In SSH, how do I mv to my local system?

I ssh-ed into my webhost's directory, and tar-ed the webapp to download. When I try to mv to ~/mydirectory/backups or /home/mydirectory/backups, it defines the "home" as my root on the webhost that I'm ssh'ed into.

How do I mv in ssh to a local drive while still being inside the webhost's system?

First things first: ssh is a way to remotely login to another computer. The shell (command line) you get after you ssh is (pretty much) the same as if you had opened a xterm in the remote machine. If offers no such way to move files.

However, the fact that the remote computer accepts ssh connections gives you some options to exchange files:

Use scp To copy from your local computer to the remote, type, in the local computer:

scp /tmp/file [email protected]:/home/name/dir

(where /tmp/file can be replaced with any local file and /home/name/dir with any remote directory)

To copy from the remote computer to the local one, type, in the local computer:

scp [email protected]:/home/name/dir/file /tmp

Use sshfs This is a little more advanced but much, much nicer (when the internet connection of both computers is good. If not, stick to scp)

You can "link" a directory from the remote computer to an (empty) directory of the local computer. Say you "link" the /some/remote/dir from the remote computer to /home/youruser/remotecomp in your computer. If there is a file /some/remote/dir/file in the remote computer, you can see it on /home/youruser/remotecomp/file. You can copy and mv as usual, and you can even alter remote files and dirs.

Note however, that when the connection ends, /home/youruser/remotecomp becomes an empty dir again, and you only keep in the local computer the files you copied to other directories

To achieve this:

1) install sshfs:

sudo apt-get install sshfs

2) create a empty dir

mkdir /home/youruser/remotecomp

3) "link" the two directories (the right term is mount)

sshfs [email protected]:/some/remote/dir /home/youruser/remotecomp

4) Enjoy

5) "unlink" the dirs

fusermount -u /home/youruser/remotecomp

If the local computer runs windows You can find versions of scp for windows. See, e.g, winscp

You can either use scp or rsync. In your local system:

scp remoteuser@remotehost:/remote/dir/file /local/dir/

But, since you mentioned backup, I assume that it would be incremental and you'll need to do it every now and then. So, rsync is a better choice for incremental backup. On your local shell:

rsync -avz -e ssh remoteuser@remotehost:/remote/dir /local/dir/

see rsync(1)and scp(1) man pages for options.

You could use scp secure copy.

From you local shell:

scp -C username@webhost:/path/of-the/tar.archive /home/mydirectory/backups/

This example will copy via ssh from /path/of-the/tar.archive of your webhost to /home/mydirectory/backups/

Extra options:

-C: Enables compression

I had the same problem. Here's the easy solution:-

1. Open nautilus (the file explorer)
2. Click on + Other Locations at bottom of left panel.
3. At the bottom there's a strip Connect to server. Write the ssh address in the input box such as ssh://111.222.333.444/.
4. Enter your user name and password in the dialogue box that will open.
5. Upon successful authentication you will be at home of remote location. Feel free to move file here and there.

The other answers recommend rsync or scp, both of which require you to know the location of the file you want to copy on the remote machine.

If you instead want to be able to poke around on the remote machine, like you can with ssh, you want to run sftp. Logging into the server is very similar to ssh, but once you get in, type help to get the list of commands - it lets you move yourself around on both the local and remote machines, and transfer files back and forth easily.