Copy folders (not one file) using SSH ubuntu?

Question

I am trying to copy a folder to remote Ubuntu server using command line ssh connection, i understand it's doable to transfer a file using scp but i have many files in a folder iam trying to copy to that remote server, how is that done? anyone? Thank you.

Solution

You can use secure copy (scp) with the recursive option (-r):

scp -r /path/to/local/dir user@remotehost:/path/to/remote/dir

Alternatively, I recommend rsync because you can resume transfers if the connection breaks, and it intelligently transfers only the differences between files:

rsync -avz -e 'ssh' /path/to/local/dir user@remotehost:/path/to/remote/dir

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Note that in both cases you should be careful of trailing slashes: moving /path/to/local/dir to remotehost:/path/to/remote/dir/ results in /path/to/remote/dir/dir

Comments

[CKM]

Won't it ask for remote machine's password? I tried the above command and got Host key verification failed.

[amc]

Depends on the ssh server setup, but generally yes, it will use a key to authenticate and fallback to password if it's allowed.

[WestCoastProjects]

This is seriously slow. Any better /much faster alternatives?

[WestCoastProjects]

Much much faster approach is here unix.stackexchange.com/a/10037/66602

[amc]

Sure. If you compress things first then only rsync the tarball (and later decompress) then it could be faster. This doesn’t change the core answer.

[Atul]

rsync command given here just kept waiting for me. For me, this worked like charm

[Franva]

I have my ssh private key, how can I use it with scp?