Copy A Directory Easily

[scotbuff]

If you want to copy everything from one directory into a new directory (the directory must exist) you can use this command.

(cd /home/sbuffing/scripts; tar cf - .) | (cd /home/sbuffing/newscripts; tar xf -)

Very handy.

cp -R is generally unsafe to copy directories with since it will copy through symbolic links rather than just copying the link (newer cp's have an -H flag that will work around this).

[scotbuff]

You can use tar, | and ssh to copy a directory on one server to a directory on another server.

tar cpf - /home/connect|(ssh username@hostname "cd /home/connect; tar xpf -")

You may need to prefix sudo to the tar command on the remote server depending on permissions.