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I've found the following command pretty convenient for transferring files to servers I have ssh access to:

cat myfile.txt | ssh my.host.edu "cat > myfile.txt"

Is there a similarly convenient command for bringing files to my local computer? If it would make it any easier, I don't mind installing command line utilities from the standard Ubuntu repos.

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What is wrong with scp? –  jasonwryan Apr 2 '13 at 7:13
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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Try this one :

ssh my.host.edu "cat myfile.txt" > myfile.txt

But if you want to do file transfert overt ssh, use sftp which is a tool who is dedicated to this.

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It's installed by default, it comes with openssh-client:

scp user@my.host.edu:/path/to/myfile.txt /path/to/local/myfile.txt
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