Linux: HowTo Copy a Folder [ Command Line Option ]

I'm a new Linux user. How do I copy a directory or folder under Linux operating system using command line options and bash shell?

You can use various command to copy a folder under Linux operating systems.

cp Command

cp is a Linux command for copying files and directories. The syntax is as follows:

 
cp source destination
cp dir1 dir2
cp -option  source destination
cp -option1 -option2  source destination
 

In this example copy /home/vivek/letters folder and all its files to /usb/backup directory:

 
cp -avr /home/vivek/letters /usb/backup
 

Where,

• -a : Preserve the specified attributes such as directory an file mode, ownership, timestamps, if possible additional attributes: context, links, xattr, all.
• -v : Explain what is being done.
• -r : Copy directories recursively.

Example

Copy a folder called /tmp/conf to /tmp/backup:
$ cp -avr /tmp/conf/ /tmp/backup
Sample outputs:

Fig.01: cp command in action

rsync Command

You can also use rsync command which is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can make copies across the network. The syntax is as follows:

 
rsync -av /path/to/source /path/to/destination
rsync -av /path/to/source/ /path/to/destination/source
 

To backup my home directory, which consists of large files and mail folders to /media/backup, enter:
$ rsync -avz /home/vivek /media/backup
I can copy a folder to remote machine called server1.cyberciti.biz:
$ rsync -avz /home/vivek/ server1.cyberciti.biz:/home/backups/vivek
Where,

• -a : Archive mode i.e. copy a folder with all its permission and other information including recursive copy.
• -v : Verbose mode.
• -z : With this option, rsync compresses the file data as it is sent to the destination machine, which reduces the amount of data being transmitted — something that is useful over a slow connection.

You can show progress during transfer using --progress or -P option:
$ rsync -av --progress /path/to/source/ /path/to/dest
Sample outputs:

Fig.02: rsync command in action

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HowTo Use rsync For Transferring Files Under Linux or UNIX

How do you install and use rsync to synchronize files and directories from one location (or one server) to another location? - A common question asked by new sys admin.

rsync is a free software computer program for Unix and Linux like systems which synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer using delta encoding when appropriate. An important feature of rsync not found in most similar programs/protocols is that the mirroring takes place with only one transmission in each direction.

So what is unique about the rsync command?

It can perform differential uploads and downloads (synchronization) of files across the network, transferring only data that has changed. The rsync remote-update protocol allows rsync to transfer just the differences between two sets of files across the network connection.

How do I install rsync?

Use any one of the following commands to install rsync. If you are using Debian or Ubuntu Linux, type the following command:
# apt-get install rsync
OR
$ sudo apt-get install rsync
If you are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) / CentOS 4.x or older version, type the following command:
# up2date rsync
RHEL / CentOS 5.x or newer (or Fedora Linux) user type the following command:
# yum install rsync

Always use rsync over ssh

Since rsync does not provide any security while transferring data it is recommended that you use rsync over ssh session. This allows a secure remote connection. Now let us see some examples of rsync command.

Comman rsync command options

• --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

Task : Copy file from a local computer to a remote server

Copy file from /www/backup.tar.gz to a remote server called openbsd.nixcraft.in
$ rsync -v -e ssh /www/backup.tar.gz jerry@openbsd.nixcraft.in:~
Output:

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

Please note that symbol ~ indicate the users home directory (/home/jerry).

Task : Copy file from a remote server to a local computer

Copy file /home/jerry/webroot.txt from a remote server openbsd.nixcraft.in to a local computer's /tmp directory:
$ rsync -v -e ssh jerry@openbsd.nixcraft.in:~/webroot.txt /tmp

Task: Synchronize a local directory with a remote directory

$ rsync -r -a -v -e "ssh -l jerry" --delete /local/webroot openbsd.nixcraft.in:/webroot

Task: Synchronize a remote directory with a local directory

$ rsync -r -a -v -e "ssh -l jerry" --delete openbsd.nixcraft.in:/webroot/ /local/webroot

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

$ rsync -r -a -v --delete rsync://rsync.nixcraft.in/cvs /home/cvs
OR
$ rsync -r -a -v --delete /home/cvs rsync://rsync.nixcraft.in/cvs

Task: Mirror a directory between my "old" and "new" web server/ftp

You can mirror a directory between my "old" (my.old.server.com) and "new" web server with the command (assuming that ssh keys are set for password less authentication)
$ rsync -zavrR --delete --links --rsh="ssh -l vivek" my.old.server.com:/home/lighttpd /home/lighttpd

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How to Create a Backup using SSH Shell Commands.

How to make a backup using command prompt ? How to pack a user account using SSH putty ?
These similar questions are very common among newbies and new webmasters.
Here below is the code that you can use to pack a CPanel account.

1). Open SSH Command prompt window and login as root with your root password.
2). Run the below code and press enter.

Code:

/scripts/pkgacct username

Where username will be the username of the account you want to generate a backup for.
3). Your backup file will be available in /home/ directory fo your server.

CHEERS !

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Move and copy files using SSH

Often you will need to move one or more files/folders or copy them to a different location. You can do so easily using an SSH connection. The commands which you would need to use are mv (short from move) and cp (short from copy).

The mv command syntax looks like this:

mv configuration.php-dist configuration.php

By issuing the above command we will move (rename) the file configuration.php-dist to configuration.php. 

You can also use mv to move a whole directory and its content:

mv includes/* ./

This will move all files (and folders) in the includes/ directory to the current working directory.

In some cases however, we will need to only update the files and move only files that were changed, which we can do by passing ‘-u’ as argument to the command:

mv -u includes/* admin/includes

The copy (cp) command works the same way as mv, but instead of moving the files/folders it copies them. For example:

cp configuration.php-dist configuration.php

The command will copy the configuration.php-dist file to configuration.php and will preserve the original file (the file will NOT be removed after it is copied).

cp also accepts various arguments:

cp -R includes/ includes_backup/

-R instructs cp to copy files recursively (for example, a whole directory). To overwrite already existing files you should use the -f argument:

cp -Rf includes/ admin/includes/

A more convenient way to copy files/folders is to use a 3rd party application, such as Midnight Commander. All our servers have mc (midnight commander) installed and it is available by executing the appropriate (mc) command using the command prompt.  Once inside the application you will see two sections - left and right. You can easily copy/move files from the left side directory to the right side using a semi-visual approach. You can even use your mouse to select files and function keys to execute commands.

You can see a picture of it below:

 As you can see on the screenshot, there are numbers from 1 to 10 at the bottom of the console screen. These represents shortcuts to certain commands and are activated using the corresponding function key (i.e F1 for help, F5 to copy, etc).

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