how do i scp .dotfiles??

['Gary Kline']

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 11:29:29AM +0100, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 28/08/2010 08:02:31, 'Gary Kline' wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 09:13:06PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> >> On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:21:12 -0500, Gary Gatten <Ggatten at waddell.com> wrote:
> >>> Rename them, copy, then rename them back?
> >>
> >> Not good for a whole bunch of files; in this case: tar them together,
> >> transfer the archive, untar it; rename afterwards if needed. :-)
> >>
> > 
> > If i'm going to rename, say, ~/.Plans to ~/Plans and ~/.HowtoI18 to
> > ~/HowtoI18, I may just scp -rp every ~/[.] file.  the idea of using
> > find to collect a tarball may work.
> 
> I've been reading this thread, and I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you
> need to rename all of the dotfiles at all, Gary.  Dotfiles are just
> ordinary files, and programs like find(1), scp(1) or tar(1) will handle
> them just like any other file.  The only difference is that shells by
> default don't include dotfiles in some glob expansions and ls(1) doesn't
> include them in directory listings.  Of course, either of the above can
> be overridden: 'echo * .*' or 'ls -a' will show all files including
> dotfiles.
> 
> The one slightly tricky thing about dealing with dotfiles is the
> presence of '..' -- the standard link to the directory above the current
> one.  If you accidentally include that in a list of directories to
> recurse through, then you'll end up affecting a bunch of stuff that
> maybe you didn't expect.  So long as you are aware of the possibility
> it's pretty easy to avoid this problem.
> 
> To make a copy of your home directory on tao to a temporary directory on
> ethic, personally I'd use rsync(1) [in ports as net/rsync].  Then you
> can just do:
> 
>     % rsync -avx --delete ~/ ethic:/home/kline/
> 
> It will default to running over ssh(1), so you need to make sure you can
> ssh from tao to ethic before you begin.
> 
> The neat thing is that you run that command repeatedly, and each
> subsequent time it will copy only what has changed on tao over to ethic.
> 
> I see someone has given instructions for setting up anonymous rsync --
> that's another possibility, but probably a bit OTT for this particular
> job. Anonymous rsync is probably best thought of as a superior
> replacement for anonymous FTP.
> 
> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 


	at least for me, gtar fails to pick up dotfiles.  rsynx copies 
	=everything=, and it  looks like the test rsync script i posted 
	last night was working all along.  it was So fast that i assumed 
	it was bombing entirely.  i will 2-ck a few more files before i
	am sure.  

	a question to the list is how can i copy ALL of /home to my new
	server?  and to you, matthew, does --delete rm out of date files
	or directories?  what about ?VS, given that i have virtually 
	everything under [CR]VS control?  slightly offtopic is that i 
	accidently rm'd a file on tao one morning after a few minutes work.
	a copy was safely croned to ethic.....   (yes, i needed mmore 
	coffee, but i was giving thanks to zeus that hours of research and
	writing were safe!)


	gary



> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
>                                                   Flat 3
> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
> JID: matthew at infracaninophile.co.uk               Kent, CT11 9PW
> 



-- 
 Gary Kline  kline at thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
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