Using scp to transfer files
The scp Unix command allows users to transfer files and folders between a local machine to/from a remote machine. The terminal application on MacOS and CSIL machines are capable of using the scp command. It is possible to use scp with Windows by installing additional programs.
For example, Git for Windows allows you to use the MinGW64 (Minimalist GNU for Windows) shell, which interfaces with your Windows file system, and supports common Unix commands including scp.
Example of transferring a file from a local machine to CSIL
Using the terminal application on your local machine, navigate to the folder containing the file(s) you want to transfer to CSIL. For example, if I want to transfer a file called text1.txt, then use the following command:
$ scp text1.txt cgaucho@csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu:temp/
Note: You will be prompted to type in a password for your account. This username / password combination is asking for your engineering account credentials, not your UCSBNet credentials.
In general, the command is broken down into:
scp [source_file] [username]@[remote_host]:[destination_folder]
text1.txt is the file I want to transfer to a remote destination. cgaucho is the username, csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu is the remote host I want to transfer my file to, and temp/ is the destination folder. Note that your working directory when using scp is your home directory. temp is a folder that exists in your home directory.
Example of transferring a file from CSIL to your local machine
This is very similar to the previous example, but our source / destination arguments are switched. If I wanted to transfer the text2.txt file in my ~/temp/ directory on CSIL (note that ~ is a shortcut representing the path to your home directory), then use the following command:
$ scp cgaucho@csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu:temp/text2.txt .
In this case, I am copying the text2.txt file from the remote host into the current directory (represented with ‘.’).
Example of transferring a directory between your local machine and CSIL
The same concepts apply, but in this case we want to recursively copy all files and subfolders to the destination. You need to add the -r flag to the scp command to do this. To copy the folder1 directory to CSIL, then use the following command:
$ scp -r folder1 cgaucho@csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu:temp/
and to copy the folder2 directory from a CSIL machine to your current directory, use the following command:
$ scp -r cgaucho@csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu:temp/folder2 .
Note: If you want to copy a file that already exists in your destination folder, then scp will replace it!
For Windows Users
For Windows users, most of the scp commands will be similar, however, your paths would originate from your default drive (usually the C drive), so you need to change your path to where you want to download. If you installed Windows’s SSH client, you could do scp and ssh commands in the Command Prompt (CMD)
To copy from CSIL to your (computer’s Downloads folder)
C:\Users\cgaucho> scp cgaucho@csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu:temp/text2.txt C:\Users\cgaucho\Downloads\
To copy from your (computer’s Downloads folder) to CSIL
C:\Users\cgaucho> scp C:Users\cgaucho\Downloads\text2.txt cgaucho@csil-17.cs.ucsb.edu:temp/
If you want to copy a folder, you would use the -r flag, like the examples above for UNIX systems. Just remember to replace your paths with the corresponding path in Windows.