Question: I need to run some commands in parallel including SCP. For this I'm using GNU Parallel. The problem is I don't know how to pass the password to SCP. This is a line similar to the one I'm running:

```
ls 2011_* | parallel scp {} user@domain

```

And if `ls` finds 3 files, scp ask 3 times for password at the same time and I can only input the password to the last process to prompt for it.

I temporarily solved this issue connecting using a public key, but this won't be an option in the future due to company policies. I read the SCP man pages and I couldn't find an option, but I'm quite confident that Parallel should have an option to allow me to input the password. 

Somebody knows a way to solve this?

**EDIT:** I want to know if there is a way I can tell `parallel` the password so it can give it to `scp` each time it asks for it. Maybe with something like this:

```
ls 2011_* | parallel scp {} user@domain < file_with_password.txt

```

But specifying that the redirection of `STDIN` is for `scp` and not for `ls` or `parallel`.

Answer: 
You will want to look at `ssh-agent`: The benefit of having a passphrase protected certificate with the convenience of typing your passphrase only once.

GNU Parallel >= 20220322 supports this syntax if you have `sshpass` installed:

```
parallel -S user:password@server ...

```
```
parallel sshpass -p $PASS scp -P $PORT -rp {} ~/to_dir ::: $ADDRESS:~/from_dir/*

```