Your first automated transfer

This tutorial builds a small job that uploads the files of a local folder to a web server. By the end you have a script file, a wrapper you can schedule, and a log to read when something fails.

1. Save the site in the GUI

Open linscp, create a site in the Site Manager for files.example.org with user deploy, and log in once. Accept the host key when asked. The site and the key are now stored in the shared configuration, so the script can refer to the site by its name, say webserver.

Tip

Prefer a script that does not depend on stored sites? See sessions and credentials for opening by URL with an explicit host key.

2. Write the script

Create ~/jobs/upload.txt:

# Upload the built site
open webserver
cd /var/www/html
lcd /home/alice/site/public
put -neweronly *
exit

Each line is one command. lcd sets the local folder, cd the remote one. put -neweronly sends only files that are new or changed since the last run. See put for its other switches.

3. Run it by hand

Linux

linscp-cli /script="$HOME/jobs/upload.txt" /log="$HOME/jobs/upload.log"
echo "exit code: $?"

Windows

"C:\Program Files\linscp\linscp-cli.exe" /script=C:\Users\alice\jobs\upload.txt /log=C:\Users\alice\jobs\upload.log
echo exit code: %ERRORLEVEL%

linscp-cli prints each command’s progress. An exit code of 0 means every command succeeded; 1 means one failed and the script stopped there. Open the log to see the protocol-level detail behind a failure.

4. Wrap it for scheduling

A small shell script keeps the paths in one place and is what you hand to cron or a systemd timer:

~/jobs/upload.sh

#!/bin/sh
set -u
cd "$HOME/jobs" || exit 1
linscp-cli /script=upload.txt /log=upload.log /loglevel=0
status=$?
[ "$status" -eq 0 ] || echo "upload failed with code $status" >&2
exit "$status"

Make it executable with chmod +x ~/jobs/upload.sh. The scheduling page shows how to run it every night.

Let the GUI write the script

linscp can generate the commands for a session or a transfer you set up with the mouse:

• For a connection: Tabs › Generate Session URL/Code…, or Manage › Generate Session URL/Code… in the Site Manager.
• For a transfer: start an upload or download and press Generate Code… in the transfer dialog. The result includes the put or get line with the transfer settings you chose.

On the Script tab, choose the Script file format to get text you can save as upload.txt directly. Generated output also includes the host key, so the script works without a stored site.

Note

The Batch file format produces a Windows .bat file, even on Linux. On Linux, use Script file and call it from your own shell wrapper as shown above.