Secure copy: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Secure CoPy or scp is a program for transferring computer files between a local and a remote host or between two remote hosts, using the Secure Shell (ssh) protocol.

It is the secure analog of the rcp command. Unlike rcp, data is encrypted during transfer, to avoid potential packet sniffers extracting usable information from the data packets.

scp is a command line tool provided with ssh and OpenSSH. Alternative tools which also support scp are available.

A more comprehensive tool for transferring files over ssh is sftp.