scp to remote server with sudo

First, you need to copy the file to a place where you have write access without sudo,

scp yourfile serverb:

Then move the file using sudo

ssh serverb sudo mv yourfile /path/to/the/destination

If you do not have a writable place, make a temporary dir with write permission for your user.

ssh serverb sudo mkdir tempdir && sudo chmod 777 tempdir
scp yourfile serverb:tempdir
ssh serverb mv tempdir/yourfile /path/to/the/destination

With SCP, you have to do in two steps, however, you can do it in one with rsync as follows:

rsync --rsync-path="sudo rsync" <LOCALFILE> USER@SERVER2:/root

^{Note: This does require NOPASSWD sudo configuration. If you have to enter the password for sudo, then the two step way is needed.}

To copy directory, you need to add -r parameter. And -v for verbose output.

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To use above method with credentials, you need to add them into your ~/.ssh/config file, e.g.

Host SERVER2
  HostName server2.example.colm
  User USER
  #IdentityFile ~/.ssh/custom_key.pem

You can use ssh and tar to work around this:

ssh -t host 'sudo -v'
ssh -C host 'cd /; sudo tar cf - path/to/file/or/dir' | tar xpsf - --preserve

This first updates your sudo timestamp (asking for a password if necessary, which requires a tty (ssh -t)), and then uses sudo to create a tarball remotely and extract it locally.

"tar" on RedHat 5 requires the "--preserve" options to come after the "xpsf -" command.