Using the Secure Copy command (scp) from the command prompt

There are occasions when you may want to push or pull a file from one machine to another from the command line.
For example, recently I needed to restore a configuration file from a backup machine to a production machine after a disk failure and subsequent software reinstallation.

In the following scenarios, replace the machine1 and machine2 listings with the IP addresses or domain names of your machines.

Scenario 1

The file was located on machine1 and needed to be moved (pushed) to machine2.
The command below identifies the file on machine1
and securely copies it to machine2:

<root@machine1 /root># scp /etc/aspseek/sites.conf machine2:

You will be prompted for the root password of machine2.
When successfully authenticated, the file will be scp'ed into the /root directory of machine2, from which it was easily moved to the proper directory.

Scenario 2:

The file "removecore.sh" was located on machine2 and needed
to be moved(pulled) onto machine1:

<root@machine1 /root># scp machine2:/root/removecore.sh /root

Once again, you will be asked to authenticate with the root password. If successful, the removecore.sh script will be scp'ed to the /root directory of machine1.

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