Journal greginnj's Journal: scp and avoiding symlinks
by Jerf (17166) Alter Relationship on Monday September 05, @01:25PM (#13483987)
(http://www.jerf.org/iri/ | Last Journal: Saturday August 18, @12:04PM)
Leaning on tar is probably a better solution anyhow.
I don't know your exact needs, but you can make this easy on yourself with a very short shell script, or even just an alias. Instead of using "scp", use "ssh" directly, something like:
ssh [your login here] -C 'tar c $*' | tar x
This runs "tar" on the remote server, $* is trying to convey the idea of passing all the params of the script/alias to the remote tar, and outputs to stdout. ssh redirects stdout across the network to its own stdout, which is then piped to local tar for extraction. -C compresses the stream, which is probably Good Enough, but under certain circumstances (CPU time vastly outweighs transfer time, think modem transfer here) it can be worthwhile to add bzip2 into the mix:
ssh [your login] 'tar c $* | bzip2' | bunzip2 | tar x
Tune the script to your needs, and the reverse script is pretty easy too; ssh will redirect its stdin across the network just as easily if you use it in a pipe.
Note there is never a temporary file.
I belabor how this works because it took me a while to fully grasp how cool it is that ssh makes the Unix pipe idea fully work across the network. Note you can set up pipes on the remote side in the ssh command if you escape it correctly (apostrophes will usually do, but shell escaping can get evil). scp is more "convenience script" than "fundamental tool".
--
my weblog [jerf.org]
Leaning on tar is probably a better solution anyhow.
I don't know your exact needs, but you can make this easy on yourself with a very short shell script, or even just an alias. Instead of using "scp", use "ssh" directly, something like:
ssh [your login here] -C 'tar c $*' | tar x
This runs "tar" on the remote server, $* is trying to convey the idea of passing all the params of the script/alias to the remote tar, and outputs to stdout. ssh redirects stdout across the network to its own stdout, which is then piped to local tar for extraction. -C compresses the stream, which is probably Good Enough, but under certain circumstances (CPU time vastly outweighs transfer time, think modem transfer here) it can be worthwhile to add bzip2 into the mix:
ssh [your login] 'tar c $* | bzip2' | bunzip2 | tar x
Tune the script to your needs, and the reverse script is pretty easy too; ssh will redirect its stdin across the network just as easily if you use it in a pipe.
Note there is never a temporary file.
I belabor how this works because it took me a while to fully grasp how cool it is that ssh makes the Unix pipe idea fully work across the network. Note you can set up pipes on the remote side in the ssh command if you escape it correctly (apostrophes will usually do, but shell escaping can get evil). scp is more "convenience script" than "fundamental tool".
--
my weblog [jerf.org]
