SCP Review

~12 min · scp, limits

Level 0Pinger

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Quick recap, then move on

Track 2 covered scp. The summary: it copies single files (or directories with -r) over SSH, looks like cp, and is the right tool for one-off grabs. It is not the right tool for anything bigger because it lacks the four properties you need at scale.

The four things scp can't do

Delta transfer — change a single byte in a 1 GB file, scp re-copies the whole thing.
Resume — interrupted at 99 %, you start over.
Sync semantics — no comparison between source and destination, no "only what changed," no deletions.
Exclusions — no way to skip node_modules, .git, build artifacts.

The SCP protocol is also formally deprecated; modern scp commands actually use SFTP under the hood in OpenSSH 9+. So even when you type scp, you're already on a different wire.

Code

scp's natural habitat·bash

# Quick one-off copies
scp file.txt office:/tmp/
scp office:/tmp/log.txt ./

# A small directory
scp -r ./mini-project office:/tmp/

# Anything bigger — switch to rsync

External links

OpenSSH 9.0 release notes — scp/SFTP

Exercise

Take a directory you've previously scp -r'd between machines and time it: time scp -r big-dir host:/tmp/. Note the duration. In Lesson 5 you'll redo this with rsync and see the difference, especially on a re-run when most files haven't changed.

Progress

Progress is local-only — sign in to sync across devices.

← ⚙️ SSH Config Power UserQuiz · 6 questions Next →SFTP

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