14.4.2. Using the scp Utility

scp can be used to transfer files between machines over a secure, encrypted connection. In its design, it is very similar to rcp.
To transfer a local file to a remote system, use a command in the following form: 
scp localfile username@hostname:remotefile
For example, if you want to transfer taglist.vim to a remote machine named penguin.example.com, type the following at a shell prompt: 
~]$ scp taglist.vim john@penguin.example.com:.vim/plugin/taglist.vim
john@penguin.example.com's password:
taglist.vim                                   100%  144KB 144.5KB/s   00:00
Multiple files can be specified at once. To transfer the contents of .vim/plugin/ to the same directory on the remote machine penguin.example.com, type the following command: 
~]$ scp .vim/plugin/* john@penguin.example.com:.vim/plugin/
john@penguin.example.com's password:
closetag.vim                                  100%   13KB  12.6KB/s   00:00    
snippetsEmu.vim                               100%   33KB  33.1KB/s   00:00    
taglist.vim                                   100%  144KB 144.5KB/s   00:00
To transfer a remote file to the local system, use the following syntax: 
scp username@hostname:remotefile localfile
For instance, to download the .vimrc configuration file from the remote machine, type: 
~]$ scp john@penguin.example.com:.vimrc .vimrc
john@penguin.example.com's password:
.vimrc                                        100% 2233     2.2KB/s   00:00