Copying files using rsync from remote server to local machine

Question

Once I've ssh'd into my remote server, what would the command be to copy all files from a directory to a local directory on my machine?

Answer 1

From your local machine:

rsync -chavzP --stats [email protected]:/path/to/copy /path/to/local/storage 

From your local machine with a non standard ssh port:

rsync -chavzP -e "ssh -p $portNumber" [email protected]:/path/to/copy /local/path 

Or from the remote host, assuming you really want to work this way and your local machine is listening on SSH:

rsync -chavzP --stats /path/to/copy [email protected]:/path/to/local/storage 

See man rsync for an explanation of my usual switches.

Answer 2

If you have SSH access, you don't need to SSH first and then copy, just use Secure Copy (SCP) from the destination.

scp user@host:/path/file /localpath/file 

Wild card characters are supported, so

scp user@host:/path/folder/* /localpath/folder 

will copy all of the remote files in that folder.If copying more then one directory.

note -r will copy all sub-folders and content too.