Why does scp say "No such file"?

Question

I have a bash script that uses scp to copy a file from my machine to another. The script keeps on exiting after I enter the SSH password with the error:

<filename>: No such file or directory

Yet, in the script, I check the file, and it is just fine. I did set -o verbose at the beginning and here's what I get at the end of the script:

scp /Volumes/FX4\ HDD/Users/matthewdavies/Downloads/NCIS.S11E01.HDTV.x264-LOL.mp4 [email protected]:"/media/3TB/TV\ Shows/NCIS"
[email protected]'s password:
/Volumes/FX4\ HDD/Users/matthewdavies/Downloads/NCIS.S11E01.HDTV.x264-LOL.mp4: No such file or directory

So, I tried executing the scp command as outputted and it was fine; it copied. What's going wrong???

Answer 1

I'm not entirely sure what you're doing, but when I try the command you have in your example I get the following:

$ scp /home/saml/projects/Cooks.com\ -\ Recipe\ -\ Coconut\ Chicken.mht \
       root@remotey:"/root/some spaced out file.mht"
scp: ambiguous target

This is because you're quoting the target path and it also includes backslashes which are escaping the spaces. However when the current shell peels off the double quote, it will also peel off the single backslash, leaving the target path as a bare string with spaces. You need to do one of the following to nest it further, so that the spaces are correctly escaped:

Examples

method #1 - double quote, single quote

$ scp /path/with\ spaces/file\ with\ spaces.txt \
       user@remotey:"'/home/user/some spaced out file.txt'"

method #2 - single quote, double quote

$ scp /path/with\ spaces/file\ with\ spaces.txt \
       user@remotey:'"/home/user/some spaced out file.txt"'

method #3 - single quote, backslash

$ scp /path/with\ spaces/file\ with\ spaces.txt \
       user@remotey:'/home/user/some\ spaced\ out\ file.txt'

method #4 - double quote, backslash

$ scp /path/with\ spaces/file\ with\ spaces.txt \
       user@remotey:"/home/user/some\ spaced\ out\ file.txt"

method #5 - triple backslashes

$ scp /path/with\ spaces/file\ with\ spaces.txt \
       user@remotey:/home/user/some\\\ spaced\\\ out\\\ file.txt