How to copy from a remote server to a local machine in Linux

In Linux, we use the scp command to securely copy files and folder between two servers.

The basic syntax of scp command is as follows:

scp [OPTIONS] [SRC_ADDRS]:[file|directory] [DST_ADDRS]:[file|directory]

where

• OPTIONS: These are different flags/options enabled/disabled during the copy operation.
• SRC_ADDRS dan DST_ADDRS: This is username@ip_address.
• [file|directory]: The file or directory path.

How to copy a file

We’ll use the following command to copy a file from a remote host to local host.

According to the syntax explained above, let’s assume the following:

• username is remoteuser
• ip_address is 10.12.13.1
• The source file path is /home/Documents/test_doc.txt
• The destination file path is /User/educative/Downloads/test_doc_copy.txt

scp remoteuser@10.12.13.1:/home/Documents/test_doc.txt /User/educative/Downloads/test_doc_copy.txt

How to copy a directory

We’ll use the following command to copy the contents of the directory in a recursive way from a remote host to local host.

According to the above syntax, let’s assume the following:

• username is remoteuser
• ip_address is 10.12.13.1
• The source directory path is /home/Documents/test_dir
• The destination file path is /User/educative/Downloads

scp -r remoteuser@10.12.13.1:/home/Documents/test_dir /User/educative/Downloads