SCP/SFTP

You must be on KU's network or connected to KU Anywhere to access the Data Transfer Node (DTN) with any methods below.

SCP

SCP (Secure CoPy) is a simple way of transferring files between two machines that use the SSH protocol. SCP is available as a protocol choice in some graphical file transfer programs and also as a command line program on most Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X systems. SCP can copy single files, but will also recursively copy directory contents if given a directory name.

Command-line usage:

  (to a remote system from local)
$ scp sourcefilename myusername@dtn.ku.edu:somedirectory/destinationfilename

  (from a remote system to local)
$ scp myusername@dtn.ku.edu:somedirectory/sourcefilename destinationfilename

  (recursive directory copy to a remote system from local)
$ scp -r sourcedirectory/ myusername@dtn.ku.edu:somedirectory/

Windows

Macintosh

Linux

  • SCP command-line

SFTP

SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) is a reliable way of transferring files between two machines. SFTP is available as a protocol choice in some graphical file transfer programs and also as a command-line program on most Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X systems. SFTP has more features than SCP and allows for other operations on remote files, remote directory listing, and resuming interrupted transfers. Command-line SFTP cannot recursively copy directory contents; to do so, try using SCP or graphical SFTP client.

$ sftp myusername@dtn.ku.edu

      (to a remote system from local)
sftp> put sourcefile somedir/destinationfile
sftp> put -P sourcefile somedir/

      (from a remote system to local)
sftp> get sourcefile somedir/destinationfile
sftp> get -P sourcefile somedir/

sftp> exit
  • -B: optional, specify buffer size for transfer; larger may increase speed, but costs memory
  • -P: optional, preserve file attributes and permissions

Windows

Macintosh

Linux

  • SFTP command-line

Rsync

Rsync is a command for Linux and Mac only. It is used to transfer files back and forth using the Terminal and comes with no GUI.

rsync -avP :~/file1 username@dtn.ku.edu:~/file1_copy
  • -a: optional, archive: preserve file attributes and permissions
  • -v: optional, verbose: increases verbosity of command
  • -P: optional, progress: show progress of copy