Data Transfer Guide

This section covers the different ways that you can transfer data on to and off Lovelace.

scp command

The scp command creates a copy of a file, or if given the -r flag a directory, on a remote machine. Below shows an example of the command to transfer a single file to Lovelace:

scp [options] source_file user@lovelace.plymouth.ac.uk:[destination]

In the above example, the [destination] is optional, as when left out scp will simply copy the source into the users home directory.

rsync command

The rsync command creates a copy of a file, or if given the -r flag a directory, at the given destination, similar to scp above. However, given the -a option rsync can also make exact copies (including permissions), this is referred to as ‘mirroring’. In this case the rsync command is executed with (tunneled over) ssh to transfer data. To transfer files to Lovelace the command should have the form:

rsync [options] source_file user@lovelace.plymouth.ac.uk:[destination]

In the above example, the [destination] is optional, as when left out rsync will simply copy the source into the users home directory.