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I have to transport a lot of files from one pc to another (both Linux). I would like to use scp for that, but scp only allows for transferring one file at a time.

How can I do this?

I have

  • No possibility to use rsync or any other protocol
  • No possibility to use passphrase free certificates (but have a certificate with a passphrase)
  • A list of files to transfer and a list with the destination path of the files on the other server
  • The files are spread out over a lot of directories, and not all the files in the directories I want to copy

If possible I would like to gzip and ungzip transparently to save bandwidth!

Is this possible?

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91% accept rate
Damn! I was going to suggest rsync! – Nathan Fellman Mar 4 '10 at 8:53
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4 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

use 'tar'

 tar cvzf - -T list_of_filenames | ssh hostname tar xzf -
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Great! This is what I needed!!! – Peter Smit Mar 4 '10 at 10:35
Heres the file format: "In c mode, tar will read names to be archived from filename. The special name -C'' on a line by itself will cause the current directory to be changed to the directory specified on the following line. Names are terminated by newlines unless --null is specified. Note that --null also disables the special handling of lines containing -C''." – Kousha Mar 4 '10 at 10:46
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up vote 3 down vote

I would like to use scp for that, but scp only allows for transferring one file at a time.

I'm pretty sure that isn't true, at least not for the scp command provided by the OpenSSH included with most Linux distributions.

I use scp file1 file2 ... fileN user@host:/destination/directory/ fairly frequently.

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This is the right answer, but it really only transfers one file at a time. Nevertheless it will make full use of available bandwidth and should run as fast as possible. – honk Apr 28 '11 at 19:01
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up vote 1 down vote

Doesn't scp -r yourdir otherhost:/otherdir work?

Try this then:

tar cfz - . | ssh otherhost "cd /mydir; tar xvzf -"

the z-flag to tar does compression. Or you can use -C to ssh:

tar cf - . | ssh -C otherhost "cd /mydir; tar xvf -"
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what does -C do? – Nathan Fellman Mar 4 '10 at 8:53
The problem is, I have a list of files. The files are spread out over a lot of directories, and not all the files in the directories I want to copy – Peter Smit Mar 4 '10 at 9:34
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@Nathan: -C is to lett ssh do the compression. – Jimmy Hedman Mar 4 '10 at 11:32
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up vote 0 down vote

On RHEL5, here is the only way possible that I know of to secure copy a list of files that contain special characters (like a space). Make a shell script and include the following:

FILE="/path/filename"
while read line; do
scp "$line" username@servername:/destination/
done < $FILE
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