Remote Linux server to remote linux server dir copy. How? [closed]

Answer 1

scp as mentioned above is usually a best way, but don't forget colon in the remote directory spec otherwise you'll get copy of source directory on local machine.

Answer 2

If you are serious about wanting an exact copy, you probably also want to use the -p switch to scp, if you're using that. I've found that scp reads from devices, and I've had problems with cpio, so I personally always use tar, like this:

cd /origin; find . -xdev -depth -not -path ./lost+found -print0 \
| tar --create --atime-preserve=system --null --files-from=- --format=posix \
--no-recursion --sparse | ssh targethost 'cd /target; tar --extract \
--overwrite --preserve-permissions --sparse'

I keep this incantation around in a file with various other means of copying files around. This one is for copying over SSH; the other ones are for copying to a compressed archive, for copying within the same computer, and for copying over an unencrypted TCP socket when SSH is too slow.

Answer 3

There are two ways I usually do this, both use ssh:

scp -r sourcedir/ user@dest.com:/dest/dir/

or, the more robust and faster (in terms of transfer speed) method:

rsync -auv -e ssh --progress sourcedir/ user@dest.com:/dest/dir/

Read the man pages for each command if you want more details about how they work.

Answer 4

Try unison if the task is recurring. http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

Answer 5

I like to pipe tar through ssh.

tar cf - [directory] | ssh [username]@[hostname] tar xf - -C [destination on remote box]

This method gives you lots of options. Since you should have root ssh disabled copying files for multiple user accounts is hard since you are logging into the remote server as a normal user. To get around this you can create a tar file on the remote box that still hold that preserves ownership.

tar cf - [directory] | ssh [username]@[hostname] "cat > output.tar"

For slow connections you can add compression, z for gzip or j for bzip2.

tar cjf - [directory] | ssh [username]@[hostname] "cat > output.tar.bz2"

tar czf - [directory] | ssh [username]@[hostname] "cat > output.tar.gz"

tar czf - [directory] | ssh [username]@[hostname] tar xzf - -C [destination on remote box]

Answer 6

I would modify a previously suggested reply:

rsync -avlzp /path/to/sfolder name@remote.server:/path/to/remote/dfolder

as follows:

-a (for archive) implies -rlptgoD so the l and p above are superfluous. I also like to include -H, which copies hard links. It is not part of -a by default because it's expensive. So now we have this:

rsync -aHvz /path/to/sfolder name@remote.server:/path/to/remote/dfolder

You also have to be careful about trailing slashes. You probably want

rsync -aHvz /path/to/sfolder/ name@remote.server:/path/to/remote/dfolder

if the desire is for the contents of the source "sfolder" to appear in the destination "dfolder". Without the trailing slash, an "sfolder" subdirectory would be created in the destination "dfolder".