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File transfer using scp

Learning outcomes

  • Practice using the documentation of your favorite HPC cluster
  • Can transfer files using scp
For teachers

Teaching goals are:

  • Learners have practiced using the documentation of their favorite HPC cluster
  • Learners have transferred files using scp

Lesson plan:

Prior questions:

  • How can one do a file transfer from the terminal?
  • Can you name some programs that can do file transfer from the terminal?
  • Who has heard of scp?
  • Who has already used scp?

Overview other terminal transfer tools

Other than rsync we have the more simple tools scp and sftp.

  • scp has the similar arguments as for the linux copy function scp.

  • sftp is more versatile with more file management capabilities.

  • Both are considered secure.

SCP is an abbreviation for Secure Copy Protocol

Pros

  • Simple
  • Secure
  • Use cases
    • simple copy of files between local and remote host or between two remote hosts.

When not to use

  • When looking to do more than a basic file transfer, SCP falls short.
  • SCP is unable to create or list directories or delete files.
  • a file with the same name in the same directory is transferred, wil be overwritten.
  • transfers that are interrupted you have to restart the entire transfer.

Procedure

scp [from] [to]

Where [from] is the file(s) you want to copy, and [to] is the destination. This is quite a shorthand notation!

This is how you copy a file from your local computer to Rackham:

scp [local_filename] [username]@rackham.uppmax.uu.se:/home/[username]

where [local_filename] is the path to a local filename, and [username] is your UPPMAX username, for example:

scp my_file.txt sven@rackham.uppmax.uu.se:/home/sven

To copy a file from Rackham to your local computer, do the command above in reverse order:

scp [username]@rackham.uppmax.uu.se:/home/[username]/[remote_filename] [local_folder]

where [remote_filename] is the path to a remote filename, [username] is your UPPMAX username, and [local_folder] is your local folder, for example:

scp sven@rackham.uppmax.uu.se:/home/sven/my_remote_file.txt /home/sven

If asked, give your center's password. You can get rid of this prompt if you have setup SSH keys

Many files

  • zip
  • tar

Cheat sheet

  • scp

Exercises

Teacher

prepare examples with one file and many files

Exercise 1: Upload
Exercise 2: Download
Exercise 3: Directory
Exercise 4: Compressed directory