SCP(1)                      General Commands Manual                     SCP(1)

NAME
     scp M-bM-^@M-^S OpenSSH secure file copy

SYNOPSIS
     scp [-346ABCOpqRrsTv] [-c cipher] [-D sftp_server_path] [-F ssh_config]
         [-i identity_file] [-J destination] [-l limit] [-o ssh_option]
         [-P port] [-S program] [-X sftp_option] source ... target

DESCRIPTION
     scp copies files between hosts on a network.

     scp uses the SFTP protocol over a ssh(1) connection for data transfer,
     and uses the same authentication and provides the same security as a
     login session.

     scp will ask for passwords or passphrases if they are needed for
     authentication.

     The source and target may be specified as a local pathname, a remote host
     with optional path in the form [user@]host:[path], or a URI in the form
     scp://[user@]host[:port][/path].  Local file names can be made explicit
     using absolute or relative pathnames to avoid scp treating file names
     containing M-bM-^@M-^X:M-bM-^@M-^Y as host specifiers.

     When copying between two remote hosts, if the URI format is used, a port
     cannot be specified on the target if the -R option is used.

     The options are as follows:

     -3      Copies between two remote hosts are transferred through the local
             host.  Without this option the data is copied directly between
             the two remote hosts.  Note that, when using the legacy SCP
             protocol (via the -O flag), this option selects batch mode for
             the second host as scp cannot ask for passwords or passphrases
             for both hosts.  This mode is the default.

     -4      Forces scp to use IPv4 addresses only.

     -6      Forces scp to use IPv6 addresses only.

     -A      Allows forwarding of ssh-agent(1) to the remote system.  The
             default is not to forward an authentication agent.

     -B      Selects batch mode (prevents asking for passwords or
             passphrases).

     -C      Compression enable.  Passes the -C flag to ssh(1) to enable
             compression.

     -c cipher
             Selects the cipher to use for encrypting the data transfer.  This
             option is directly passed to ssh(1).

     -D sftp_server_path
             Connect directly to a local SFTP server program rather than a
             remote one via ssh(1).  This option may be useful in debugging
             the client and server.

     -F ssh_config
             Specifies an alternative per-user configuration file for ssh.
             This option is directly passed to ssh(1).

     -i identity_file
             Selects the file from which the identity (private key) for public
             key authentication is read.  This option is directly passed to
             ssh(1).

     -J destination
             Connect to the target host by first making an scp connection to
             the jump host described by destination and then establishing a
             TCP forwarding to the ultimate destination from there.  Multiple
             jump hops may be specified separated by comma characters.  This
             is a shortcut to specify a ProxyJump configuration directive.
             This option is directly passed to ssh(1).

     -l limit
             Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s.

     -O      Use the legacy SCP protocol for file transfers instead of the
             SFTP protocol.  Forcing the use of the SCP protocol may be
             necessary for servers that do not implement SFTP, for backwards-
             compatibility for particular filename wildcard patterns and for
             expanding paths with a M-bM-^@M-^X~M-bM-^@M-^Y prefix for older SFTP servers.

     -o ssh_option
             Can be used to pass options to ssh in the format used in
             ssh_config(5).  This is useful for specifying options for which
             there is no separate scp command-line flag.  For full details of
             the options listed below, and their possible values, see
             ssh_config(5).

                   AddKeysToAgent
                   AddressFamily
                   BatchMode
                   BindAddress
                   BindInterface
                   CASignatureAlgorithms
                   CanonicalDomains
                   CanonicalizeFallbackLocal
                   CanonicalizeHostname
                   CanonicalizeMaxDots
                   CanonicalizePermittedCNAMEs
                   CertificateFile
                   ChannelTimeout
                   CheckHostIP
                   Ciphers
                   ClearAllForwardings
                   Compression
                   ConnectTimeout
                   ConnectionAttempts
                   ControlMaster
                   ControlPath
                   ControlPersist
                   DynamicForward
                   EnableEscapeCommandline
                   EnableSSHKeysign
                   EscapeChar
                   ExitOnForwardFailure
                   FingerprintHash
                   ForkAfterAuthentication
                   ForwardAgent
                   ForwardX11
                   ForwardX11Timeout
                   ForwardX11Trusted
                   GSSAPIAuthentication
                   GSSAPIDelegateCredentials
                   GatewayPorts
                   GlobalKnownHostsFile
                   HashKnownHosts
                   Host
                   HostKeyAlgorithms
                   HostKeyAlias
                   HostbasedAcceptedAlgorithms
                   HostbasedAuthentication
                   Hostname
                   IPQoS
                   IdentitiesOnly
                   IdentityAgent
                   IdentityFile
                   IgnoreUnknown
                   Include
                   KbdInteractiveAuthentication
                   KbdInteractiveDevices
                   KexAlgorithms
                   KnownHostsCommand
                   LocalCommand
                   LocalForward
                   LogLevel
                   LogVerbose
                   MACs
                   NoHostAuthenticationForLocalhost
                   NumberOfPasswordPrompts
                   ObscureKeystrokeTiming
                   PKCS11Provider
                   PasswordAuthentication
                   PermitLocalCommand
                   PermitRemoteOpen
                   Port
                   PreferredAuthentications
                   ProxyCommand
                   ProxyJump
                   ProxyUseFdpass
                   PubkeyAcceptedAlgorithms
                   PubkeyAuthentication
                   RekeyLimit
                   RemoteCommand
                   RemoteForward
                   RequestTTY
                   RequiredRSASize
                   RevokedHostKeys
                   SecurityKeyProvider
                   SendEnv
                   ServerAliveCountMax
                   ServerAliveInterval
                   SessionType
                   SetEnv
                   StdinNull
                   StreamLocalBindMask
                   StreamLocalBindUnlink
                   StrictHostKeyChecking
                   SyslogFacility
                   TCPKeepAlive
                   Tag
                   Tunnel
                   TunnelDevice
                   UpdateHostKeys
                   User
                   UserKnownHostsFile
                   VerifyHostKeyDNS
                   VisualHostKey
                   XAuthLocation

     -P port
             Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host.  Note that
             this option is written with a capital M-bM-^@M-^XPM-bM-^@M-^Y, because -p is already
             reserved for preserving the times and mode bits of the file.

     -p      Preserves modification times, access times, and file mode bits
             from the source file.

     -q      Quiet mode: disables the progress meter as well as warning and
             diagnostic messages from ssh(1).

     -R      Copies between two remote hosts are performed by connecting to
             the origin host and executing scp there.  This requires that scp
             running on the origin host can authenticate to the destination
             host without requiring a password.

     -r      Recursively copy entire directories.  Note that scp follows
             symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal.

     -S program
             Name of program to use for the encrypted connection.  The program
             must understand ssh(1) options.

     -T      Disable strict filename checking.  By default when copying files
             from a remote host to a local directory scp checks that the
             received filenames match those requested on the command-line to
             prevent the remote end from sending unexpected or unwanted files.
             Because of differences in how various operating systems and
             shells interpret filename wildcards, these checks may cause
             wanted files to be rejected.  This option disables these checks
             at the expense of fully trusting that the server will not send
             unexpected filenames.

     -v      Verbose mode.  Causes scp and ssh(1) to print debugging messages
             about their progress.  This is helpful in debugging connection,
             authentication, and configuration problems.

     -X sftp_option
             Specify an option that controls aspects of SFTP protocol
             behaviour.  The valid options are:

             nrequests=value
                     Controls how many concurrent SFTP read or write requests
                     may be in progress at any point in time during a download
                     or upload.  By default 64 requests may be active
                     concurrently.

             buffer=value
                     Controls the maximum buffer size for a single SFTP
                     read/write operation used during download or upload.  By
                     default a 32KB buffer is used.

EXIT STATUS
     The scp utility exitsM-BM- 0 on success, andM-BM- >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     sftp(1), ssh(1), ssh-add(1), ssh-agent(1), ssh-keygen(1), ssh_config(5),
     sftp-server(8), sshd(8)

HISTORY
     scp is based on the rcp program in BSD source code from the Regents of
     the University of California.

     Since OpenSSH 9.0, scp has used the SFTP protocol for transfers by
     default.

AUTHORS
     Timo Rinne <tri@iki.fi>
     Tatu Ylonen <ylo@cs.hut.fi>

CAVEATS
     The legacy SCP protocol (selected by the -O flag) requires execution of
     the remote user's shell to perform glob(3) pattern matching.  This
     requires careful quoting of any characters that have special meaning to
     the remote shell, such as quote characters.

OpenBSD 7.6                    December 6, 2024                    OpenBSD 7.6
