How Can I Get the Scp Command to Overwrite the Destination Folder
I Am Using the Scp Command to Copy Some Files to a Remote Pc, as You Do with Scp:) I Note That the Default Behaviour of an Scp Copy for Files Is to Overwrite...
I am using the scp command to copy some files to a remote pc, as you do with scp :)
I note that the default behaviour of an scp copy for files is to overwrite any existing files. Now I want to copy a folder so I do basically the same thing:
scp -r <source_path> user@myOtherPc:<dest_path>
Where the parts in <> are my folder paths. However when I run this I get the message "file exists". Is there a way around this? some sort of force over-write?
Thanks, Fodder
4 Answers
Like Levans, I have been unable to replicate this, but have you considered using rsync over ssh instead? If you're copying large numbers of files, rsync may be a better option than scp. There are a number of good guides to it online, such as these:
That first link deals with automated backups via cron, so some of the instructions (like creating an ssh key without a passphrase) may not be relevant to you.
As said before, scp happily overwrites any file that is already present.
The "file exists" issue can only occur when you have some other process (like a concurrent scp process, or something else) writing folders and files to the same destination. Consider using rsync instead.
You will receive this error message if the destination directory already contains a file with the same name as the source directory you are attempting to transfer. You can not have a file with the same name as a directory in the same directory.
this rsync command will do it:
export ssh_server=csitea.net # the domain name or ip if you want
export ssh_user=ubuntu # the ssh user to use to
export src_dir=/home/ubuntu/opt/ # the source dir
# the full path to the ssh identity file
export ssh_idty=~/.ssh/id_rsa.aws-ec2.csitea.net
export tgt_dir=/home/me/opt/ # the target dir
# Action !!!
rsync -e "ssh -l USERID -i $ssh_idty" -av -r --partial --progress --human-readable \
--stats $ssh_user@$ssh_server:$src_dir $tgt_dir
# and check the result
clear ; find $tgt_dir -type d -maxdepth 1|sort -nr| less
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