How do I copy files to or from my account?

Below we describe a variety of ways of securely transferring files to and from the SCF using variations on SFTP/SCP.

Other options include:

You can also have your SCF home directory represented on your personal computer as a local drive.
You can use the Globus data transfer service.
You can use rclone to transfer files to and from bDrive (Google Drive), Box, and Dropbox, among other resources.
And you can of course use Git, with local copies of your repository on your personal computer and in your SCF home directory.

SFTP has replaced FTP as the standard way of copying user files. Since FTP transmits passwords without encryption, it can only be used for anonymous uploads and downloads.

Mac or Windows: Cyberduck

Cyberduck is a cross-platform application with SFTP support. When configuring a new connection (on a Mac: File > Open Connection):

Specify "SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)" as the protocol.
Enter your favorite SCF machine in "Server".
Enter your SCF credentials under Username/Password.
"Path" is the location on the SCF you want to transfer files to/from. This may be your home directory (/accounts/something/you), your web area (/accounts/web/public/you), or another location. If you leave this blank it will automatically use your home directory.

Mac or Linux: SFTP

You can start sftp from a UNIX terminal (on either a Mac or Linux machine) in much the same way you start ssh, e.g. 'sftp username@remotehost'. Once you are connected, the environment functions like traditional ftp:

$ sftp scf1@arwen.berkeley.edu
scf1@arwen.berkeley.edu's password:
sftp> cd /tmp
sftp> put paper.txt
Uploading paper.txt to /tmp/paper.txt
sftp> get chart.eps
Fetching /tmp/chart.eps to chart.eps
sftp> quit

Mac or Linux: SCP

SCP is useful for non-interactive file copying, once again from a UNIX terminal on either a Mac or Linux machine. The following will copy file into the user's home direcory on the remote side:

$ scp file scf1@arwen.berkeley.edu:
scf1@gimli.berkeley.edu's password: 
file                100% |*****************************|   595       00:00

The following will copy the remote directory dir/ to the local directory dir2/ via the '-r' (recursive) command-line switch:

$ scp -r scf1@arwen.berkeley.edu:dir dir2/
scf1@arwen.berkeley.edu's password:$ 
ls dir2/ dir

Firefox/Seamonkey

A Firefox and Seamonkey add-on called FireFTP supports SFTP. Follow the directions to install it and then choose Tools > Web Developer > FireFTP. When creating a new connection, go to Connection > Security and select SFTP as the protocol. This should work on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.

Windows: WinSCP

Windows users can use WinSCP to transfer files securely.