SCP(1)

💅 SCP(1) — the scp girlies' edition ✨

okay so this is from the General Commands Manual, and bestie, let me tell you about scp — it's the OpenSSH secure file copy and it devours. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

scp — 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. that's it, that's the whole vibe. ✨

scp uses the SFTP protocol over an ssh(1) connection for data transfer, and it uses the same authentication and provides the same security as a login session. no cap, it's literally as safe as logging in. 🔥

scp will ask for passwords or passphrases if they are needed for authentication. she'll politely knock. 🎀

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 ‘:’ as host specifiers. (she sees a colon and gets ideas, so be explicit if it's just a file, iykyk 🥲)

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. important!! ⭐

The options are as follows:

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -3 — Copies between two remote hosts are transferred through the local host. This mode is the default, but see also the -R option for copying data directly between 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. 💀 (poor thing can't multitask like that)
• -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). no questions, just vibes.
• -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. main character debugging energy 🔍
• -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). hop hop hop 🐇
• -l limit — Limits the used bandwidth, specified in Kbit/s. throttle her, queen 👑
• -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 ‘~’ prefix for older SFTP servers. retro era 🎀
• -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

(yes bestie, that's the whole list, she's thorough 💅)

• -P port — Specifies the port to connect to on the remote host. Note that this option is written with a capital ‘P’, because -p is already reserved for preserving the times and mode bits of the file. lowercase -p is taken, tragic 😭
• -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). shhh 🤫
• -R — Copies between two remote hosts are transferred through the local host by default. This option instead copies between two remote hosts 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. she needs her own keys for this one, no shortcuts 🔑
• -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. 🚨 like, you're literally trusting the server with zero safety net, so be sure bestie.
• -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. she will tell you everything. 🗣️
• -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.

Usage of SCP protocol can be blocked by creating a world-readable /etc/ssh/disable_scp file. If this file exists, when SCP protocol is in use (either remotely or via the -O option), the program will exit. 🚫 like the bouncer said no.

---

🎀 EXIT STATUS 🎀

The scp utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. slay or cry, there's no in between 😭

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

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

(the whole friend group 🫶)

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

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

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. so like, quote your quotes, fr fr 🙈

---

okay that's the whole page bestie, mwah 💖✨🎀 this gem is from the Debian manual, dated October 4, 2025 — go forth and copy securely, periodt. 🌸🦋💅