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Quickly Copy Large Directory Tree Via SSH

07.30.2005

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        To copy the entire directory tree at /some/path to other.host via SSH...

find /some/path -print | sort | cpio -o -Hnewc | ssh -C other.host "cpio -idvum"


Make sure you use an absolute path to the directory tree.  Existing files on the destination host will be overwritten unconditionally.

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Comments

Snippets Manager replied on Mon, 2012/05/07 - 2:13pm

True, but only if you have regular files in the directory. scp doesn't play nice with special files like symlinks, hard links, FIFOs, and devices. cpio is guaranteed to preserve those.