73
votes
Accepted
Why is mv so much faster than cp? How do I recover from an incorrect mv command?
If a directory is moved within the same filesystem (the same partition), then all that is needed is to rename the file path of the directory. No data apart from the directory entry for the directory ...
- 356k
49
votes
How to copy files from one machine to another using ssh
If they are running SCP / SSH on a different port, make sure you specify the uppercase -P port option.
Example:
scp -P 7121 /users/admin/downloads/* [email protected]:/home/
- 591
46
votes
How can I copy a /tmp/ directory that is created & deleted by a process?
You could always run the application under:
gdb --args /path/to/your/your-program and its args
Then add breakpoints on unlink(), unlinkat(), rmdir() functions or syscalls:
catch syscall unlink
catch ...
- 584k
40
votes
Accepted
How do programs that can resume failed file transfers know where to start appending data?
For clarity's sake - the real mechanics is more complicated to give even better security - you can imagine the write-to-disk operation like this:
application writes bytes (1)
the kernel (and/or the ...
- 4,695
33
votes
Why use install rather than cp and mkdir?
Apart from the previous descriptions here about the usage, there is a low level difference between cp and install, at least on Linux. If copying over an existing file, cp overwrites the existing inode ...
- 450
27
votes
Accepted
Approximating atomic move across file systems?
rsync copies to temporary filenames (e.g. see Rsync temporary file extension and rsync - does it create a temp file during transfer?) unless you use the --inplace option. It renames them only after ...
- 83.9k
27
votes
What does !cp:$ do?
This is history expansion, introduced by !; the $ must be intepreted in that context. !cp:$ has two parts, separated by :. !cp is the event designator, it means “find the most recent command starting ...
- 481k
26
votes
Accepted
What happens when I kill 'cp'? Is it safe and does it have any consequences?
This is safe to do, but naturally you may not have finished the copy.
When the cp command is run, it makes syscalls that instruct the kernel to make copies of the file. A syscall, or system call, is a ...
- 3,175
25
votes
How to copy files from one machine to another using ssh
A simpler method that works with via SSH controlled NVIDIA Jetson computers is to connect with SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol).
Suppose I wish to move the document UFO_blueprint.odt from NASA's ...
- 1,519
23
votes
What happens when I kill 'cp'? Is it safe and does it have any consequences?
Since cp is a userspace command, this does not affect filesystem integrity.
You of course need to be prepared that at least one file will not have been copied completely if you kill a runnning cp ...
- 19.7k
21
votes
Problem with install command to copy a whole directory
To copy all the files into the exact same directory (here target/directory):
find directory/to/copy -type f -exec install -Dm 755 "{}" "target/directory" \;
-D is not mandatory ...
- 403
20
votes
How to sync two folders with command line tools?
The answer from TuxForLife is pretty good, but I strongly suggest you use -c when syncing locally. You can argue that it's not worth the time/network penalty to do it for remote syncs, but it is ...
- 5,044
19
votes
Copy file along with creating directory
With the install command:
install -D -m644 /a/b/c/xxxxx.sql /a/b/d/c/xxxxx.sql
From man install:
install - copy files and set attributes
You can chose the Unix rights by modifying 644 by what you ...
- 36.5k
17
votes
Accepted
Timestamps of files copied to USB drive
The problem with the timestamp seconds changing comes from the fact that a VFAT (yes, even FAT32) filesystem stores the modification time with only 2-second resolution.
Apparently, as long as the ...
- 114k
17
votes
Accepted
When moving files between two external drives, are they temporarily written to the internal hdd of the computer?
If you have a copy such as this, or its GUI equivalent,
cp -a /media/external/disk1/. /media/external/disk2/
the data is read from the first disk's filesystem and written directly to the second. ...
- 128k
16
votes
Accepted
cp losing file's metadata
If you use man cp to read the manual page for the copy command you'll find the -p and --preserve flags.
-p same as --preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps
and
--preserve[=ATTR_LIST] preserve the ...
- 128k
16
votes
Accepted
Moving millions of files to a different directory with specfic name patterns
You should use:
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '??????????_a1ac*.jpg' \
-exec mv -t destination "{}" +
So maxdepth 1 means that you want to search in current directory no subdirectories.
type f ...
- 6,032
15
votes
How to copy a file with unique name without navigating to directory?
Using find:
find . -type f -name Screenshot20180509143013.png -exec cp {} /dev/media/SD256/DestinationFolder ';'
This would find all regular files in or below the current directory, whose names are ...
- 356k
14
votes
How to copy files from one machine to another using ssh
Unix/Linux
recursive copy of files and folders over a secure shell using the code following:
scp -r <host@machine_name:from_remote_directory_path> <to_local_directory_path>
A full example ...
- 141
14
votes
How to copy a file with unique name without navigating to directory?
With zsh or fish or ksh -o globstar or bash -O globstar (or after shopt -s globstar in bash) or tcsh after set globstar or yash -o extended-glob:
cp -- **/Screenshot20180509143*3.png /dev/media/SD256/...
- 68.8k
14
votes
What happens when you rsync without a destination path?
You now have a file in your working directory called "user@host". If you had copied it to a remote location without a path, user@host: (note colon) would have called it file.txt in whatever the ...
- 78.9k
13
votes
How to copy-merge two directories?
There are faster and much more space-efficient ways of merging two directories using the --link option to cp if the directories are on the same file system, described in the multiple varied answers in ...
- 955
12
votes
Why is mv so much faster than cp? How do I recover from an incorrect mv command?
The existing answer is great, but I'd like to expand on it a bit by showing exactly what is happening when you move versus when you copy a file. When you look at the syscalls during a copy, you see:
...
- 3,175
12
votes
Copy file along with creating directory
Using GNU cp, do the copy from the starting point of the path you want to see reflected in the new directory and use the --parents option:
cd /a/b &&
cp --parents c/foo d
Example:
% cp --...
- 77.9k
11
votes
Can I transfer files using SSH?
you can use Windows PowerShell (actually, it's OpenSSH command, it can be used on any UNIX OS too):
scp -P <non-default target ssh port> "<source file>" <username>@<hostname/...
- 111
11
votes
Accepted
systemd and copy (/bin/cp): no such file or directory
When using filename globbing patterns on the command line, it's the shell that expands the globbing patterns to filenames that match them, creating a list of pathnames that is then passed on to the ...
- 356k
11
votes
Moving millions of files to a different directory with specfic name patterns
Your command,
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | ??????????_a1ac*.jpg |xargs mv -t "/home/ubuntu/ntest"
Pipes the list of all the files TO all the files!
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name `*_a1ac*.jpg` -...
- 6,876
11
votes
Accepted
How can I copy all files while excluding files with a certain pattern?
A couple of options spring to mind.
rsync --dry-run -av --prune-empty-dirs --exclude '*.meta.json' --include '*.json' photos/ photos-copy/
Or if you don't have rsync (and why not!?), this will copy ...
- 128k
10
votes
How to copy-merge two directories?
The answer to this question is dead simple. I have used it many times.
All you need to do is ...
cp -rf source_folder parent_of_dest_folder
Using the specific file structure in the original question, ...
- 239
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible