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Blankman
Asked: 2011-02-11 19:40:46 +0800 CST

Can I scp a folder that has sub folders?

  • 772

I have a folder that contains files for a static website like:

/site/index.html
/site/css/css.css
/site/js/js.js
/site/images/...

If I update something on my laptop, I want a single command to send the files off to my ubuntu server. I don't want to setup FTP on it if I don't have too, wondering if scp would be able to handle this?

ubuntu scp

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The command scp -r source user@target:dest will walk all subdirectories of source and copy them.

    However, scp behaves like cp and always copies files, even if it is the same on both source and destination. [See here for a workaround.]

    As this is a static website, you are most likely only making updates, not re-creating the whole thing, so you will probably find things move along faster if you use rsync over ssh instead of scp. Probably something like

    rsync -av -e ssh source user@target:dest

    ...to get started. If you are doing this across a LAN, I would personally use the options -avW instead for rsync.

    Rsync also gives you the ability to duplicate deletions in your source; so if you remove a file from your tree, you can run rsync as above, and include the flag --delete and it will remove the same file from the destination side.

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  2. scp has a recursive flag that will do what you want. scp -r /base/directory user@server:/to/location

    from man scp

    -r      Recursively copy entire directories.  Note that scp follows symbolic
          links encountered in the tree traversal.
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  3. scp -r and rsync -r are the most reliable ways to get what you want, as others have noted.

    You can also use sshfs to 'mount' it as if it were a local drive: sshfs user@host:/site /mnt/mountpoint

    (However you're probably better off working locally and deploying with rsync. Just another tool to be aware of.)

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  4. Use below command

    scp -r sourceFolder username@server:destinationFolder

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