Copying files using SSH.

As an Inter­net agen­cy, we also hand­le relo­ca­ti­ons and migra­ti­ons of web­sites, por­tals and appli­ca­ti­ons. In some cases, this can alre­a­dy mean seve­ral GB of data.

The most effec­ti­ve way to copy data from one sys­tem to ano­ther is via SSH. Of cour­se, the pre­re­qui­si­te for this is that both hos­ting packa­ges offer SSH access.

One way to copy files bet­ween two ser­vers is with SCP.

To copy the data from your local server to a remote server #

Log in via SSH to the ser­ver from which you want to copy the data.

Then enter the fol­lo­wing line in the con­so­le:

scp -r /pfad/zum/lokalen/verzeichnis [email protected]:/pfad/zum/remote/verzeichnis

After ente­ring your pass­word, the copy­ing pro­cess should alre­a­dy start.

To copy the data from a remote server to your local server #

Log in via SSH to the ser­ver whe­re you want to insert the data.

Then enter the fol­lo­wing line in the con­so­le:

scp -r [email protected]:/pfad/zum/remote/verzeichnis /pfad/zum/lokalen/verzeichnis

After ente­ring your pass­word, the copy­ing pro­cess will begin.

Run SCP in the background #

If you don’t want to watch the pro­cess per­ma­nent­ly, you can move it to the back­ground.

Press CTRL+Z to pau­se copy­ing. After­wards you can use bg to restart the pro­cess in the back­ground wit­hout having to stay the­re. With exit you can clo­se the ter­mi­nal.

1. CTRL+Z to pau­se the pro­cess
2. bg in the ter­mi­nal to run the pro­cess in the back­ground.
3. exit to clo­se the ter­mi­nal.

If SCP is not the right thing for you, you can look at copy­ing files using rsync as an alter­na­ti­ve.

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