Talk:Secure copy

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Using google, the top hit is for "Secure Copy Protocol", but this information is probably bogus. The actual providers of scp have the following information (on the manpages provided with openssh)

NAME
    scp - secure copy (remote file copy program)

And for the protocol used:

    scp copies files between hosts on a network.  It uses ssh(1) for data
    transfer, and uses the same authentication and provides the same security

Which is as I remember it, it uses ssh (the program itself even!, not the protocol directly) in a kind of a clever way, and you don't actually need to have any kind of specific support for it installed on the server.

You do have to have a helper app installed on the SSH server; it just so happens that it's the same binary as the scp client program. JTN 21:27, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

For instance the following two do very similar things, and have the same result:

    ssh somepc cat myfile > myfile
    scp somepc:myfile myfile

The system for sftp does require a helper application to be present on the server.

I hope this sufficiently explains why I moved the page. Kim Bruning 13:54, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Note that this is based on info from documentation by Theo de Raadt & co. It'd be interesting to hear if Tatu Ylonen (& co.) have a different story. If so, we'd be in a pickle (most used vs. first invented), but let's cross that bridge when we get to it. Kim Bruning