Ssh – Transfer files using scp: permission denied

permissionsscpssh

I try to transfer files from remote computer using ssh to my computer : 

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:/Home

This should put My_file.txt in the home folder on my own computer, right?
I get

scp/Home: permission denied

Also when I try: ...@server:/Desktop, in order to copy the files from the remote computer to my desktop.

What am I doing wrong?

Best Answer

Your commands are trying to put the new Document to the root (/) of your machine. What you want to do is to transfer them to your home directory (since you have no permissions to write to /). If path to your home is something like /home/erez try the following:

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:/home/erez/

You can substitute the path to your home directory with the shortcut ~/, so the following will have the same effect:

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:~/

You can even leave out the path altogether on the remote side; this means your home directory.

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:

That is, to copy the file to your desktop you might want to transfer it to /home/erez/Desktop/:

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:/home/erez/Desktop/

or using the shortcut:

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:~/Desktop/

or using a relative path on the remote side, which is interpreted relative to your home directory:

scp My_file.txt user_id@server:Desktop/

Edit:

As @ckhan already mentioned, you also have to swap the arguments, it has to be 

scp FROM TO

So if you want to copy the file My_file.txt from the server user_id@server to your desktop you should try the following:

scp user_id@server:/path/to/My_file.txt ~/Desktop/

If the file My_file.txt is located in your home directory on the server you may again use the shortcut:

scp user_id@server:~/My_file.txt ~/Desktop/
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