Copying files using rsync from remote server to local machine

From your local machine:

rsync -chavzP --stats [email protected]:/path/to/copy /path/to/local/storage

From your local machine with a non standard ssh port:

rsync -chavzP -e "ssh -p $portNumber" [email protected]:/path/to/copy /local/path

Or from the remote host, assuming you really want to work this way and your local machine is listening on SSH:

rsync -chavzP --stats /path/to/copy [email protected]:/path/to/local/storage

See man rsync for an explanation of my usual switches.

If you have SSH access, you don't need to SSH first and then copy, just use Secure Copy (SCP) from the destination.

scp user@host:/path/file /localpath/file

Wild card characters are supported, so

scp user@host:/path/folder/* /localpath/folder

will copy all of the remote files in that folder.If copying more then one directory.

note -r will copy all sub-folders and content too.

I think it is better to copy files from your local computer, because if files number or file size is very big, copying process could be interrupted if your current ssh session would be lost (broken pipe or whatever).

If you have configured ssh key to connect to your remote server, you could use the following command:

rsync -avP -e "ssh -i /home/local_user/ssh/key_to_access_remote_server.pem" remote_user@remote_host.ip:/home/remote_user/file.gz /home/local_user/Downloads/

Where v option is --verbose, a option is --archive - archive mode, P option same as --partial - keep partially transferred files, e option is --rsh=COMMAND - specifying the remote shell to use.

rsync man page