Transferring data from your PC to your workspace using SCP and RSYNC

The instructions on this page assume you have already setup SSH for Research cloud. If this is not the case, check the Research Cloud documentation site and see how to access your workspace with SSH.

The commands described in this manual are to be run on your local laptop/pc, not on the workspace. Use a terminal (or shell session) to transfer data from your local computer to your workspace.

scp

When you work on a Windows machine and you use MobaXterm for SSH connection, you can use the file browser in MobaXterm to intuitively transfer data.

In all other cases: Open a terminal (or shell session) that you use for login in to your workspace via the ssh command.

scp sourcefile <username>@<ip-address>:destinationdir

You can find both the username and the ip-address in the research cloud portal. Find your username under the ‘Profile’ tab.
Find the IP address of your workspace in the main Dashboard by clicking the drop down arrow of the running Workspace.

The source file is the file on your local computer that you want to transfer. The destination directory is the directory on your workspace where you want to transfer the file to.

scp testfile.txt <username>@<ip-address>:data/volume_2/input_data

If you first need to create a destination folder where you want to transfer the data to:

ssh <username>@<ip-address>
mkdir ~/data/volume_2/input_data
logout
scp testfile.txt <username>@<ip-address>:data/volume_2/input_data

To transfer a directory add the -r option:

scp -r sourcedir <username>@<ip-address>:data/volume_2/input_data

rsync

Rsync is a tool for synchronizing two folders. This method can also be used to transfer the contents of a folder to a remote folder. You typically run this tool on your own PC in the terminal or command prompt (so e.g. before loging in using the ssh command, or in a separate terminal (or shell session)).

Type rsync --help on to see if it is installed on your system. To install:

Install

On Debian based linux (e.g. Ubuntu):

sudo apt-get install rsync

On mac:

brew install rsync

Usage

rsync -azP ./my_local_folder <username>@<ip-address>:~/data/volume_2/input_data

Where -azP are options. Type rsync --help to see a list of the options.