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I can login to the remote server via ssh and navigate through it's file system, but as soon as I try to scp a file from the server to my laptop I get an error message.

Example:

user@server:/file$ scp -r user@server: /file/ /My/Home/Dir [I Hit Enter]

Permission denied (publickey)

Why am I getting this error, and how can I resolve this.
Thanks

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The command you are running above seems to be while on the server, copying a file via scp from the server itself to the server. You need to run scp from your laptop, not from the server. – Paul May 22 '12 at 0:18
the command should be something like 'scp -r /file user@laptop:~/' – emgee May 22 '12 at 0:28
@emgee That assumes that the laptop is running an ssh server, which isn't indicated yet. – Paul May 22 '12 at 0:32
I'm running OSX lion connecting to an Ubuntu server. I don't believe I am set up as a server – Daniel Toebe May 22 '12 at 0:47
@Paul excellent point. DanielToebe, System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login should be enabled for you to be able to scp to a OS X laptop – emgee May 22 '12 at 1:05
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Your server doesn't have a private key to access to your laptop. The relationship is only one-way.

You'll need to create a key on your server and add its public key to your laptop. Here's a basic outline:

  1. SSH in to your server
  2. run ssh-keygen to generate a key
  3. copy the generated public key to your laptop.
  4. You should now be able to SSH back in to your laptop.
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can I do that from my laptop – Daniel Toebe May 22 '12 at 0:07
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Rather than using SCP to push a file from the server, to your laptop. Why not try using SCP on your laptop to pull a file from the server? This would mean you wouldn't need to setup an an SSH server on your laptop, or configure public key authentication for your server. The SCP command you initially posted intends to do this. You simply ran it from the wrong place.

Rather than executing this command from within your SSH session on the server, run it from a terminal window on your laptop.

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