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    Elastic Compute Service:Use SFTP or SCP to upload files from or download files to a local computer that runs a Linux or macOS operating system

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    Elastic Compute Service:Use SFTP or SCP to upload files from or download files to a local computer that runs a Linux or macOS operating system

    Last Updated:Mar 06, 2024

    If your local computer runs a Linux or macOS operating system, you can use SFTP or SCP to upload local files to a Linux instance or download files from an Linux instance to your local computer.

    What are SFTP and SCP? What are the differences between them?

    SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) and Secure Copy (SCP) are both network protocols for securely transferring files over the SSH protocol. The following table describes the main differences between SFTP and SCP:

    Item

    SFTP

    SCP

    Transmission speed

    Slower than SCP

    Faster than SFTP

    Resumable upload

    Supported

    Not supported

    How to use

    Graphical interface and command line

    Command line

    Other features

    Actions such as deleting or renaming files are supported

    No other features are supported.

    Scenario

    Prerequisite

    • The ECS instance is in the Running state.

    • The external public IP address of the ECS instance is obtained.

      Note

      If your ECS instance cannot communicate with the Internet, you can associate the instance with an elastic IP address (EIP). For more information, see Associate or disassociate an EIP.

    • Port 22 is open in the inbound rule of the security group to which the instance belongs. For more information, see Add security group rules.

    Run SFTP commands to upload or download files

    1. Remotely connect the instance on the terminal. 

      sftp [The logon username]@[The public IP address of the instance]

    2. Upload or download a file or a folder. 

      # Upload a file to the instance.
put -r [The absolute path of the file or folder in the local computer] [The root directory that stores the file in the ECS instance]
# Download the file to your local computer.
get [The absolute path of the file or folder in the ECS instance] [The root directory that stores the file in the local computer]

      Example: Run the following command to upload /users/file.txt in the local computer to the /home/ecs-user directory in the ECS instance:

      put -r /users/file.txt /home/ecs-user

    Run SCP commands to upload or download files

    Upload local files to an ECS instance

    scp [The absolute path of the local file] [The logon username]@[The public IP address of the instance]:[The root directory that stores the file in the instance]

    Example:

    Run the following command to upload /home/test001.txt in the local computer to the /home directory of the ECS instance whose public IP address is 121.40.XX.XX:

    scp /home/test001.txt root@121.40.XX.XX:/home

    Download a file to a local computer

    scp [The logon username]@[The public IP address of the instance]:[The absolute path of the file in the ECS instance] [The root directory that stores the file in the local computer]

    Example:

    Run the following command to download the /home/test001.txt in the ECS instance whose public IP address is 121.43.XX.XX to the /home directory of the local computer:

    scp root@121.43.XX.XX:/home/test001.txt /home

    References