With rsync, you can transfer files and directories over SSH from and to remote servers.

The general syntax for transferring files with rsync is as follows:

Local to Remote: rsync [OPTION]... -e ssh [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
Remote to Local: rsync [OPTION]... -e ssh [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]

Where SRC is the source directory, DEST is the destination directory USER is the remote SSH username and HOST is the remote SSH host or IP Address.

The newer versions of rsync are configured to use SSH as default remote shell so you can omit the -e ssh option.

or example, to transfer a single file /opt/file.zip from the local system to the /var/www/ directory on the remote system with IP 12.12.12.12 you would run:

rsync -a /opt/file.zip user@12.12.12.12:/var/www/

The -a option stands for archive mode which will syncs directories recursively, transfer special and block devices, preserve symbolic links, modification times, group, ownership, and permissions.

From your local machine:

rsync -chavzP --stats user@remote.host:/path/to/copy /path/to/local/storage

From your local machine with a non standard ssh port:

rsync -chavzP -e "ssh -p $portNumber" user@remote.host:/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 user@host.remoted.from:/path/to/local/storage