[ubuntu-uk] Help needed with ssh

[John Matthews]

Robert McWilliam wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:44:03AM +0100, John Matthews wrote:
>   
>> This is something that I came across last night, whilst trying to upload 
>> a file from my Dektop to my website using shell commands, or at least 
>> trying to. Something that I found out after a while was that you need a 
>> Terminal open for the Desktop and one for the Remote server. I just 
>> could not get my Terminal to recognise that there was a file on my 
>> desktp that needed to be transfered, kept saying no file found. This is 
>> something that is really frustrating me that I couldnt get that to work, 
>> which was why I asked about pc to pc help.
>>     
>
> I'll try and give a simple explanation of how scp works, if anything
> doesn't make sense or doesn't work come back to us (ideally with the
> command you're trying to run that doesn't work). 
>
> scp copies things from one place to another, normally with the two
> places being on different machines. 
>
> General usage is:
> 	scp <source> <destination>
>
> For the simple case <source> and <destination> will both be files
> (destination one that will be created), or you can give a directory
> for destination and the file will be placed in it with the same name
> as it had originally. They can be files on the same machine the
> command is being run on (in which case they are referred to by the
> path, e.g. /home/user/some.file) or on another machine (in which case
> you need to specify the machine, user name and the path in the form
> <user>@<machine>:<path>, e.g. john at example.com:/var/www/).
>
> To copy something from your Desktop on an ubuntu machine to somewhere
> on a webserver you'd want to run scp on the ubuntu machine, with
> source as the path to the file and destination specifying the web
> server. Something like:
> 	scp ~/Desktop/file_to.go john at example.com:/where/file/goes/
>
> To get something from the remote server:
>         scp john at example.com:/file/to.get ~/Desktop/
>
> I think you might be confused about where you run these commands. If
> the webserver is running an SSH server and your local machine isn't
> then you should be running all the scp commands on your local
> machine. You then refer to things on the local machine with normal
> paths and stuff on the remote machine with paths with the server
> address prepended. 
>
> Hopefully that'll help some, if anythings not clear: ask.
>
> 	  Robert
>   
Hi, that is really handy, and looks quite simple, but when I tried it, I 
couldnt get it to work.
To start off with, I just was trying to move it between my desktop to 
the home folder.

akewc2 at jakewc2-laptop:~$ scp /home/jakewc2/Desktop/title 
/home/jakewc2/Books/
cp: omitting directory `/home/jakewc2/Desktop/title'

I saw I left the / after title so added it on the next go, still same 
message. If it has moved it, I cant find the thing, its not where I 
wanted it to be. This is one of those commands that I would imagine to 
one of the most used, and once I know how to use it, will probably use 
the terminal all the time, for things like that. Much easier that the 
interface way.

This is what I mean by being shown, somewhere I am not seeing what you 
are trying to tell me. I know it looks like, and I feel quite 
embarrassed, but I am not really as thick as it looks, might be more 
green as in cabbage looking. I do pick things things up.


John.