Ways to copy directory from one machine to another

There are several ways you can achieve this goal. Two the common ways are using rsync and scp.

(1)  rsync

rsync -a dir1/ dir2

This will archive and copy directory dir1 recursively to dir2.

The -a option is a combination flag.

It stands for "archive" and syncs recursively and preserves symbolic links, special and device files, modification times, group, owner, and permissions.

 If you want to copy to another machine as destination. Just add the machine full name as the prefix for 

dir2. 

syntax:

rsync -a dir1/    user_name@neodynium.bell.ca:dir2

 e.g:

rsync -a test1/  jyj407@tj12.zte.com.cn:test2

 The above  command copies test1 directory recursively from the current machine to the remote 

tj12.zte.com.cn machine directory test2.  Here, ':' colon symbol stands for the home directory for user

jyj407.

(2) Another way is use scp.

scp -r dir1/    user_name@neodynium.bell.ca:dir2

 The scp command is similar to rsync, but slower than rsync, especially for large directory with 

tons of files. Also rsync does incremental  copy, scp will copy everything. So generally speaking,

I would recommend  using 'rsync' instead of 'scp'.