Force scp to use the legacy SCP protocol with -O when the server lacks SFTP

domain: OpenSSH scp · 4 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Documented steps

  1. scp -O -P 22 file.txt user@legacyhost:/path/
  2. -O switches from the default SFTP transport (OpenSSH 9.0+) to the legacy SCP protocol
  3. Use it for older servers or embedded devices that ship no SFTP subsystem, or when you need remote-shell filename/glob handling
  4. Confirm the server behaves with -v before scripting around it

Known gotchas

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