You are forgiven: Berserks are civilized you know!
I was wondering how the put comand would work and I found out:

1 go to the directory you want to copy from on your local box
2 hsftp into your remote box from there
3 do a

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put somefile

and it will be copied from your local directory to the current directory on the remote box.

GREAT!

[rolf]

Good stuff.

[viking60]

Since hsftp seems to be something Mandriva and Arch have and nobody else I started the campaigh of getting in into other distros and the Mageia guys tipped me of lftp.
This works too if you remember to prepend your command with a !
And it does not correctly indicate in what directory you are...In fact I am not able to change directory.