How to transfer files over servers flawlessly.

If you followed the previous tutorial, you’d know how to transfer files over servers without passwords.

So to transfer a file from server to server issue the following command (USING SCP).

scp /path/to/my.file me@otherserver(link sends e-mail):/path/to/destination/my.file

Now the same using Rsync:

# apt-get install rsync

Or

# apt-get install rsync

Commands:

• –delete : delete files that don’t exist on sender (system)
• -v : Verbose (try -vv for more detailed information)
• -e “ssh options” : specify the ssh as remote shell
• -a : archive mode
• -r : recurse into directories
• -z : compress file data

Now copy to remote server:

Copy file from /www/backup.tar.gz to a remote server called new.in

$ rsync -v -e ssh /www/backup.tar.gz user@new.in(link sends e-mail):~

Output:

Password:
sent 19099 bytes  received 36 bytes  1093.43 bytes/sec
total size is 19014  speedup is 0.99

Copy file /home/user/webroot.txt from a remote server new.in to a local computer’s /tmp directory:

rsync -v -e ssh user@new.in (link sends e-mail):~/webroot.txt /tmp

Synchronize a local directory with a remote directory

rsync -r -a -v -e "ssh -l user" --delete /local/webroot new.in:/webroot

Synchronize a remote directory with a local directory

rsync -r -a -v -e "ssh -l user" --delete new.in:/webroot/ /local/webroot

Synchronize a local directory with a remote rsync server or vise-versa

rsync -r -a -v --delete rsync://new.in/cvs /home/cvs

Mirror a directory between my “old” and “new” web server/ftp

rsync -zavrR --delete --links --rsh="ssh -l user" my.old.server.com:/home/lighttpd /home/lighttpd

That pretty much summarizes everything you’ll need to do with files locally and remotely.