Knowledgebase

For SCP [secure copy] to work, both servers need to have shell access. Because SCP is quite slow moving a large number of files, it is recommended to compress as many files as possible into one, transfer that file, and then uncompress it after the transfer. The syntax is kind of a mix between rsync and regular cp [copy] commands:

From another host’s server
scp –av ./* user@westhostdomain.com:/home1/user/public_html/

This will copy all contents of the current directory into the public_html directory of the WestHost account. Once again, as soon as this is run, the password for the SSH user will be required.  –v is also optional as it makes the command verbose and will greatly slow down the SCP command. The –a is always a good idea as it will force the recursion of directories and maintain attributes.

From WestHost server:
scp –av user@otherhostserver.com:/path/to/web/dir/* ./

This will pull all content from the web directory at the other host to the current directory on the WestHost server.