Can scp copy directories recursively?
Solution 1:
Yup, use -r
:
scp -rp sourcedirectory user@dest:/path
- -r means recursive
- -p preserves modification times, access times, and modes from the original file.
Note: This creates the sourcedirectory
inside /path
thus the files will be in /path/sourcedirectory
Solution 2:
While the previous answers are technically correct, you should also consider using rsync
instead. rsync
compares the data on the sending and receiving sides with a diff mechanism so it doesn't have to resend data that was already previously sent.
If you are going to copy something to a remote machine more than once, use rsync
. Actually, it's good to use rsync
every time because it has more controls for things like copying file permissions and ownership and excluding certain files or directories. In general:
$ rsync -av /local/dir/ server:/remote/dir/
will synchronize a local directory with a remote directory. If you run it a second time and the contents of the local directory haven't changed, no data will be transferred - much more efficient than running scp
and copying everything every time.
Also, rsync
allows you to recover from interrupted transfers very easily, unlike scp
.
Finally, modern versions of rsync
by default run over ssh, so if scp
is already working, rsync
should pretty much be a drop-in replacement.
Solution 3:
That is what the -r
option is for. :)
See the scp man page for more info if needed.
Solution 4:
Recursive Copy Option '-r' (lower case)
scp -r
Which I confuse with the regular local recursive copy option '-R' (upper case)
cp -R
Solution 5:
The best way is to use rsync over SSH
rsync -a -essh /source/ user@dest-server:/dest/
rsync -a -essh user@source-server:/source/ /dest/
My favorites options are -Pazvessh --delete :
- -a : archive mode (include a lot of default common options, including preserving symlinks)
- -z : compress
- -v : verbose : show files
- -P : show progess as files done/remaining files
- -e ssh : do rsync in ssh protocol
- --delete : delete files in the destination that are not anymore in the source