Copy files and directories between systems

[Arne Hillestad]

I plan to copy a file-system structure ( users $HOME) from one system to another on the network.

By testing with cpio and tar I observe that modification time changes on directories, not on files.

Is there way to avoid this on directories too, or what can I do?

Regards

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

You are apparently using the '-m' flag with 'cpio' to preserve the modification timestamp of files. According to the man pages, this option affects files and *not* directories.

If you are really concerned about making the directory timestamps the same at your destination, I'd do the copy preserving the *files* modification timestamps, and afterwards 'touch' the directories to update their timestamps (e.g. 'touch -m -t 08010909 mydir').

...JRF...

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Knut,
Use rdist it will prerve the time. use rcp with option -p will preserve the time.

Sachin

[Bill McNAMARA_1 · Accepted solution]

try rcp -Rp server1:/home /home
rcp -R for recurse and -p for preserve time date permissions attributes...

Later,
Bill

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Hi Knut

Even in tar the - m option would preserve the time stamp .


Manoj Srivastava

[weller]

Hello Knut,
you can use tar

cd fromdir ; tar -cf . | ( cd todir ; tar -xf -)

Michael