Working with Linux howtos

• Working with RPM
• Package Management Made Easy With Apt
• Moving files around: Setting up FTP
• SCP: an FTP alternative
• SFTP: Easy jailed accounts
• Backup FTP server: offsite backups that you control
• Automated incremental backups: Script to automate backups using SSHFS and rdiff-backup
• Backups with rSync
• Automated backups with RSync
• Load balancing and failover
• Accurate time with NTP
• Setting a UTC timezone
• Changing a hostname
• Application environment setup (using bash profiles)
• Using find and xargs
• Setting up disk quotas
• Working with Bash aliases

SCP: an FTP Alternative

Do you really need to run FTP?  For example, if you are going to be the only person moving files to and from your server, then you may not need it.

Each RimuHosting server comes with SSH, SFTP and SCP (a Secure Copy Program).  SCP can be used as a replacement for FTP in most situations.  If you use SCP instead of FTP, then that is one less program you'll need to set up and have running on your server. Plus, SCP ensures that transmitted data and passwords are encrypted and secure.

The 'scp' command is included with the PuTTy SSH client.  To use it, eg. to copy files to your web server from your local PC, type:

# copy a single file to your server
scp mylocalfile.html root@myserverip:/var/www/html/
# copy a whole directory to your server
scp -r mylocaldirectory root@myserverip:/var/www/html/

And if you want to use the SCP protocol, but don't like working from the command line, download a copy of WinSCP,a free Windows SCP client or FileZilla (which has a Mac and PC version).