Use scp To Transfer Files To and From Access Point¶

Overview¶

This tutorial assumes that you will be using a command line application for performing file transfers instead of a GUI-based application such as WinSCP.

We can transfer files to and from the access point using the scp command. Note scp is a counterpart to the secure shell command,ssh, that allows for secure, encrypted file transfers between systems using your ssh credentials.

When using scp, you will always need to specify both the source of the content that you wish to copy and the destination of where you would like the copy to end up. For example:

$ scp <source> <destination>

Files on remote systems (like an OSG Access Point) are indicated using username@machine:/path/to/file.

Transfer Files To Access Point¶

Let's say you have a file you wish to transfer named my_file.txt.

Using the terminal application on your computer, navigate to the location of my_file.txt.

Then use the following scp command to tranfer my_file.txt to your /home on the access point. Note that you will not be logged into the access point when you perform this step.

$ scp my_file.txt [email protected]:/home/username/

Where NN is the specific number of your assigned login node (i.e. 04 or 05).

Large files (>100MB in size) can be uploaded to your /public directory also using scp:

$ scp my_large_file.gz [email protected]:/public/username/

Transfer Directories To Access Point¶

To copy directories using scp, add the (recursive) -r option to your scp command.

For example:

$ scp -r my_Dir [email protected]:/home/username/

Transfer Files to Another Directory on the Access Point¶

If you are using the OSDF to stage some of your files, you can upload files directly to that path by replacing /home/username in the commands above. If I wanted to upload files to the OSDF location on ap20, which is /ospool/ap20/data/username, I would use the following command:

$ scp my_file.txt [email protected]:/ospool/ap20/data/username

Transfer Files From Access Point¶

To transfer files from the access point back to your laptop or desktop you can use the scp command as shown above, but with the source being the copy that is located on the access point:

$ scp [email protected]:/home/username/my_file.txt ./

where ./ sets the destination of the copy to your current location on your computer. Again, you will not be logged into the access point when you perform this step.

You can download files from a different directory in the same way as described above when uploading files.

Transfer Files Directly Between Access Point and Another Server¶

scp can be used to transfer files between the OSG access point and another server that you have ssh access to. This means that files don't have to first be transferred to your personal computer which can save a lot of time and effort! For example, to transfer a file from another server to your access point login node /home directory:

$ scp username@serverhostname:/path/to/my_file.txt [email protected]:/home/username

Be sure to use the username assigned to you on the other server and to provide the full path on the other server to your file. To transfer files from the OSG Access Point to the other server, just reverse the order of the two server statements.

Other Graphical User Interface (GUI) Tools for transferring files and folders¶

Apart from scp, other GUI software such as- WinSCP, FileZilla, Cyberduck can be used for transferring files and folders from and to the Access Point. Please remember to add your private key for the authentication method.