Secure Copy - SCP Program

The SCP program is a software tool implementing the SCP protocol as a service daemon or client. It is a program to perform secure copying. The SCP server program is typically the same program as the SCP client.

Perhaps the most widely used SCP program is the command line scp program, which is provided in most SSH implementations. The scp program is the secure analog of the rcp command. The scp program must be part of all SSH servers that want to provide SCP service, as scp functions as SCP server too.

Some SSH implementations provide the scp2 program, which uses the SFTP protocol instead of SCP, but provides the very same command line interface as scp. scp is then typically a symbolic link to scp2.

Typically, a syntax of scp program is like the syntax of cp:

Copying file to host:

Copying file from host:

Note that if the remote host uses a port other than the default of 22, you can specify it in the command. For example, copying a file from host:

As the SCP protocol implements file transfers only, GUI SCP clients are rare, as implementing it requires additional functionality (directory listing at least). For example, WinSCP defaults to the SFTP protocol. Even when operating in SCP mode, clients like WinSCP are typically not pure SCP clients, as they must use other means to implement the additional functionality (like the ls command). This in turn brings platform-dependency problems.

More comprehensive tools for managing files over SSH are SFTP clients.